The Citizen, 2008-04-03, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 2008. PAGE 5.
Bonnie
Gropp
TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt
Too brave for words
So I’m sitting in this meeting one
afternoon last week and it’s not too bad,
as meetings go. I’ve got a comfortable
chair, the speaker’s not putting me to sleep and
best of all I’ve got a cup of good, hot coffee
steaming in my favourite double-walled
stainless steel travel mug. It’s sitting on the
table in front of me.
That’s when the guy next to me leans over
and whispers, “Is that your coffee cup?”
“Yeah, it is,” I whisper back.
“Because,” he whispers, “I left my coffee
cup at a meeting here last week.”
“That’s my cup,” I whisper back.
“My coffee cup looked exactly like that,” he
whispered.
“That’s my cup,” I assure him, in a louder,
more assertive whisper.
“You’re sure?” he whispers, doubtfully.
“NO, YOU CRETIN! THAT’S YOUR
CUP! I SNUCK IN HERE OVER THE
WEEKEND, STOLE YOUR CUP AND
BROUGHT IT IN TO FLAUNT IT IN
FRONT OF YOUR FACE THIS
AFTERNOON TO SEE IF YOU’D
NOTICE!”
I didn’t say any of that of course, but that’s
what was running through my mind –
that, along with several Howard
Sternworthy adjectives that would be
unseemly to repeat.
Thing is, I spent the rest of the day in a
smouldering funk. I cold-shouldered the
receptionist, snapped at a couple of my
colleagues – even yelled at my computer.
The guy absolutely ruined my afternoon.
The rest of my working day was a total write-
off.
And all over a coffee cup.
I probably would have had a lousy evening
too, except for something that happened on the
way home. A neighbour gave me a lift, and as
we were driving through town, a lout in a
Trans-Am came squealing out of a side-street,
went into a four-wheel drift and came within a
hair of side-swiping us. My neighbour honked
to warn him off.
Incredibly, the Trans-Am goon leans out his
window and lets fly with a string of curses at
my neighbour punctuated with an exclamation
mark graphically illustrated by an upraised
digit on his left hand.
I am unhinged. I am furious. I want my
neighbour to stop the car so I can go over to
this clown and…
But I glance at my neighbour and see that he
is…smiling at the idiot in the Trans Am.
Giving him a cheery wave and a big Have-A-
Nice-Day smile.
“What was THAT,” I ask my neighbour.
“That guy could have killed us! He was totally
in the wrong!”
My neighbour shrugged, still smiling. “He
was probably having a bad day,” he said. “No
point in us getting bummed out too.”
My neighbour went on to explain that he had
this theory. He figured a lot of people went
through life imitating sanitation trucks.
They picked up all this trash all day
long – petty frustrations, little snubs and
insults – and pretty soon they were overloaded.
They had to find someone else to dump it off
on.
“The thing I try to remember is, when
somebody gets in my face, it’s not about me,”
he said. “It’s nothing personal. That person is
just trying to unload his trash and I happen to
be there. If I let them tick me off, then Bingo!
– I’ve let them dump on me. But I don’t have
to accept their trash. I can just smile, wish
them well, and wave goodbye.”
And I thought: Wow. All the fights that I’ve
been in; all the arguments and shouting
matches; the scuffles and the hissy fits; all the
bluster and the bullshit…
All because I imagined that someone had
insulted me, tweaked my pride. What a waste
of time. What a waste of energy.
In Restless Farewell, Dylan sings:
Oh every foe that ever I faced
The cause was there before we came.
I first heard those lyrics in the Sixties. Took
me half a century to ‘get’ them.
I figure I’ve just learned a lesson and I’m
going to try and put it to good use, but first I’ve
got one last score to settle.
I’m going to track down that guy who
bugged me at that meeting last week.
I want to ask him if he’d like my coffee cup.
Arthur
Black
Other Views No more dumping allowed
Racism in Ontario, which many believe
is declining, is hanging in tenaciously
and even finding new targets. Ontario’s
Liberal government is not doing all it can to
counter it.
No new statistics have been collected over
the past year to show whether racism is on the
rise, but there are plenty of examples
indicating it is alive and kicking.
The most recent victims include Canadians
of Chinese origin, who are noted for being
hardworking and economically successful and
envied by some for it.
A dozen incidents have been reported of
Chinese sports anglers threatened, punched,
dumped in lakes and rivers and in two cases
severely injured, and their cars and fishing
gear damaged.
The attacks are described in some areas by
the racist term ‘nippertipping’ and there have
been complaints Chinese over-fish, poach and
litter, but these could not excuse violence.
A Toronto municipal councillor has got to
the crux of what some resent about Chinese-
Ontarians by saying, in debating whether
stores should be permitted to open on
traditional holidays, “these Oriental people
work like dogs. They sleep beside their
machines. They are slowly taking over.” It
sounded like he was airing a grudge.
The racism has included acts by public,
including provincial, employees. Black and
Aboriginal guards at a Toronto jail have
complained for more than a decade of racial
taunts by white guards and unidentified letter
writers, and early this year staged a brief
strike, but the problem is still unresolved.
