Someone I thought I knew.

I’ve been an active participant in online communities since sometime around 2000/2001. I have made many friends (both online and IRL) over those 7-8 years and I’ve always managed to put an amount of cultural perspective on things. I grew up white and middle class in a small, backward, white, middle class neighbourhood in a small, backward, white, working class town in Canada. Many of the friends I have made online grew up in similar circumstances, but an equal amount grew up broke and poor in the US, UK and Canada. I understand that my experience of class and privilege is very different than some of my friends.

I have had an ongoing friendship with a man from Louisiana for a couple of years now. He lived in Germany when he was in the US Army and relocated himself to the Bay Area of California upon his discharge. After Hurricane Rita, he returned to western Louisiana to be closer to his family and to help them rebuild their lives and to rebuild his own after some devastating losses in California. He was (and I imagine still thinks he is) an anomaly in western Louisiana; a white, liberal Democrat living in a rural parish.

He sent me an email saying that after watching “Bowling for Columbine” he was going to get rid of some of his weaponry. We talked on the phone about how to make health care work for Americans. We brainstormed about immigration reform.

I should have known that all was not right with him when he responded to my firm statement about being a feminist with, "Aw darlin’, you don’t want to mix yourself up with those people." I stated that I was "one of those people" and if he knew and liked me then he had mixed himself up with "those people". He changed the subject.

Then Barack Obama ran for the Democratic nominee for president. He voted for Hillary. When she didn’t win the primaries, he announced to me that he was voting for McCain.

Because no black man should have power over the white race.

Stunned, I listened to him go off about how he knew that he wasn’t evil but his wife was going to work for slave reparations and the good southern white folk, who had nothing to do with slavery would be forced from their lands while the *n***ers* get their forty acres and a mule.

It was like I had been slapped in the face as he went on about the *uppity black women* he worked with thought that they were better than him now. I had to get him off the phone. I could not believe that he actually thought these things. I didn’t speak to him for a very long while.

I logged into yahoo messenger to see if there was an offline from a friend in England. Instead there was a hateful message from my friend in Louisiana telling me that he was disgusted that I, a foreigner, would meddle and interfere in the election of HIS country by trying to get someone who would destroy America elected.
I went over to Facebook and there was a message from him there as well telling me to stop posting things about Obama because I was disrespecting his voting choice. I had sent all my FB friends in the US a reminder to vote the day before. The application was through the Obama feature, but I had set it up so that it would just remind people to vote in a non-partisan way.

I told him that if he had a problem with me reminding him to vote and with me taking an interest in the administration of the country I will probably live in one day that was his problem, not mine and he knew what to do with his problem. He sent a reply back about how I know him well enough to know that he votes in every election so my reminder was somehow insulting, and he didn’t understand what I meant by "knowing what to do".

This person was my friend for a couple of years. This election brought out a side and a belief system that I can acknowledge exists but never accept in my life.

I told him that he had been insulting and ignorant and had revealed himself to be someone I did not and could not want in my life.

As much as the 2008 Presidential election has brought out the finest qualities and traits of the American people, I had no idea that the worst and the ugliest would hit so close to home.

Canada doesn’t need an Obama.

Sometimes I wish that I was bilingual so I could stop reading the English and/or the Toronto focused press. It has become depressing and quite a bit embarrassing to watch the Liberals of the world try to name and claim any POC as "Canada’s Obama" and future savior of the LPC.

If Canada is going to choose a leader based upon being a part of the group that historically has faced more discrimination than any other group, that "Canadian Obama" should be Aboriginal. If Canada is going to choose a leader based on being a part of the largest ethnic minority, that person should be South Asian.

51% of Canadians are women, yet Canadian women are still treated as a "visible minority" with "issues". That’s not to say that women vote as a homogeneous block, but to say that leadership is not exclusive to the male gender. It is also not to say that the men of Canada don’t have a stake in what effects women. Kim Campbell notwithstanding, there has NEVER been a legitimate female candidate for the leadership of a party who could be in power. We all know that she was the only one who would take the job in 1993 and the bloodbath that ensued wasn’t a surprise.

Obama is a transformative figure precisely because he doesn't fit into the US stereotypes of blackness and ISN'T radical. He's about as moderate and middle of the road as a Mulroney-era Progressive Conservative. He's a sign that Americans aren't interested in business as usual, and lord-love-a-duck, the US needs to find some sort of direction in the 21st century.

Canada doesn't need an Obama. What we need is someone uniquely Canadian who has great big ideas that will put an end to the regionalism that has plagued this nation since the PCs built their first Alberta firewalls.

I think you can see that Canada doesn't need the kind of saving from itself that the US does. We need to build a sustainable economy, we need to keep the population from growing too quickly, we need to disengage ourselves from the US, and learn some lessons about having all of our eggs in one basket. We need radically different than what we have always done, but not radically financially risky. Canada is a small nation with a stable finance system and as such is nimble and flexible enough to adjust to the realities we have, not the ones we wish for.

Unfortunately, until Stephane Dion came along, there was no leader for any party who was interested in doing anything different from the way we had always done it. Canadians proved by not listening or caring that they weren't interested in doing things any differently either.

I despair for my country as long as the dinosaurs continue to rule the land.

With that, I am firmly stating that while I am Facebook friends with Bob Rae, I will not be supporting him for leader. I will not be supporting Iggy, or Gerard, or Dominic or really any of the names they keep bringing up. I don't think that the latter two have enough electoral experience, and I don't think that the former two have enough of a "machine" in Quebec to win. I bear no ill will toward Mr. Rae, Mr. Kennedy or Mssr. LeBlanc, I just don't think they're radical enough and/or ready enough to do this immense job of achieving electoral success AND bringing together a party full of warring factions.

I will also state that I think Obama may be the worst choice for President as it relates to proposed relations with Canada, but his election may be the beginning of the US doing things differently when it comes to their working relationship with their closest allies and trading partners.

There's always hope, right?