Malcolm Gladwell’s Stunning ‘Oops’ Moment
August 11, 2014 § 3 Comments
Malcolm Gladwell was on the BBC recently picking his Desert Island Discs. For the most part, it’s hard to argue with Gladwell’s choices, given his age and his Canadianness. I’m about a decade younger than him, and his choices look like the selections of someone’s cool older brother c. 1989, there’s BIlly Bragg, and Gillian Welch. Brian Eno’s there, so is Marvin Gaye. Gaye actually appears twice, with Gladwell choosing the classic deep cut, ‘Piece of Clay.’ But he also picked Gaye’s rendition of The Star Spangled Banner, which was allegedly the reference point for Bleeding Gums Murphy’s 45-minute version on The Simpsons. But, none of this really matters so much as Gladwell’s sheer, utter ignorance in introducing The Star Spangled Banner.
He claims that the American national anthem is an ‘insight into the heart of the American soul.’ Why? Because ‘[t]hey’re blowing stuff up. This is their national anthem, it’s about rockets and bombs.’
Gladwell is referring to the first verse of the song:
Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
See? There’s the red glare of the rockets, bombs bursting in the air? All that nasty stuff, this deep insight into “the heart of the American soul.” Except. Gladwell is so wrong it’s embarrassing. The Star Spangled Banner is about the British attempting to level Baltimore the night of 13-14 September 1814 during the War of 1812. The author of this song was a lawyer named Frances Scott Key, who was stuck on a British frigate that night, watching the British attempt to reduce Baltimore’s defences to rubble. He was there because he had negotiated a prisoner swap with the British. The next morning, he was shocked to see Old Glory in the ‘dawn’s early light.’ Somehow, Fort McHenry survived the night and the flag still flew.
Scott was so overcome with emotion, he wrote The Star Spangled Banner almost on the spot. He set the lyrics to a common British drinking song that every American knew. Understand the irony: The Star Spangled Banner arose from the War of 1812, when the enemy was the British. It also had three more verses that, thankfully, have long since been forgotten.
There are many problems with The Star Spangled Banner. The major one is that anthem singers in the United States think that they must stretch their vocal chords to the breaking point (or quite often beyond) in singing the song. Interestingly, when the campaign to make the song the official American national anthem picked up steam in the era around the First World War (it finally happened in 1931), newspaper editors complained the song was ‘unsingable.’
But this is all beside the point of Gladwell’s stunning mis-step here, as he descends down into stupid, knee-jerk anti-Americanness. He should know better.
Immigration in the United States, plus ça change
August 7, 2014 § 8 Comments
I am doing a bit of research into the Know Nothing movement of the 1840s and 50s in the United States. The Know Nothings were a secret society that eventually evolved into a political party, based on the premise that immigration was bad for the United States. In short, the Know Nothings, who also formed one of the bases of the nascent Republican Party in the late 1850s, were nativists. They believed in a United States for Americans only. We could, of course, note the irony of that statement, given every person not of Native American heritage in this country is of immigrant stock. But, we’ll leave that alone. They were called Know Nothings not because they were ignorant (as my students always suppose), but because, as a secret society and asked about the society replied that they “knew nothing.”
I came across this list of things that Roman Catholics hate about the United States from the Boston Know-Nothing and American Crusader in July 1854. The Know-Nothing and American Crusader was one of the main newspapers of the Know Nothings, and Boston was a major centre of the nativists. Boston was ground zero, in many ways, in the ‘invasion’ of Irish immigrants and refugees in the years of the Famine and afterwards. Here’s the list:
- They HATE our Republic, and are trying to overthrow it.
- They HATE the American Eagle, and it offends them beyond endurance to see it worn as an ornament by Americans.
- They HATE our Flag, as it manifest by their grossly insulting it.
- They HATE the liberty of conscience.
- They HATE the liberty of the Press.
- They HATE the liberty of speech.
- They HATE our Common School system.
- They HATE the Bible, and would blot it out of existence if they could!
- The Priests HATE married life, and yet by them is fulfilled the Scripture, to wit: ‘more are the children or the desolate, than the children of the married wife.’
- They HATE Protestants, and are sworn to exterminate them from our country and the earth.
