2) For this blog assignment, I would like you to research and summarize one of the state or governing activities, such as The Royal Proclamation 1763, the Indian Act 1876, Immigration Act 1910, or the Multiculturalism Act 1988 – you choose the legislation or policy or commission you find most interesting. Write a blog about your findings and in your conclusion comment on whether or not your findings support Coleman’s argument about the project of white civility.

Fore ward:

To begin: watch this video

Funny isn’t it? Some might say cute. Some a burst of nationalism.

However- is that what it is to be Canadian? Prancing around in Mounty outfits talking about maple syrup and beavers? We all know that that is just a play on our stereotypes… as we live in a multicultural society and therefore what is “Canadian” is completely up for grabs.

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 Multiculturalism Act of 1988

The Canadian Multiculturalism Act of 1988 was passed to protect and enable Canada’s broad spectrum of citizens and their respective cultures. The act is supposed to govern the government’s decisions as they navigate the laws of a country that is blessed to have a diverse group of human beings living it in. The laws stem from protecting the individual to mass rights, while enabling the social, economic, political and cultural rights/freedoms. They are an amazing set of laws that mean that our country can be a fruitful and educational place to live as we can experience so much of the world right here on our soil!

However, section D was the one that stood out to me:

“recognize the existence of communities whose members share a common origin and their historic contribution to Canadian society, and enhance their development” (Canadian Multicultural Act).

When I look at the relationship between the First Nations and the Canadian Government I see nothing but a broken system where both sides are not intentionally moving forward (yes, I know that most will disagree with me on this). However, and please excuse me while I rant, any relationship therapist will tell you that hanging on to past hurts does not promote health and healing. What happened to the Aboriginals of Canada was tragic, I cannot and will not deny that. But holding onto said past does not help either- Canadians should never forget, but we also have such potential to move forward and create a better country.

I would love to see a day where we as a COUNTRY full of LOTS of cultures can ALL move forward and develop this beautiful land that we ALL call home.

Okay, rant over – sorry if that was hard to get through and I do not blame you if you chose to skip over it all together.

Back to Section D – the part that stood out to me was the sentence “enhance their development”. I think it is pretty obvious that when we look at the Aboriginal Peoples today that there is some under lying issue-which no body can give me a straight/exact answer to – that is preventing their people/culture from developing. (If someone can educate me further on this, PLEASE respond in the comment box!!!!)

Coleman’s Argument:

A key line stood out to me regarding Coleman’s argument: “White Canadian culture is obsessed and organized by its obsession, with the problem of its own civility” (Coleman 5). When I look at the Multicultural Act, made by a white government, I can see how we like to categorize our country. We made a series of laws to demonstrate how we, a civilized and multicultural country, can have so many cultures as we created an ACT to govern them.

And yes, the act was made with the intention to protect – but are we now so obsessed with multiculturalism we no longer know what our culture actually is?

Works Cited

“Canadian Multiculturalism Act (R.S.C., 1985, C. 24 (4th Supp.)).” Legislative Services Branch. Government of Canada, n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2015. <http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C%2D18.7/page-1.html#h-3>.

Coleman, Daniel. White Civility: The Literary Project of English Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006.

Gunnarolla. “Canadian, Please | Gunnarolla & Julia Bentley.” YouTube. YouTube, 24 June 2009. Web. 26 Feb. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWQf13B8epw>.

Read “Coyote Makes a Deal with King of England”, in Living by Stories. Read it silently, read it out loud, read it to a friend, and have a friend read it to you. See if you can discover how this oral syntax works to shape meaning for the story by shaping your reading and listening of the story. Write a blog about this reading/listening experience that provides references to the story.

So, this question grabbed my attention immediately. As an English Literature student, I am forced *ahem* privileged to read thousands of pages in one year. However, so much of my reading experience is defined as simple, quick, and get the basic information, rather than ‘slowly work your way through and pay attention’. I might be throwing myself under the bus here… but hey, I was always told that honesty was a good thing! (Plus… I don’t think I’d ever get to go outside if I read 5 courses worth of material at a slow pace….. oye….)

There are some key differences is the oral versus optical versions in “Coyote Makes a Deal with King of England”. First and foremost though, please read through the few notes I made about each experience before getting to read my ‘big conclusion’. 

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Silently

I read through the story fairly quickly – I suppose I am just used to seeing a text and powering through it to get the basic ‘gist’ of the plot and its’ points. I found the beginning was hard to understand, I did not really comprehend the chasing of the boat and the fog part until the Coyote went to England and explained to the King how his men have been coming onto his land. Then it clicked for me that this was a colonial tale.

