Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Things That Bug

An exchange with Shelly included her statement that the question "How did s/he die?" is unwelcome when the way a person died isn't an essential element of the story.

My reply was that such unnecessary questions are common in many areas. A baby is born. Boy or girl? How much did it weigh? Two questions that aren't all that important in the short term, particularly when you don't know the family well, but the first one at the very least is asked every time.

And we can get beyond questions to statements. A woman's body is found in a ditch, and the media report invariably includes the adjective "Caucasian" or Aboriginal." Why? A dead woman is a dead woman.

Or there are the 1200 missing and murdered Aboriginal women, a shocking number whether they are Aboriginal women or not. In this case they are, and that points to something terrible in our society, but I can't help wondering if the RCMP and the federal government would have moved sooner to try to prevent the situation and/or catch the killers if the word "Aboriginal" hadn't been there to describe the victims. You know if they hadn't been Aboriginal women, the entire population would have been freaking out and we'd have seen some kind of action a lot sooner than this.

I'm neither a Conservative nor a Liberal voter, but am enjoying watching Trudeau make his moves. So far so good, mister, or as I am wont to say, "You go, boy!"

Another of Shelly's Christmas creations, on the step.