- They HATE the name of Washington, because he was a Republican and Protestant.
- They HATE all rulers that do not swear allegiance to the Pope of Rome.
- They HATE to be ruled by Americans, and say “WE WILL NOT BE RULED BY THEM!”
- They HATE to support their own paupers and they are left to be supported by the tax paying Americans.
- They HATE, above all, the ‘Know Nothings,’ who are determined to rid this country of their accursed power.
The author of this wonderful list signed his name as “Uncle Sam.” Newspapers in general allowed correspondents to use anonymous pseudonyms in the 19th century, so this isn’t surprising. But the nom de plume of our correspondent is telling of the cause of the Know Nothings.
As I am doing this research, I’m thinking back to my experiences in June, when I was told by a table mate that the AP Reading I was at that I don’t belong in the United States because I “don’t love America” (I don’t “love” Canada, either, for the record). And, thenthen, on the way home, at a layover in Dallas, another traveller, watching the news, told me that all immigrants should be rounded up and deported (this one didn’t know I was an immigrant). And as I watch the drama unfold about the refugee children from Central America in this country, and see the horrible rhetoric coming from the right wing, I can’t help but think that, even if 170 years have passed since “Uncle Sam” published his list of things Catholics hate in The Know-Nothing and American Crusader, in some ways, nothing has changed. The rhetoric of “Uncle Sam” echoes that of some far right politicians, commentators, and regular citizens I’ve seen on Twitter in the past month.
Of course, the Know Nothings were never a majority of Americans, any more than those so violently opposed and hard-hearted to the plight of children today are even close to a majority. The overwhelming majority of Americans then and now do not have a problem with immigration and immigrants. But, then as now, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
On Immigration, Redux
June 21, 2014 § 2 Comments
In response to my post on immigration and immigrants, my friends and I got into a discussion on Facebook, comparing the political rhetoric in the US, Canada, and the UK. Certainly, attitudes such as that expressed by my Dallas friend exist in Canada and the UK. And there are similarities and differences between the old Anglo-Atlantic triangle. Canada takes in more immigrants per capita than any other nation in the world (bet you didn’t know that) and the United States takes in more immigrants in absolute numbers than any other nation in the world (bet you did know that). Canada, however, while it does have some undocumented immigrants, does not have the same issues as the United States (which likely has the highest number of undocumented people in it) and the United Kingdom. The UK gets the undocumented through Europe and its former empire, as aspirants sneak into the nation, or overstay their visas (if you want a heartbreaking account of the undocumented in the UK, I point you to Chris Cleave’s Little Bee, or, as it’s called in Cleave’s native UK, The Other Hand).
But. There is one fundamental difference between the three nations. In Canada and the United Kingdom, the political parties that pander to racism and anti-immigration positions (and let’s leave the undocumented out of this for now, ok?) are not in the mainstream. Certainly, these types exist in Canada’s governing Conservative Party, but they are not in the centre of the party, at the cabinet table, etc. And in the UK, there are certainly a few in the governing Conservative Party that express these views, but they are also similarly on the margins, and the odious UKIP party is a fringe movement. Whereas, here in the United States, the Republican Party panders to this mindset. It doesn’t mean, of course, that the GOP does much about to tighten immigration laws when in power, but, it still gives credence to arguments such as my Dallas friend’s. It seeks the vote of the likes of him. So, ultimately, anti-immigration positions are very much nearer the mainstream in the United States than in Canada or the United Kingdom.
On Immigration
June 20, 2014 § 8 Comments
Earlier this week, I was told I shouldn’t be living in the United States because I don’t “love America.” Dismissing this comment was easy enough, it came in response to the fact I am not cheering for the US at the World Cup (France, Argentina, and then any underdog, if you must know). But. Yesterday, at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, a wealthy-looking, white, middle-aged man went on a rant about immigrants (not knowing I am one, he assumed because I was also white and middle-class, I must be American). Something was on FoxNews on the TV in the lounge, I wasn’t paying attention. I presume that’s what set this guy off. He told me that immigrants do not belong in the United States, that they do not bring anything to the country, that they’re a drain on the resources of “this great nation.” He opined that no immigrants whatsoever should be let into the country. He didn’t go so far as to suggest they be rounded up and deported, though I have seen that opinion expressed on Twitter a few times. At any rate, when I told him I was an immigrant, he looked a little confused for a second and then said, “Oh, I don’t mean you.” I pointed out he clearly did, he said “all immigrants” are a drain and that “none” should be let in. I walked away, leaving him looking like the idiot he was.