The story really picked up pace and I found the voice of the narrative changed when we got to around 1850, and I enjoyed the rest of the narrative.

Out loud

Really hard to read, the sentence structure is awful and it you really get a sense of the broken english. (Felt like I sounded similar to this kid). When the Coyote gets to England, that starkly broken english feel changes. I experienced ‘better english sentences’, albeit they were not perfect. Then it switches back after they discuss the treaty.

It was really hard to read out loud – the words felt foreign and disconnected to the story. Probably how the Aboriginals feel in regards to the Canada’s story. That they are a part of a story that doesn’t reflect them, as it is heavily determined by the settlers.

To A Friend

My sister (yes, my sister is my friend- big sister isn’t so uncool I guess 😉 ) stared at me and laughed as I started to read. “What the heck is this” she commented. “Sarah, you gotta let me read this – it is just as hard for me to say the words in this order… feels like I am reading a foreign language!” I replied.

So, once we got going… it got a little bit better. I found that I had to read slower than when I was reading it out loud to myself, because I  r e a l l y  had to annunciate so that she could follow this confusing combination of english words. She stopped me a couple times to clarify – and finally we made it to the end. “What a weird story”  was her final comment. I told her that she had to read it back to me… “oh joy” she replied*.

*Just FYI, we are British and therefore heavily sarcastic… so don’t read her as a bratty young adult… she was very happy to do this for me*

Friend Reads to Me

I was shocked at how different this story seemed. By now I knew what was coming, but sitting there listening to Sarah read the story back to me in its’ awkward English was very strange. I felt like I had forgotten how to speak English, and that is why I was having such a hard time understanding her. The story sort of felt like how western culture impersonates the Indian accent. Where this clip of Jim Carrey telling the story is quite hilarious, the way that he phrases his sentences/ the order of his words reminds me of how this story is written. It is in English – but does not reflect our ‘proper’ style. However, I found that listening to the story was way way way more exciting than reading it myself… maybe I should invest in some audio books……..

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The oral versus optical versions of this story demonstrate to me how differently we can experience history. When it is read aloud to us, we can sit back and let the story sweep us away into it’s depths. When we read it ourselves, we can get swept away, but more often than not (as I learned from this experience) we wind up focusing on the structure of the words and not their purpose. Rather than just letting the words tell me the story, I got caught up on where they were placed and missed out on bits of it.

Perhaps we can start to tell our own histories in an oral manner, instead of texting, face booking, emailing and blogging them all the time?

So, what do you think? Can you say your story out loud, and how differently would it be?

Works Cited:

Jim Carry – Canada. Perf. Jim Carry. Youtube, 20 Mar. 2008. Web. 11 Feb. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ic3xNfEP_o&spfreload=10>.

3 Year Old Reading Dr Seuss. Youtube, 12 Jan. 2011. Web. 11 Feb. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzIZ1415nuM&spfreload=10>.

So, why does King create dichotomies for us to examine these two creation stories? Why does he emphasize the believability of one story over the other — as he says, he purposefully tells us the “Genesis” story with an authoritative voice, and “The Earth Diver” story with a storyteller’s voice. Why does King give us this analysis that depends on pairing up oppositions into a tidy row of dichotomies (divisions)? What is he trying to show us?

King uses these dichotomies to demonstrate how western culture love their opposing forces: “Rich/poor, white/black, strong/weak, right/wrong, culture/nature, male/female, written/oral, civilized/barbaric, success/failure, individual/communal” and how “we trust easy oppositions. We are suspicious of complexities, distrustful of contradictions, fearful of enigmas” (King 308). King uses the opposition between “The Earth Diver” story and the Biblical “Creation” narrative to arguably demonstrate the superiority of the ‘white man’ versus the ‘native’. As he states in his book, Native people enjoyed laughing, so the comical components to their stories are enjoyed by them but they still understand the moral undertones; whereas the European listener only thinks of it as comedy but with no substance (King 277-286).

When I think of our comedy today though, there are enough comedians who point out the absurd actions in our world through humour – so what has changed in our cultural narrative that allows this? Is it because we have become increasingly secular and therefore humour in storytelling is now how we communicate rather than through the authoritative voice?

By creating this binary between the native narrative and the biblical, King causes a sense of opposition in the next -a kind of them or us. So, as believer living in Canada I am faced with this awkward dilemma of either condemning another culture’s creation narrative because I believe that mine is the right one, or accepting it at the expense of feeling that it weakens my own. I would argue however that King is calling his modern audience out on this sort of thinking. Not that I in any way believe that ‘everyone is right’, as I am convinced that that leaves too many loop holes and unanswered questions (in the same way that one can only know what is evil by knowing what is good). So, what is King getting at? I am not convinced that a re-hashing of arguments about creation narratives legitimacy is what King wants, but more how our assumptions and human desires to understand everything cause us to discredit other culture’s stories when we feel that they do not hold up to our ‘intellectual’ standards.

