[JaredMilne]

Over the years, it’s become painfully clear how hostile some people are to others who are either different from them or don’t “know their place” in society. Some Americans flipped out when Barack Obama became the first Black man to become U.S. President. Female public servants have told me how irate some men get at the prospect of taking directions from a woman. Cisgender people get angry at having to share locker room space and compete athletically against trans people. Racists have talked about the ‘Great Replacement’ where white people are expected to become minorities in Europe and North America.

More locally, St. Albert Muslim women have been attacked for wearing headscarves. Some sniveling coward put a threatening letter in the Indigenous Anderson family’s mailbox while being too chicken to put their name to it. Controversy erupted online about the prospect of local Muslims building a mosque in St. Albert.

Sometimes I wonder if society would benefit from more of what I call ‘benign apathy’. The ‘apathy’ in this sense isn’t indifference towards people’s suffering, but simply indifference to the presence of various kinds of people in society, including in positions of authority. For instance, I’ve taken directions from many people in my career, some of were women and/or people of colour. Why should I care if the people telling me what to do have darker skin than me, or they’re female? They do a much better job than I would in a lot of those positions.

Similarly, what does it matter if St. Albert’s and Canada’s populations become more diverse? Most of our new neighbours work really hard at fitting in with the rest of us. If anything, they’re some of the biggest patriots and hockey fans out there. It doesn’t matter if they want to build mosques or temples, either-they have the exact same rights as Christians. And if they want to run for office, so much the better-Ray Watkins was one of my favourite members of our last Council, and I wish he was still there.

As for trans people and the “threats” they pose, I’d just point out that sexual assault in locker rooms is sadly a lot more common than it should be even when everyone involved is cisgender. Trans athletes don’t necessarily have an advantage over their cisgender rivals, either. While swimmer Riley Gaines started her activism against transwomen competing in female sports after tying with trans rival Lia Thomas, they both came in fifth place and lost to four other women. How much of an innate advantage did Thomas really have if a bunch of presumably cisgender women managed to beat her?

Hence the value of ‘benign apathy’. A lot of the anger I’ve described in this piece is a reaction against various groups apparently not ‘knowing their place’. What that reaction forgets is that those groups’ ‘place’ is pretty much anywhere they want to be.

And frankly, benign apathy would save everyone a world of grief, especially the complainers.

[Scape]

TLDR Past Performances Can’t Predict the Future results. Problem is, it can when the input is predetermined.

Case in point. Mom has a house that is in an area of a day care and a school and on this street are low income housing. No slight against the poor but time and time again their areas get infested with meth labs and the street is flooded with junkies. Police raid, round up the ones passed out on the floor and they get evicted after 5-6 months of constant complaints and then they have to gut it, rebuild and get it inspected before then next round of low income earners are shuttled in to either set the place on fire because they fell asleep smoking in bed or they make another meth lab. Rinse, repeat. Think the next round will be better when there is a legion of people looking for a place to live that can't make ends meet? There is apathy and then there is just good street sense. You can see this from a mile off where we have the poor and mental deficient treated as criminals and forced to tent on the streets because what we have as a social net was never intended to be a life long support. We can only sweep so much under the rug...

And so the cycle continues. This is aggravating and seem pretty common sense to those who have to live there but from the outside is seen as a hostile overaction and NIMBY. They just want to have control in the one little corner of the world that is theirs and are clinging onto it for dear life. Change is a threat if they are not a stakeholder. Respect is earned and never bestowed and power must be seized to be wielded. The unmitigated hubris of those expecting hard won human rights to suddenly be bestowed to anyone that has a grievance with the status quo doesn't transfer easy to benign apathy it has to be earned thru toil.

[Scape]

Canadian politicians have suddenly forgotten how to denounce protestors

Seems the Liberals have taken the apathy message to heart. This is what happens when everything currently in politics is turned up to 11. Decades of virtue signaling and lack to defined principals have created a reckoning. To those who tune out the yammerings of the talking head class this is business as usual but this do as I say not as I do leadership has flaws that are only stoking the flames of resentment.