The Ontario Provincial Police have claimed
they have cleaned up racism in its force
revealed by a public inquiry into the shooting
death of a Native protester at Ipperwash
Provincial Park. Officers had described a
demonstrator as a “great, big, fat f!@#ing
Indian” and suggested that giving the Indians
a few cases of beer would quieten them.
But an inspector in the Barrie force has now
been relieved of some duties, after he sent an
e-mail that police conceded was racist.
A judge in Toronto also dismissed charges,
including one of assaulting police, after
finding two officers went after and detained
the accused merely because he is black.
A human rights tribunal found a police
officer in Peel Region threatened to charge a
woman with shoplifting and called her a
“f!@#ing foreigner” simply because she is
black. The tribunal ordered that force to pay
her compensation and train officers to avoid
racist acts.
Legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson,
lauded in many countries when he died, had
described earlier how young men repeatedly
drove past his home in Mississauga shouting
racial insults. He endured racism in the
southern United States decades ago, but never
expected it here.
A radio reporter interviewing outside a city-
owned arena in Toronto was told to move her
car and called a “f!@#ing nigger” by a parking
attendant. Management apologized, but
grudgingly enough to suggest it might have
ignored her complaint if she had not been in
the news media.
A white school trustee wrote to a newspaper
complaining that many immigrants do not
understand Canadian values, bring violence,
collect money to fund violence in their former
countries and take jobs from Canadians, a
disturbingly-twisted view.
Racism has come close inadvertently to
Progressive Conservative leader John Tory and
Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty. Tory
apologized after a student official in his party’s
club at Ryerson University sent an
unauthorized email attacking a black student
and headed “KKK –White Power.”
An Ontario government official sent an
email describing a black applicant for a job as
a “ghetto dude” and the applicant found out
and McGuinty phoned him and apologized.
To mark International Day For The
Elimination of Racial Discrimination,
Citizenship Minister Michael Chan said the
province fosters accepting diversity and
anyone who sees discrimination should speak
out, which is not exactly sounding the alarm
and no media reported.
A speech by a premier explaining what is
going on will not eradicate racism, but it
would let people know they have a problem.
Eric
Dowd
FFrroomm
QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk
Mikayla Ansley has known a lot of
suffering in her life. She has
experienced discomfort that many
will never know. There are times when she’s
ill, hurting. It’s more than anyone should have
to go through.
But what’s even worse is that Mikayla is
only a year old.
I don’t know Mikayla. Many others don’t
either. It doesn’t matter. She is a child. She is
ill. And for that reason her story touches our
hearts.
Mikayla first came to my attention earlier
this year when I was contacted by a woman in
Bayfield. They were holding a fundraiser to
help a family with Blyth connections and
thought I might be interested for that reason in
helping them promote it in The Citizen.
The granddaughter of a Blyth couple was
diagnosed with a rare form of childhood cancer
just weeks before her first birthday.
Retinoblastoma can be cured if caught early,
but the only treatment is removal of the eyes,
or chemotherapy to try and shrink the tumours.
Mikayla would undergo the latter.
For the family this means regular trips to
Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto and tremendous
stress on their life, financially and emotionally.
The first part can be helped through the
support of family and the community. For
instance a second fundraiser is being held April
25 in Blyth in the hopes of lessening the
financial burdens.
This in turn allows the family a little more
strength to focus on the treatment rather than
worry about the extras. In the big picture those
pesky things are pretty darn insignificant, but
they unfortunately don’t go away either.
While one can empathize, while love and
support can move mountains, the real burden
of this still sits with the family. Cancer is cruel,
an evil that invades every aspect of life,
stealing health and dignity. And to imagine a
little child going through it, and the anguish for
her parents is beyond heartbreaking.
When people have children they know what
it means. They know the stature they hold in
little ones’ eyes. To kids, mom and dad are the
heroes, the fixers. It’s their job to fight the
boogey-man. It’s their job to protect the little
ones from pain, to make everything alright, to
make all the bad stuff go away.
And for mom and dad, when they can’t, it
makes an already bad situation so much worse.
Yet, the Ansleys have made a vow to never
let Mikayla see their distress. They put on a
brave face for her even during those difficult
times in the hospital.
I recently read a story about a missing child.
A friend approached the parents to offer
support, saying he could only imagine how
they felt. The person responded, “No, I don’t
believe you can.”
It’s true. As a parent and grandparent I have
some idea of the mixed emotions, the hurt, the
frustration that someone with a sick or injured
child might feel. But I am blessed that it has so
far been left to my imagination. The only way
to truly understand is a course in life too
terrifying to ponder.
My heart goes out to this family and others
who find themselves in a similar situation. No,
I don’t know Mikayla, or her parents for that
matter. But I do know that no child should be
experiencing what she is. That she appears in
her photographs to be doing so with a smile,
with a bravery that one so innocent should not
be called upon to use touches the heart in a way
that words cannot describe.
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Racism tenaciously hanging in
No opportunity is ever lost. The other
person takes what you miss.
– Unknown
Final Thought