This unsettled me. It’s one thing for an idiot to get mad at me for not cheering for the US in the World Cup. That’s just knee-jerk idiocy. It’s another for a guy to have a well-formulated, if ignorant, argument about the cost of immigration. And before someone dismisses this as “well, that’s Texas,” let me point out that Texas is an immigrant-rich society, and not just Mexicans and other Hispanics, but also South and South East Asians. And, for the most part, Texas, at least the cities, have integrated cultures.
At any rate, I stewed over this the rest of the day and on the flight home to Boston. And then I got a cab home. My cabbie was from Guinea. He couldn’t be much older than his early 30s, and he said he’s been in the US for 11 years, and made sure to note he has a Green Card. We talked about the heat (it was hot here yesterday), the World Cup, and Montréal, and we spoke some in French. I was his last fare of the day, the end of a 12-hour shift, 6am-6pm. The end of a 6-day run driving a cab around Boston and the North Shore. Today, he was up at 3am to get to work at 4am, at Dunkin’ Donuts, where he worked 4-12, as a baker. Tomorrow, he’s back in his cab, 6am-6pm, but he is off Monday. He works 60-70 hours a week driving a cab, and another 8-16 hours baking at Dunkin’ Donuts for a very simple reason: he needs to take care of his parents, his brother, his nieces and nephews back in Guinea. He hasn’t been home in four years, but he keeps working to send money home. Meanwhile, he’s also got a son here in the States, who he gets to see sometimes when he’s not working, though he supports his kid.
We often talk about how tired we are, because we’re always busy, working, etc. But this guy was exhaustion personified. He had dark rings under his eyes, and though he was at least pretending to be happy, his exhaustion came through. And I thought, well, here is the face of immigration to the United States (or Canada. Or Britain. Or France. Or Germany). A guy working himself to the bone at two jobs, partly to get himself ahead a little bit, but also to take care of his son, and to take care of his family back home. He estimated if he just had to worry about himself and his son, he could quit Dunkin’ Donuts and only work 3-4 days a week driving a cab. But, he has responsibilities and obligations.
I enjoyed talking to him, though I feel horrible for him. But I respected his attitude, that he had to do this, it was his responsibility to his son, his parents, his brother, his nieces and nephews. This is the immigrant life. It is not, as my Texan friend claims, collecting welfare (immigrants can’t, just so you know, though refugees are entitled to some support), procreating, and being drug dealers, prostitutes, and terrorists.
Is Gentrification Inevitable?
June 3, 2014 § 3 Comments
Yesterday, in response to this post, I was accosted on Twitter and accused of many things, most of which were untrue, but most notably of standing by and watching gentrification from the sidelines and not offering any solutions. In and around that accusation, repeated in many different ways, I was also told that ‘gentrification is inevitable.’ Since then, I have been wondering if it is.
Now, I must point out that my critic, who ultimately dismissed me as “just a guy in Boston making false judgements about my hometown,” is also a real estate agent and is of the opinion that her neighbourhood, Verdun, is the next up and coming neighbourhood in Montreal. So she has a vested interest in gentrification and rising property values. Not that I don’t, of course, both when I lived in Montreal and now. And it also doesn’t matter which city I visit, gentrification benefits me. I’m a middle-class white guy. But is gentrification inevitable?
Mulberry Bend, by Jacob Riis
I was in New York City a couple of weeks ago, on the Lower Eastside of Manhattan. We eventually had dinner on Mulberry Street, on the terrasse of an overpriced, but delicious, Italian restaurant. As I looked up the block, I could see the formerly notorious Mulberry Bend. The Mulberry Bend, when the Five Points still existed, was perhaps the worst bit of real estate in the Western world for poverty and crime. It was central to Jacob Riis’ 1896 classic, How the Other Half Lives. Today, however, Mulberry Street is beautiful and on this sunny Sunday the street was blocked off to cars and a street fair was going on. Even twenty years ago, this wasn’t really all that nice a part of town. But today, it’s all smoothed over and gentrified.
