The Automatik

I’m not sure how much coverage this is receiving outside of the Toronto, Ontario/Canada news media, so I’d like to call it to everyone’s attention.

The below-linked article is not meant to be representative of the final word on the Tamil protest; it’s just a short summary introduction to the issue.

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Toronto highway reopens after Tamil protest disperses
One of Canada’s major expressways reopened early Monday after thousands of members of Toronto’s Tamil community ended a five-hour occupation of the roadway without incident.

The blockade of the Gardiner Expressway in Toronto ended shortly after midnight. It was part of the Tamil community’s continuing protest campaign to demand the Canadian government do more to help end the bloody 25-year civil war in Sri Lanka.

Read the rest of the article here.

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I followed this protest as it unfolded on the TV news last night and was really dismayed by the reactions of the mostly-white commuters to the situation. They were very irritated at the inconvenience of being stuck on the highway and one man even suggested that the Tamil protesters should find a more “legal” way to protest (a sentiment echoed by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty here).
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I watched Bill Maher on The Daily Show last night.

You know, I was with him with the whole “religion is crazy” bit, especially when he compared the ridiculousness of Scientology with Christianity, but here’s where things started to derail for me.

Clips of Bill Maher on last night’s episode. (I can’t view these because I’m in Canada so hopefully they’ll show up for you.)

1. Referring to Barack Obama as “our boy.” Now, I know he meant “our candidate” or “our voice” or “the guy we like,” but referring to an African American as “boy” EVEN IF YOU DON’T MEAN IT “that way” is not cool. Not acceptable. Not going to cut it.

2. The reference to “witch doctors” and Sarah Palin. Granted, I understand that Maher hates all religions equally (ahem!), but usage of the term “witch doctor” in such a pejorative context just smacks of, oh, I don’t know. . . at best, imperialism and at worst, racism.

3. Then he quite literally made my stomach turn when he made a comment about how if McCain and Palin get into the White House we might have a guy in there “with a bone through his nose.”
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From This Pop Life:

“The Oppression Olympics” refers to the idea that somehow, you can deny someone their suffering in order to posit your own. People who play the Oppression Olympics get so hung up on their own entitlement to being the Chosen Ones of Fucked Up History that they’re defensive that anyone else would try to lay claim to that legacy, even in what is clearly a show of solidarity.

Or as someone on the LiveJournal community Debunking White put it: “the I’m-oppressed-so-you-can’t-be game.”
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In light all of the recent outrage about Barack Obama’s pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, I would like to weigh in.

Until today, I had not seen the Reverend preaching, although I had heard snippets of what he had supposedly said.

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Geraldine Ferraro’s recent racist remarks are actually nothing new for her. In 1998, she made similar comments about Jesse Jackson:

“If Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn’t be in the race.”
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Another currently hot topic in the realm of racism, is the series of comments made by former Vice Presidential candidate and Hillary Clinton campaign Finance Committee member Geraldine Ferraro.

In case you haven’t heard about this, here’s what she said:
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The March 12 story about an African-American female reporter being brutally attacked by the white family of a murder suspect has been all over the news.
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I just read this post from Holly at Feministe.us—Sixteen Maneuvers to Avoid Really Dealing With Racism.
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