Racism isn't going to make things better for any of us

As evidenced most recently by the murder of George Floyd at the hands of four police officers in Minneapolis last week, the United States has a serious problem with police brutality and with racism, both systemic and cultural. But before we Canadians pat ourselves on the back about not being America, we must face our own past and present and accept that racism and xenophobia is alive and well here, no matter what white men in their 70s say.

I hear it myself from neighbours, friends, family and coworkers. According to one person, the Regina police apparently refer to the local homeless population, who are largely First Nations, as “lizards” (I hope this isn't official policy). To some, I hear that religious head coverings are no different than “towels”. To others, the immigrants are the ones committing all the crimes (even though immigrants actually have a lower crime rate than Canadians). I can go on and on about the racist and ignorant things I’ve heard and seen. And it breaks my heart that these things continue to happen in a diverse country like ours and especially after last week's murder-by-cop.

I come from a broken home and was mostly raised by my single mother. I moved just about the same number of times as there are years in my life. Many of those places were public housing. There were a handful of financially-strapped Christmases where we were fortunate enough to receive hampers from kind strangers. We survived off of the food bank a number of times. I lived and experienced instability, poverty, violence and mental illness. I know what it’s like to be set up to fail. As a socially-awkward nerd, before it was cool to be one, I experienced bullying first hand. I know what its like to struggle to fit in. I know it’s not easy. I empathize with anyone born with attributes that are different than those around them. And it’s why it’s abhorrent to me to kick someone or an entire group of underprivileged people when they are already down.

Being a good person means doing the right thing and not the popular thing. It means sometimes sticking up for people you don’t know to people who you do know. It means pointing out that even if racist jokes aren’t hurting anyone listening, that it enables xenophobia. "Owning the politically-correct libs" is essentially the same as burning your neighbour's house down. You might think it doesn't effect you but then you find out your own property has lost value. You'll find out what I mean soon enough.

We must not forget that under our skin, we are all the same species. Race is no more significant than hair colour. In these times of increased socioeconomic inequality, we must remember that 99% of us are getting screwed over by a common enemy. The wealth gap between the lower class and the upper-middle class is far smaller than that between the upper-middle class and the extremely-rich upper class. All of us non-rich, non-elite folks have a lot more in common then you would think.

The 1% rely on constant economic growth to accumulate their wealth. The only way to keep this unsustainable goal of capitalism going and to hold on to power in a supposedly-democratic society is to exploit people below them and keep us divided. Capitalists take advantage of our primal motives and fears to drive us against each other in a cruel and bitter competition for money and power. But the only ones really profiting are those at the top. Mark Zuckerbook is doing it with Facebook and Instagram. Jeff Bezos is doing it with Amazon. Donald Trump is doing it with his Republican enablers in Congress and the courts. These are the real enemies. These are the people who deserve our anger.

We cannot win the class war until we stop fighting the culture war. If we want any hope for our future generations (Millennials like myself are the first generation in modern history to have a worse economic outlook than those that preceded them), we must face those who truly stand in the way of our own pursuit of contentment and meaning. We cannot distract ourselves with petty squabbles based on how different someone looks and sounds. We must instead only judge each other by the content of our character. We must put ourselves in each others' shoes and consider if we would have made it the same under their vastly different circumstances. We must focus on what unites us.

For white people in a predominately-white country, we must realize that being white is like being born on third base. To think we hit a home run all on our own ignores the vast amount of data that shows the family you are born into determines how successful you will be. As the rich get richer though, that home plate keeps getting pushed further and further away from all of us. And it’s not the immigrant worker at Tim Horton’s fault. It’s not the fault of the homeless First Nations person begging on the street. Nor is it the fault of the overseas factory worker. It’s the fault of our leaders who are putting profits before the people who elected them. It’s the fault of the elite who have the money and power to lobby for their minority interests. It's the fault of the moderate establishment pushing neoliberal policies of low taxes, deregulation and free trade which pits us all against each other in a race to the bottom.

There was a time hundreds of thousands of years ago when humans consisted of many groups of hunters and gatherers that our tribalism provided an evolutionary benefit to us and our families. But there are over seven billion of us now, more and more of us are living close together in cities, and our supply chains for our essential needs from food to personal-protective equipment to medicine span the globe. We are smarter and more advanced today than being those simple, reactionary animals of the past. The future of humanity requires us to be better. So let’s use our heads while channeling love and empathy, find some common ground, and focus our energies on those who are really standing in our way.