But is the kind of gentrification that has occurred on Mulberry Street inevitable?
I think it might be relative, it might be locational. Take, for example, New Haven, CT. New Haven is a smallish city and has been dealing with a variety of social problems, from high crime, to drug use, since deindustrialisation in the 1960s and 70s. It has also experienced ‘white flight’ and the people who ended up being stuck in inner-city New Haven had no hope, no option for a better life. And so, New Haven, despite being the home of Yale University, has struggled. On the train into New York City last weekend, I saw its newest solution, called Re:New Haven. The city is offering people up to $80,000 in incentives to purchase a home and live in New Haven. It seems to be working, at least according to the couple sitting next to us on the terrasse on Mulberry Street, who were from New Haven (as is the friend I was with that night, though he no longer lives in his hometown), who reported a boom in new restaurants and other hangouts. On that front, Re:New Haven sounds like a brilliant idea. But there is always a cost for gentrification. In the case of New Haven, African Americans who already live in these gentrifying neighbourhoods pay the cost.
New Haven has decided that gentrification is inevitable. And it certainly looks that way on the ground in New York City and Montreal. But there’s also a question of neighbourhood, especially in big cities. If you look at New York City, it’s interesting to note that Queen’s and Staten Island are not getting as much love from the gentrifiers. No doubt because they are rather inconveniently located vis-à-vis Manhattan. Similarly, in Montral, gentrification is in neighbourhoods that are conveniently located in relation to the downtown core of the city. Thus, Saint-Henri, Griffintown and Pointe-Saint-Charles make sense in their gentrification. Even Verdun is no more than 15 minutes from downtown on the métro. But, other neighbourhoods, are more or less free of gentrification, or at least have not been overly affected. Take, for example, Hochelaha-Maisonneuve, or HOMA, a chronically depressed neighbourhood in the east end. Despite attempts over the past decade to gentrify, the neighbourhood remains largely immune. Similarly, neighbourhoods north of the Métropolitaine in the north end of the city are also seemingly gentrification-proof.
Collective action against gentrification tends not to work. It happens either way, whether residents welcome or resist it. However, my interlocutor yesterday also had interesting ideas about practical, boots-on-the-ground ways to ameliorate the effects of gentrification for the working classes of Verdun. Pointe-Saint-Charles has long had similar ideas, but, each time I’m back home in Montreal and go through the Pointe, I see fewer and fewer of the old school working classes and the stores and restaurants that served them and more gentrified homes and hipster coffee shops and the like.
But what makes gentrification inevitable? A search for cheap(er) housing? A search for The Next Big Thing? Recently, Richard Florida’s thesis about the Creative Class in cities is getting some static, because in many places it hasn’t worked out how he predicted. And yet gentrification carries on.
Race, Class, and Food Insecurity
May 21, 2014 § 5 Comments
When we lived in Pointe-Saint-Charles in Montreal, we lived about two doors down from a community garden in the shadows of the massive Église Saint-Charles. That community garden had been there as long as I could remember, it pre-dated my first residence in the Pointe back in 2002-4. The people who used it were the poor, working-class and marginalised Irish and French Canadians who lived in the Pointe. But, by about 2009 or 2010, the garden had been taken over by the gentrifiers, forcing out the old school urban harvesters. Many of these gentrifiers thought they were new and unique in gardening in an inner-city neighbourhood. Indeed, this is something I saw over and over again in Montreal, on the Plateau, Saint-Henri, the Pointe, and other neighbourhoods, as hipsters discovered the benefits of community gardens.
