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0 pointsshinratdr12y ago0 comments

And all they had to do to get that was to be ripped from their homes and placed into residential schools, which existed into the 60s. What a sweet deal!

This smacks of tremendous ignorance of the history of First Nations people and what white Canadians have done to them. It's possibly the most concrete demonstration of white privilege I've ever seen.

"Well gee, I'm just a simple guy, but I don't think trying to balance out the horrible things that people of my race did to people of another race well into the 1900s that irreversibly affected their communities ability to survive is all that fair if I don't get those things too!"

It's all well and good to want a level playing field, but when you've spend the last century digging everyone else into gigantic holes, it kind of rings a little hollow.

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Stealth-12y ago

Growing up in a poorer neighbourhood, the native friends I had were able to play football, have school lunches, go on fieldtrips, and go to university when I could not because they were paid for with tax payers' dollars.

My grandparents were not even in this country at the time, it was not my ancestors nor me that hurt anyone. So I should have less because of what someone with the same skin colour as me did decades ago? Doesn't that seem a little, I don't know, discriminatory?

shinratdrOP12y ago

> the native friends I had were able to play football, have school lunches, go on fieldtrips, and go to university when I could not because they were paid for with tax payers' dollars.

I don't know where you live but in Toronto with the exception of university tuition, all those things are provided for children that can't afford them regardless of their background. The concept of not letting a child go on a field trip or go hungry at lunch because they couldn't afford it is just insane to my ears.

> My grandparents were not even in this country at the time, it was not my ancestors nor me that hurt anyone.

Good thing this has little or nothing to do with punishing the descendants of those who may or may not have perpetrated injustice. It's about providing a leg-up to those that have been held down for decades. You had no such disadvantages so you don't receive the leg up.

> Doesn't that seem a little, I don't know, discriminatory?

Providing benefits to anyone while excluding anyone else is technically discrimination. That's doesn't make it bad. Not all things are equal. It's discrimination that students pay less than you to take the subway. Also discrimination, also not a bad thing.

canistr12y ago

> I don't know where you live but in Toronto with the exception of university tuition, all those things are provided for children that can't afford them regardless of their background. The concept of not letting a child go on a field trip or go hungry at lunch because they couldn't afford it is just insane to my ears.

As insane as it may sound for a Torontonian, I grew up in Scarborough where many people didn't go on field trips simply because of the cost. Some kids had small lunches. And I grew up in a time where, because of cut backs in education costs, students were required to pay a "course fee" of about $50 at the beginning of the term in high school to pay for additional learning supplies for classes. Which usually amounted to the fee required to print workbooks, provide extra writing materials, or even art supplies.

cobrausn12y ago

Except for that it's discrimination based on need and not race.

shinratdrOP12y ago

Sometimes race correlates to need. In the case of First Nations peoples in Canada, it very much does.

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king_jester12y ago

> Growing up in a poorer neighbourhood, the native friends I had were able to play football, have school lunches, go on fieldtrips, and go to university when I could not because they were paid for with tax payers' dollars.

Everyone should have access to these things, that some first nations people got this while you didn't isn't a problem with first nations people, but society at large not caring for its members. Of course, it is important to remember that first nations people experience that lack of care in unique and often violent ways.

> My grandparents were not even in this country at the time, it was not my ancestors nor me that hurt anyone. So I should have less because of what someone with the same skin colour as me did decades ago? Doesn't that seem a little, I don't know, discriminatory?

You or your immediate ancestors didn't have to be there to benefit from that past and the situation it fosters today. You frame this as you being targeted to get less, which is really far from the truth about how first nations people live in Canada today. Finally, no you are not being discriminated against, you are benefiting directly and indirectly from past and current colonialist policies in Canada if you are white.

kyzyl12y ago

> And all they had to do to get that was to be ripped from their homes and placed into residential schools, which existed into the 60s.

Just FYI, the last Canadian residential school closed in... drum roll... 1996. Sweet deal indeed.

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Stealth-12y ago

shinratdrOP12y ago

> the native friends I had were able to play football, have school lunches, go on fieldtrips, and go to university when I could not because they were paid for with tax payers' dollars.

> My grandparents were not even in this country at the time, it was not my ancestors nor me that hurt anyone.

> Doesn't that seem a little, I don't know, discriminatory?

canistr12y ago

cobrausn12y ago

Except for that it's discrimination based on need and not race.

shinratdrOP12y ago

Sometimes race correlates to need. In the case of First Nations peoples in Canada, it very much does.

1 more reply

king_jester12y ago

kyzyl12y ago

> And all they had to do to get that was to be ripped from their homes and placed into residential schools, which existed into the 60s.

Just FYI, the last Canadian residential school closed in... drum roll... 1996. Sweet deal indeed.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse