There's the example of the guy in the second video at this post. Then, ... at a talk that I gave (wherein, this middle-aged white guy got himself FORMALLY INCLUDED on the schedule) a respondent, .... a successful in life, now retired, older white guy, went off on a series of extended rants about his own hobby horses, rather than the topic at hand (which, please remember, was formally put on the agenda), and then, at the electoral reform town hall last night at the Church Street Community Centre, I left after the audience started getting restless and then one old white guy took the microphone and began making a speech instead of asking a question.
Oh yeah, at the big "Idle No More" rally at the Eaton's Centre, as it was winding down, some middle-aged white guy in a British Red-Coat jacket got up on a wall and started making an impromptu speech about the system.
I had been too moved (almost to tears) by the event itself and by the story of the Dene Nation woman my friends and I spoke to about how "Idle No More" had reawakened so much pride in her heritage and herself personally and her people, that I would even consider hijacking it by getting on a soap box and telling those assembled about what they should all be doing.
As I say at that first link, I don't believe that as white men, we should shut-up forever. I actually think I've got something important to say. That's why I put myself on the agenda one evening and gave a talk. But when somebody else is trying to talk about something, and especially when a lot of other people came to hear what that person is trying to say, it's not the time for you to take over the discussion, and especially not with a pointless recitation about how the system is fucked and how WE DEMAND JUSTICE!!!!
This being Canada, it's most likely the law of averages that these obnoxious types are white, but that doesn't explain why they're 95% male.
[Sean Connery's picture is up there as a joke. He's an older white guy who a lot of women seem to like. I was speaking with a Muslim, Arab woman, in her early-forties and a professional type, and she told me he was her favourite actor. She found him very attractive. I remember about ten years ago, a lot of women seemed to say that a bald man could be attractive if he was Sean Connery.]
2 comments:
hi thwap...that guy sounds like the guy who used to hijack some of the Occupy meetings I attended in the park. He was probably a very nice man, but he would take the discussion into the Twilight Zone, and start lecturing our scruffy gang like a college professor. I would watch the eyes of some of the street people around me go blank, and I wished that somebody would tell him to shoosh. But of course in the Occupy Camp nobody did. As you say, sometimes people should shut up and listen up.
However, I'm glad to see that you
are participating in citizen's meetings. Good for you. I'm waiting for the next mayoral campaign to start before I follow your example...
We've got to get out there. I like your blog though. Keep at it.
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