But they were hardly new ideas in old working-class neighbourhoods, particularly in the Pointe. The Pointe had long had community gardens. Aside from this one in on the rue Island, there was also a bigger one in the shadows of the railway viaduct along the rue Knox. And the problems arise when the original inhabitants of the Pointe were forced out of these gardens by the gentrifiers. The gardens were used to supplement diets, obviously. I also noticed something else when I lived in the Pointe in the early part of the past decade and when I was in Saint-Henri mid-decade. In both neighbourhoods, the local IGA (grocery store), both owned by the same family, the Topettas, opened new, glitzy stores. The IGAs in the Pointe and Saint-Henri had been in grotty store fronts, on rue du Centre in the Pointe, and rue Notre-Dame in Saint-Henri. When the new IGA opened in the Pointe c. 2002 and in Saint-Henri in 2005-6, I noticed a lot of low income families wandering around the stores with a slightly dazed look on their faces, complaining about rising prices. This was ameliorated some by the opening of the big Super C at Atwater Market, which generally had much lower prices than either IGA.
I was thinking about all of this as I was reading an excellent article on TheGrio about food insecurity and food gentrification. The article was written by Mikki Kendall, an African American feminists in the States, about the process of food gentrification. Kendall writes about having grown up poor and eating the more undesirable cuts of meat, like hamhocks, neck bones, and the like. She recalls her grandmother being an expert at turning “turning offal into delicious.” Kendall notes the gentrification of what I call poor people’s food. As haute cuisine chefs re-discover these traditionally less desirable foods and turn them into fancy dishes for the wealthy, it drives up the prices of these cuts.
[As an aside, I can’t help but wonder if the joke is ultimately on the wealthy eating these cuts of meat at expensive restaurants and I think of Timothy Taylor’s brilliant début novel, Stanley Park, which recounts, in part, the story of Jeremy Papier, a chef and restaurauteur in Vancouver. Papier favours local ingredients and culture and comes to rely on animals trapped in Stanley Park for his fancy restaurant on the border of the Downtown Eastside, the poorest urban neighbourhood in Canada.]
But to return to Kendall and the IGA and community gardens in Pointe-Saint-Charles: Kendall notes that with the rising cost of these traditional cuts of meat used by the poor comes an inability to purchase them:
Yet, as consumers range further and further afield from their traditional diets, each new “discovery” comes at the expense of another marginalized community. Complaints about the problem are often met with, “Well, eat something else that you can afford” as though the poor have a wealth of options, and are immune to dietary restrictions based on religion, allergies, access, or storage capabilities.
So, ultimately, the poor are left to eat processed food, which isn’t good for any of us. That is the only thing that is easily accessible. When I was student, I noted with deep and bitter irony that the cheapest meal option was often McDonalds. Or, if I went to the grocery store, aside from Ramen noodles (a processed food I cannot stand), the cheapest option was Kraft Dinner (or Mac & Cheese for you Americans), another slightly vile processed food (full confession: KD remains my comfort food of choice, I import large quantities of it from Canada).
And the end result of all of this bad, processed food is the toll it takes on the health of the poor, both in urban centres and rural areas. In the United States, African Americans are, on the whole, poorer than everyone else. In Canada, it is the aboriginals. It is no coincidence that food insecurity hits African Americans in the US hard. It is also no coincidence that rates of heart disease, hyper-tension, diabetes, and obesity are much higher in African American and Canadian aboriginal communities than in the rest of both nations.
We can and must do better.
The West and the Rest and the Fate of the Environment
May 2, 2014 § 2 Comments
I just read a quick book review in Foreign Affairs of Charles Kenny’s new book, The Upside of Down: Why the Rise of the Rest is Good for the West. This comes on the heels of a spate of books in recent years about why it is that the West rules now, but why it won’t shortly. The best of these books (at least amongst those I’ve read) is Ian Morris’ Why the West Rules — For Now: The Patterns of HIstory and What They Reveal about the Future. The worst is my favourite village idiot, Niall Ferguson’s Civilization: The West and the Rest, and not just because of his incredibly stupid device of the “killer apps” that the West downloaded first, but have since been downloaded by the rest, but because of Ferguson’s inability to hide his triumphalist ethno-centrism. I also teach a lot of World History, so the topic interests me.
