Branding Whiteout racist isn’t helping anyone

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/04/2019 (2343 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Last week, those who erroneously claimed “racism doesn’t exist in Canada” were given fuel when Black Space Winnipeg declared Winnipeg’s Whiteout parties “threatening.”

The group, which advocates for Winnipeg’s black community, posted the following:

“It’s triggering to see a sea of white when you’re walking home from work or school — witnessing aggressive ‘Jets culture’ as Jets fans flood the streets yelling ‘True North’. We thought, if you can’t change the party, at least revise the name because a headline that reads: ‘Jets parties will turn downtown white again’ reminds us of a similar phrase started by a very problematic politician in the states….#justsaying.”

As those who know anything about the Winnipeg Whiteout parties, they have nothing to do with race. Rather, it was a Winnipeg response to the Calgary Flames’ Sea of Red based on the Jets’ jerseys of the day. Creator Rod Palson said that red, white and blue was too complicated, and since everyone has a white shirt, that was chosen as the colour.

Black Space Winnipeg founder Alexa Potashnik knows this.

In a recent interview with the CBC, she said, “I get the colour context 100 per cent, but it’’s the culture that we’re talking about. It’s the wording we’re critiquing.

“It’s triggering for some people. For marginalized communities — whether that’s black communities, Indigenous people of colour, folks with disabilities, queer communities, it impacts us all.”

We’re living in an era in which people believe their feelings trump context.

Hopefully, the powers that be don’t bow to Black Space Winnipeg like McGill University recently did when changing their varsity men’s sports teams names away from Redmen — a story whose reach went as far as CNN.

In the CNN piece, the school’s principal and vice-chancellor Suzanne Fortier said the name made Indigenous students feel alienated.

“They feel disrespected and unconsidered. They feel conflicted over their rightful pride in being Indigenous people and their pride in being McGill students,” Fortier said in a statement. “This tension is even stronger for Indigenous student athletes.”

The name “Redmen” dates back to the 1920s as a reflection of the founder’s Scottish roots and Celts’ red hair.

While Indigenous images later cropped up, they have long since been done away with, the team name harking back to its origins and firmly stripped of racist connotation.

But, mob mentality, fuelled by the ever-prevalent fear of offending others, won. After a petition gathered more than 10,000 signatures, the name “Redmen” will be one for the history books.

Crown Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett called the change a “huge success,” according to the CBC.

“For all of us, that means the Edmonton Eskimos could take a lesson from this, and we have to make sure that, coast to coast to coast, when people are hurt, you have to listen. That name hurt people, so we want to say congratulations to McGill University.”

Although she’s right about the Edmonton Eskimos, the logic she employs getting there is problematic.

People’s feelings, as misguided as they might be, are often prioritized over logic. It’s easier to bow down when someone expresses offence than it is to stand against them and have the emotions-driven mob turn on you.

On the McGill situation, graduate and past soccer player Salim Brahimi is quoted in the CBC as saying the Redmen name was an “easy target for the sake of political correctness, without really making an impactful change on the ground. … Some people are going to feel good about this, but did it do anything without alienating a whole part of the community?”

That’s the question.

To be the devil’s advocate, let’s assume they change the name of the Winnipeg Whiteout party and do away with the (non-race-related) white imagery it’s known for — a tradition that dates back to 1987. The community would turn against Black Space Winnipeg even more so than they already have for branding the longtime tradition as “racist” without any legitimate evidence to back up the claim.

They’re dividing the community along racial lines, which is the opposite of what they purportedly stand for. Just look at social-media responses to their vapid allegations of racism. When actual cases of racism come up — and they will: it’s a legitimate problem in society — they’re more likely to be shrugged off by a public that has grown tired of false flags.