low-budget production

I had a bit of an epiphany last night and decided to make it into a 4 or 5 part mini-series. Each night I'll present a different topic, then if it's not obvious by the end of the series, I'll illustrate the parallels I see from each one, that seem to form a pattern. Tonight's topic will be racism.

Racism is supposed to be dead right? Well let's take a look. Legally imposed racial segregation is long gone, but in many places it's been replaced with self-segregation and more subtle boundaries. The natives have their reserves, the blacks have their inner-cities, and don't forget Chinatown. Now in some cases, it's the individuals choice to stick with their own nationality, but in one way or another, I think there's subtle messages being sent by society saying 'We don't want you here'. You hear it all the time. Take a neutral statement like "There's a lot of natives in that town". Carries quite the connotation doesn't it? It's a very complex situation, but there's racism afoot all over the palce, it's just better disguised. The native reserve I saw up close near Burns Lake was one of the most depressing settlements I've ever seen. Does that mean it's because the natives are lazy slobs? No, it's more likely the case that they see very little money from the government to make flowerbeds, plant trees, build benches, etc. But then take a look at Whistler and it's got funding coming out it's asshole. Now of course, natives don't have to pay tax on gas and other benefits if they have their status card, but I really don't think that makes things even by anyone's standards. And I'm pretty sure blacks aren't inherntly criminal, yet 1 out of 3 black men are in jail.

I don't think I've dealt with this issue as well as I'd hoped, but I do have one final interesting example. The punk rock scene is supposed to be filled with chants of equal rights, ending war, etc etc. You'd think it'd be a pretty accepting scene. But I think I can count the number of non-caucasians I've seen at punk shows, on one hand. I think racism is like a fire that's been extinguished above surface. The smokes gone, but the roots are still on fire. Racism is built into the system now. Sure things are better than they used to be, but at least back then, you knew who exactly what you were fighting against. The next step at fighting racism is going to be a lot less visible then it was in the 50's.

Thus ends episode one. Hopefully, I can be a little more articulate as this series goes on, or I'll never in that juno I as hoping for.