Kenny argues that, in contrast to Ferguson and others, that the rise of the Rest isn’t necessarily a bad thing for the West. Moreover, Kenny also claims that the rise of the Rest isn’t due to any failure on the part of the US, but, rather, is a function of Washington’s global leadership. And, unlike any other writer I’ve read on the matter, Kenny is also concerned about the possibilities for environmental degradation due to global economic advancement. This is interesting, actually, making me think of Doug Saunder’s Arrival City: How the Largest Migration in History is Re-Shaping Our World (I reviewed that here on this blog). Saunders is also a triumphalist, arguing that urbanisation is a great boon to humankind, but he overlooks the environmental degradation from cities.
However. Where Kenny falls down, at least according to this review (I do look forward to reading The Upside of Down), is that he expects the free market (along with education and innovation) to take care of that problem. This is where I get suspicious, given that the free market has done very little for environmental degradation, and left to our own devices, we humans would destroy the environment without some kind of governmental intervention. I don’t see why it would work any better in the developing world, frankly.
But, Kenny also redeems himself in his concluding argument wherein he favours the establishment of global rules and regulations to regulate global development and environmental damage. Of course, I’m not sure how this squares with his faith in the free market, but I suppose I’ll have to read the book to find the answer to that.
Slave Narratives and the Carolina Chocolate Drops
March 31, 2014 § 6 Comments
Last night, we were up in Woodstock, VT, to see the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a string band from Durham, North Carolina. The band is comprised of three African-Americans and fronted by Rhiannon Giddens, who is of mixed white, black, and aboriginal descent, they play a mixture of traditional and modern folk/roots instruments. They’ve revived a number of songs from the slave era in the Deep South, most of which, according to Giddens, were set down in the 1850s, just before the onset of the Civil War. Most of these, however, come without lyrics, for perhaps obvious reasons. The band were incredibly talkative on the stage last night, which created an incredible community vibe inside this small theatre in small-town Vermont. Both Giddens and band mate Hubby Jenkins kept up a running monologue with the crowd, telling us about their songs, how they came to perform them, write them, play them, their traditional instruments, and so on.
Before one song, Giddens told us about her explorations of American history, specifically African-American history, and about a book she read that collated slave narratives, and analysed them collectively, as opposed to the usual individuated approach to slave narratives. However, Giddens also noted one story that stuck out for her, about a slave woman named Julie at the tail end of the Civil War, as the Union Army was coming over the crest of the hill towards the plantation that Julie lived on. Julie is standing with her Mistress, watching them approach in the song, “Julie.”
This video was shot last night, by someone sitting close by us, though I don’t know who shot it, I didn’t see it happening. This is one powerful song, and it got me thinking. I’m teaching the Civil War right now in my US History class, and as I cast about for sources I am intrigued by slavery apologists, then and now, who argue that the slaves were happy. But even more striking are the stories about slave owners who were shocked to their core when the war ended and their slaves took their leave quickly, looking to explore their freedom.
It seems that the slave owners had really convinced themselves that they and their slaves were “friends” and that their slaves loved them. That arrogance seems astounding to me in the early 21st century. But this song last night powerfully brought the story right back around.
Alienation and Belonging
March 28, 2014 § 2 Comments
An old friend visited us this weekend, and as he and I drove up the Massachusetts coast to hunt down the best pizza in the Commonwealth (Riverview in Ipswich, if you’re wondering), we got to talking about New England. Despite having lived in New England, he always feels like he could never penetrate the insularity of New England culture, and he always feels alienated here. I found that interesting, given I don’t feel that way at all, despite obviously being a transplant.
This might be the advantage of being an Anglo from Montréal. Anglo Montrealers are always at least slightly alienated from the city and dominant culture. We are a (small) minority, and we speak a minority language. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, mind you.
I’ve always felt alienated from my surroundings. I grew up in British Columbia, very aware of the fact I didn’t belong, which came out in everything from my distaste of the wet, soggy climate to continuing to cheer for the Montréal Canadiens, Expos, and, when they existed, the Concorde or Alouettes of the CFL, as opposed to my friends who cheered for the Vancouver Canucks, the BC Lions and either the Toronto Blue Jays or Seattle Mariners. I felt similarly alienated in Ottawa. It was only when I moved back to Montréal I finally felt comfortable in my surroundings. But I still felt alienated from the larger culture, mostly due to language, even as my French language skills improved.
