No we can't all get along.

Come on in and sit for a bit. I read something and so trying to sweat out how much it angers me to read bullshit like this. It continues to frustrate me that people still think like this. That they don't have the mental capacity to think beyond the here and now and figure out a far more intelligent response. Perhaps it is because of the crap they try to teach kids in grade school these last few decades.

Ok so the student paper at the U of R is not known for its great product. But still, I expect a bit more than a recent editorial. The main point had to do with the Olympics and the various cultural conflicts involved. Said op-ed editor wrote:

This just isn't fair. I had no say in the cultural conflict four hundred years ago. It's not right for anyone to feel marginalized or as though their culture is undervalued, especially that of the Francophone. Why do I have to pay for the mistakes of English ancestry just because I speak the Language? [...] Why can't we all just get along?

Statements like this make my blood boil because of the inherent laziness and lack of care the author spoke against.

She states it is not right that anyone should be marginalized yet that is EXACTLY what she is doing with the next statement. You have to pay for those mistakes because you have benefited from them. You as an Anglophone have grown up in a society designed for YOU, where YOU have benefited from four hundred years of history on the backs of others, from the First Nations, to the French who first laid the work for settlement here in Canada. If you are unable to see this then you are guilty of continuing the issue rather than attempting to correct it.

And the catch all 'Why can't we just get along?' For exactly that reason! You obviously don't understand the issues nor care enough to learn more about them and attempt to correct them. Instead you bemoan your own fate and how unfair it is and why can't we get along. To sum it up: fuck you.

Perhaps if you better understood the issues, such as two of the three founding cultures of Canada being virtually erased from the history of our nation, or perhaps the early restrictive rule of the English upon the French of what was to become Quebec might help you to better understand the current state of affairs. You can't just erase that history and expect the animosity to just disappear. It takes active dialogue and planning to start to repair those bridges so that future relationships can continue in a more positive light. But to sit there in your place of privilege and talk about how unfair it is to you? Again I say fuck you.

It comes down to the oft quoted statement: Those who don't learn from history are forced to repeat it. You want to stop feeling the weight of four hundred years of oppressive history? Stop being one of the oppressors and fix the damn problem, not throw stupid platitudes at it.