[JaredMilne]

Scape Scape:

Case in point. Mom has a house that is in an area of a day care and a school and on this street are low income housing. No slight against the poor but time and time again their areas get infested with meth labs and the street is flooded with junkies. Police raid, round up the ones passed out on the floor and they get evicted after 5-6 months of constant complaints and then they have to gut it, rebuild and get it inspected before then next round of low income earners are shuttled in to either set the place on fire because they fell asleep smoking in bed or they make another meth lab. Rinse, repeat. Think the next round will be better when there is a legion of people looking for a place to live that can't make ends meet? There is apathy and then there is just good street sense. You can see this from a mile off where we have the poor and mental deficient treated as criminals and forced to tent on the streets because what we have as a social net was never intended to be a life long support. We can only sweep so much under the rug...

And so the cycle continues. This is aggravating and seem pretty common sense to those who have to live there but from the outside is seen as a hostile overaction and NIMBY. They just want to have control in the one little corner of the world that is theirs and are clinging onto it for dear life. Change is a threat if they are not a stakeholder. Respect is earned and never bestowed and power must be seized to be wielded. The unmitigated hubris of those expecting hard won human rights to suddenly be bestowed to anyone that has a grievance with the status quo doesn't transfer easy to benign apathy it has to be earned thru toil.

Not what I'm talking about. At all.

I'm talking about people who are just trying to live their lives without being harassed because they have brown skin, wear headscarves, have Native heritage, are LGBTQ, or whatever. They don't deserve to be hassled for not "knowing their place", and have as much right to participate on sports teams, be in positions of power, or to move into a neighbourhood as I do.

Not to mention that most of the groups people I'm talking about have been toiling to have their human rights recognized, in some cases for decades, and the recogntition they have gained is often hard won.

And those junkies and meth cooks that you talk about are just as apt to be white as they are to belong to any of the groups I mentioned.

[Scape]

How would you prescribe a remedy then?

Class issues effect race issues directly. You can't be apathetic towards facts and it is class not race that drives these issues. Money talks and government needs data to drive policy. The fact that there are more poor people in poorer areas should be apparent and has nothing to do with race/creed/gender.

The stake holders you are talking about that are gate holders of the status quo are there clinging on for dear life. They are not heartless landlords but the crap that is pile mile high on them isn't of their own doing. This isn't because they lack "knowing their place".

[JaredMilne]

Scape Scape:

How would you prescribe a remedy then?

Class issues effect race issues directly. You can't be apathetic towards facts and it is class not race that drives these issues. Money talks and government needs data to drive policy. The fact that there are more poor people in poorer areas should be apparent and has nothing to do with race/creed/gender.

The stake holders you are talking about that are gate holders of the status quo are there clinging on for dear life. They are not heartless landlords but the crap that is pile mile high on them isn't of their own doing. This isn't because they lack "knowing their place".

I'm on record for my hatred of the neoliberal playbook we've been following for decades. Getting rid of that would be a great start.

And, again, which of the examples I cited in my original post have to do with class? I'm talking about people who throw a temper tantrum when Muslim women wear face and headscarves, when Black or Indigenous people move into their neighbourhood, when racialized or LGBTQ people start getting into positions of authority. I cited multiple examples of when white or cis people blew their stacks in my original article. Where were the class issues there?

I'm not talking about people concerned about the amount of immigration we have, or how they'll make ends meet. I'm talking about people who are offended by the idea that their neighbours, their bosses, their political leaders, sports rivals and more are women, ethnic or religious minorities, transgender people or what have you.

I don't fucking care if a brown person is telling me what to do at work, if a Muslim family moves in next door to me, if a Native person becomes Prime Minister, if a trans athlete wins the Stanley Cup. That's what I've been getting at, not people who are just trying to get by.

[Scape]

I applaud you egalitarian take on the issue. Truly, it's refreshing from the cynical outrage bating I have become accustomed to. I must confess my outlook is more on par with George Orwell idea of the future, "a boot stamping on a human face –forever".

That said, what do you think made the neoliberal playbook to manifest to begin with? The promise of a better tomorrow. That is a primary motivator for any generation to make it better for you children than it was for you. Looking back, sure we can see the over reach from neoliberalism that ended up outsourcing our manufacturing to China for short term profit but that's like saying why didn't anyone assassinate Hitler in 1933? It doesn't take in to consideration the ground truth at the time that had him rise to power to begin with. Class issues are driving the conversation and we need to strike at the root of these issues. Social issues are merely a symptom of the underlying problem and on an empty stomach those symptoms are a whole lot harder to ignore.