But, as with all things Montréal, it was never this simple. My Anglo friends and family dismissed any suggestion I might be a Montrealer, by continually reminding me I grew up out west. On the other hand, my francophone and allophone friends made no such distinction, and this is also true of my separatist friends. Go figure. Anglo mythology would have it the other way round. One of the most amazing moments of my life in Montréal came during the 2000 federal election campaign when I answered a knock on my door and found Gilles Duceppe, the leader of the Bloc québécois, with Amir Khadir, who was the BQ’s candidate in my riding (Khadir has since gone on to be the co-leader of the sovereigntist provincial party, Québec solidaire, and is currently the MNA for the Montréal riding of Mercier). Duceppe, Khadir, and I spent a good 15-20 minutes talking about place, identity, and belonging in Québec. Largely in English. Even the leader of a separatist party and the candidate for my riding didn’t dispute my bona fides as a Montrealer and a Quebecer (maybe, in part, because I assured them the BQ had my vote).
Since 2006, I have spent a lot of time in New England, before moving here in 2012, on account of my wife being American. She lived in Western Massachusetts when we met, so we did our best to split our time between Montréal and Western Mass. After all those years spending time out there, I came to feel like it was Home. Sure, I was never going to fully fit in, be a part of the scenery, but that was ok by me. And, even now, living at the other end of the Commonwealth, in the massive urban sprawl that is Boston, I feel similarly at home. The ways I feel alienated here are mostly due being Canadian. But I don’t find myself feeling excluded by New Englanders, or, really, Americans as a whole. In other words, I can deal with my alienation, it has kind of become my default way of being.
No doubt this is due to being an Anglo Montrealer and experiencing some degree of discomfort and alienation my entire life in my hometown and anywhere else I lived in Canada, tainted as I was, so to speak, by being from Montréal.
Olympic Geography
February 19, 2014 § Leave a comment
I have seen a fair amount of Olympic critiques from the American left in the past week or so, or, well, since the Olympics began. And aside from what you’d expect, about Russia’s horrendous human rights records, Putin’s disgusting homophobia, another trend has been criticising the Winter Olympics as essentially a party for wealthy northern nations. Comparisons are made between the Winter and Summer Olympics and where athletes are from, and the size of the delegations and the like. Aside from large northern sporting nations (the US, Russia), the geographic distribution of competing nations in the Summer Olympics is necessarily much larger than for the winter variety. Of course, the Summer Olympics is also a much larger event than the winter variety.
But I have a fundamental problem with this critique. The Sochi Winter Olympics medal standings right now is topped by the Netherlands and the USA, followed by Russia, Norway, and Canada. In Vancouver in 2010, the standings went: United States, Canada, Germany, Norway, and Austria. In contrast, in London in 2012, the standings went like this: United States, China, Britain, Russia, South Korea. Four years earlier in Beijing: United States, China, Russia, Britain, Australia.
In both winter and summer Olympics, the medal standings are dominated by the USA and Russia (with the exception of Vancouver 2010). The other nations in the top five vary. In the winter, it is the Dutch, Norwegians, Canadians, Germans, Swiss, and Austrians. In the summer, the other nations are: China, Britain, South Korea, and Australia. All are wealthy northern nations, depending on how you want to classify China and Russia, who are at the very least at the BRICS level of emerging economic powerhouses. There are no poor nations from the Global South. In other words, both summer and winter Olympics are dominated by wealthy northern nations (ok, Australia’s in the South, but you get the point).
Of course, there is still the simple fact that there are athletes from the Global South in the Summer Olympics, and not the Winter Olympics (aside from token representation, such as Jamaican bobsledders and the three Indians in Sochi). But this is also simply a reflection of geography. Winter sports are played in cold, northern nations. And the alpine sporting disciplines that feature at the Olympics tend not to be TV ratings champions outside of Olympic years. In other words, of course the Norwegians are going to ski and skate and the Jamaicans are going to play soccer and do track.
So what to make of this American leftist critique of the Winter Olympics? From what I’ve read, it seems this is simply a case of “We Are the World,” and it’s more an American critique of American chauvinism at the Olympics. Yet, those who make this critique are wonderfully un-self aware that they are just as chauvinistic as the chauvinism they are criticising. Ain’t life grand?
Matthew Barlow 