In would appear to me that King’s analysis also creates this opposition to educate us on what happens when different cultures blend. We can see from our history that the European culture took over the Native one, but look around us today – is the Native culture not making a come back, even if it is only a small one at the moment? For example, I attended Immaculate Conception down on Dunbar and 28th Avenue which had a large number of Musqueam children in its’ attendance. I remember that my school would hold a week long educational program once a year during which we would learn about their historical stories, methods of cooking and saving food, their music, and how they would sow and make baskets. I really enjoyed those times – especially Bannock Bread <3 (what I especially enjoyed about this video is how she makes the bread from memory, including measurements, and translates it into our measured and calculated western ways of cooking! Amazing! I would not know what 4 cups of flour would look like….). And from all the blending of cultures that Canada experiences, do we not now have more cultures with their own creation stories all claiming that theirs is the correct one?

Now, I realize I may have left my reader feeling rather cheated as I am not going to delve into the philosophical debate about religion and what is ‘truth’ or ‘right’ as that is not the question – if you have some strong feelings either way and would like to share them, I warmly invite your thoughts into my conversation! 

So… with all that chaos being said – what do you think King is trying to say with his binary-creating analysis of creation stories?

Works Cited:

How To Make Indian Bannock W/Gramma Glenda. Perf. Gramma Glenda. N.p., 12 Mar. 2013. Web. 5 Jan. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpw7M6a38b8>.

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough:Anansi Press. 2003. Print.

Michael McIntyre – God Save the Queen. Perf. Michael McIntyre. N.p., 12 July 2013. Web. 5 Jan. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjkHpJuifg4&spfreload=10>.

After reading a few assignments from fellow classmates Charlotte, Devon, Jasmine, and Jessica I realized how privileged I was to be a literary witness to these women’s stories of their experience of home. Home is such a beautiful and sacred thing, but it also made me acutely aware that not everyone in this world has positive associations with home.

I found that the most common understanding of home was that it is a place within you that is built up of memories, scents, food, community, togetherness and not a literal structure. I found this amusing because my reaction to the last blog’s prompt was the same – home is inside of you.

The memories component stretch from stories of family vacations, to difference churches, to smells of home cooked meals, to smells of the air outside. It was so fascinating to see how much of our memory is compiled by all of our senses – touch, sight, sound, taste, smell – what amazing creatures humans are!

It really struck me how internal home was to people. It wasn’t just the place they live(d) in but a combination of everything associated with your physical home – the people, the stories you’ve shared turned into memories, the ‘one-ness’ of the home with family/loved ones.

This makes me consider every song that there is about home might further perpetuating the understanding that home = your house, when, after reading these blog posts, home is warmth of memories surrounding it. Below are some songs which reflect both the house as a home, and memories as a home. I find that they all install a sense of nostalgia and ‘better-ness’ about going back home – either we romanticize the past or we don’t realize how good we have it until we decide to leave ;)! Either way, they are great songs!

Tim McGraw – Meanwhile back at Mama’s 

Phillips Phillips – Home

Edward Shape & The Magnetic Zeros – Home 

Gabrielle Aplin – Home

The Lists:

Assumptions:

Home is where you live when it is actually the memories that construct your emotional connections to ‘home’. Therefore, you can take home with you anywhere because home is in you

Values:

Community, love, togetherness

Stories:

Family trips/vacations/time together

These common threads all have different examples per person but I think it is very beautiful how all these similar stories have different people, places, and time – it creates a bond between one another and at the same time, a great amount of difference.

So, maybe after all that… home is where the heart is?

Works Cited:

“Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – Home [2009].” YouTube. YouTube, 19 Aug. 2009. Web. 04 Feb. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjFaenf1T-Y&spfreload=10>.

“Gabrielle Aplin – Home.” YouTube. YouTube, 9 June 2013. Web. 04 Feb. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mVbdjec0pA&spfreload=10>.

“Phillip Phillips – Home.” YouTube. YouTube, 2 Aug. 2014. Web. 04 Feb. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoRkntoHkIE&spfreload=10>.

“Tim McGraw – Meanwhile Back At Mama’s Ft. Faith Hill.” YouTube. YouTube, 26 June 2014. Web. 04 Feb. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or-Lam5tPHc&spfreload=10>.