[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Mixed Couples on American TV
Mary Jennings
macloudt at hotmail.com
Sun May 12 08:20:35 UTC 2002
What an interesting thread! I'd like to throw my 2 knuts in:
Jenny from Ravenclaw wrote:
>We all know that segregation here in the US is not legal and hasn't
>been for a while. However, segregation is very much a part of life
>here; so much, IMO, that most people don't even notice it. On the
>east side of Manhattan, when one goes above 96th street, suddenly all
>the doorman buildings turn into projects - I kid you not.
In 1987, while in high school in Toronto, I went on a school trip behind the
Iron Curtain. This involved flying from Toronto to La Guardia (sp?) airport
in NYC, and taking the bus from LG to JFK airport. Bearing in mind that
Toronto is as ethnically diverse as NYC, we were *shocked* at the
segregation between neighbourhoods. Sure, Toronto has Chinatown, Little
Portugal, Little Italy, etc., but still you find people from all ethnic
backgrounds in every neighbourhood (the posh white neighbourhoods have
growing Asian populations, for example). But these neighbourhoods in NYC
were either white, or they weren't. Period. Even though Canada is
bombarded with American TV channels, never mind shows, and we "knew" about
the American racial divisions, it was still a *major* reality check for us.
This, however, does not mean that non-whites are less hassled by Toronto
police than whites. Not at all. And don't get me started about the
treatment of First Nations people. Grrr...
I now live in a seaside resort town in southwest England, where *I*
(Canadian with Dutch background) am considered delightfully foreign. I can
count the number of non-white kids in my daughter's school on two hands.
But interestingly, most of the black kids have one white parent. The school
is fantastically open-minded (not too surprising; the headmaster is gay) and
doesn't tolerate bullying or prejudice of any kind, but there have been some
nasty racist incidents in the town over the years. A few years ago one
harassed family was featured in the local paper. They were ex-Iron Curtain
immigrants (can't remember which country) and the harassment was so bad that
the 10-year-old son wanted to commit suicide.
Racism is based on fear and ignorance. There is no excuse for it in *any*
situation. *At all*.
Mary Ann
(who will probably throw up the next time she's told she has a "darling
accent")
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