B.C. Conservative candidate uses racist slur for Indigenous Peoples in interview
Conservative Leader John Rustad has condemned the statements by Marina Sapozhnikov, the party’s candidate in Juan de Fuca-Malahat
Holy shit, "uses racist slur" puts it mildly.
No kidding. Pretty upsetting and eye opening, especially as she only finished 23 votes behind her NDP opponent.
They fought each other all the time.
Right, Europeans have never fought each other or others for frivolous reasons
Totally different. They did it while being white.
Of course not! White people never get violet, upset at each, commit crimes against each other, assault each other, and are just the epitome of politeness 24/7.
Yes, but you see, the frivolous killing of each other was in context of a legal framework. It's completely different! /Sarcasm
When there are military elites writing about how battle is important and joyful and "[N]o man is worth a thing till he has given and gotten blow on blow", closing with "Barons, pawn your castles, and your villages, and your cities before you stop making war on one another" and how his Lord "has lived in peace too long", without particularly sticking out from the spirit of his times, you just know they were the most peaceful and civilised people ever.
What the fuck is going on that these bigots are not only in power, but emboldened to say heinous shit?
There's a not insignificant number of people that share their beliefs and are tired of hiding that fact. Combined with a decent number of single issue voters that don't give a shit about anything other than their own issue.
Rustad is a confirmed piece of shit for not firing here instantly
My standards for conservatives are so damn low that the fact that he said the whole bit about how her views don't reflect the views of the party made me feel somewhat relieved. I realize this is simply platitudes and is nothing more than damage control to retain votes.
I do agree though, she should be fired and barred from politics. What an abhorrent thing to say.
The standard for the cons these days is to say nothing or even double down.
Here in Alberta a candidate compared trans kids to literal feces. She was disavowed by the Conservatives for a time, STILL got elected (as an independent), and earlier this month the Conservatives welcomed her back into the fold after a vote. These people almost never suffer actual consequences for their hatred.
Edit: I ended on a grim note, so I'd like to say I have hope situations like these and our responses will get better with time. I think generations that grew up with the Internet are going to be more used to/accepting of novel experiences and opinions simply by virtue of seeing a world's worth of them. Of course that's not to say either being open-minded or not is restricted to age, just a trend I've noticed. There's some data to support this, but we'll have to see how it evolves over time.
Yeah I've seen that.. Embarrassing that someone like that got elected. Embarrassing for Albertans that they would elect someone like that. My experience of Alberta over BC, especially Victoria, is it was much more conservative, and tended to be more racist. I spent some time working in Edmonton, and I saw more racism in a year there than in my 30 years in Victoria.
I agree with your statement about things getting better. There seems to be a lot less racism in younger people than old.
If one thing history has proven is that natives were never more savage than the colonists that took their lands.
The slur was savages
Pretty mild and not worth the headline compared to the rest of the comment
Nah, in this "modern" time using the term savages is a way to dehumanized them, and push a view point that the white man helped them...when clearly that is not the case.
I think it's about context. When Dennis Reynolds in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia goes on an insane tirade calling his friend group, "IDIOTS! SAVAGES!" it's a clear indication that their actions are reckless to his perceived way of the world.
On the other hand, when Marina Sapozhnikov says it, she says it with things like,
that before Europeans came to North America, First Nations Peoples “didn’t have any sophisticated laws. They were savages. They fought each other all the time.”
When the Vancouver Island University student interviewing Sapozhnikov challenged the candidate, she replied: “Not 100 per cent savages, maybe 90 per cent savages.”
During the hour-long interview, a recording of which was given to Postmedia News late Thursday, Sapozhnikov spoke about her concerns with Indigenous history courses being taught in B.C. universities, her view that B.C.’s adoption of the UN Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act renders every non-Indigenous British Columbian a “second-rate citizen,” and said that “90 per cent of Indigenous people use drugs.”
indicating that she believes that at least 90% of indigenous people were drug abusing savages. It's not even using it to depict specific actions as archaic, which would be in poor taste but at least more understandable (example: the Mayans sacrifice rituals being described as savage, indicating that a practice in the culture is vicious or merciless). Compared to calling 90% of indigenous people savage is very different - at no point in the article does she even try to claim that she was talking about specific practices. She literally says, "the didn't even have an alphabet".
She clarified that she didn’t mean that Indigenous Peoples in the present are “savages” but “hundreds of years ago.”
Later, Sapozhnikov, a former family doctor, said: “When I used to see Indigenous people as patients, I wasn’t able to talk to them. Because they don’t talk. As soon as I’d ask just, sometimes, very innocent questions, they just shut up. They don’t talk.”
Yeah, I wonder why they wouldn't want to talk to you, lady.
Mild enough that it should have been in the headline. Not mild enough that there shouldn't be outrage at it.