Taunting Canada. Comedy Central's Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn show was rough on Canada last nite. Apparently a poll of Canadian opinion made the news (tho I didn't see it), in which some unspecified but significant number of Canadians expressed dislike for the United States. Host Colin Quinn reacted indignantly and derisively: "Who cares what Canada thinks, anyway?" And Patrice O'Neal said that Canada ought to be "the 51st state". Ralphie May said that Canadians may not much like us, but Mexicans do. And Colin added that if we made immigration as hard for Canadians as for Mexicans, Canadians might appreciate us.
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Americans have very mixed feelings about our near neighbors — when we think of them at all. Most Americans regard Canadians as basically just like us, so pay no more attention to Canada than to, say North Dakota — until the Canadian government or a public-opinion poll says something unpleasant about us.
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Part of the problem, of course, is that Canadians dislike being taken for granted, and know that they can get attention by criticizing us. They also feel the need to prove that they are NOT like us, even tho they know in their heart that they are. So they grasp at straws and build them into multiroom huts, veritable straw palaces of nationalism erected on grand molehills of difference.
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Many Canadians outgrow the years of nationalist indoctrination they are processed thru by the schools to realize that the 'world of difference' they were told existed between themselves and Americans is a load of crap, and maintaining a separate national existence costs them a lot of money and opportunities, causes needless discord with their neighbors, and leaves them feeling left out and unimportant. So they become "continentalists" or, 'worse', annexationists who agree with Patrice O'Neal that Canada should join the Union — albeit as several states, not just one.
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I know some Canadians who have had trouble gaining the right to work in the U.S., but the border hasn't seemed to cause problems for unemployed actors like Michael J. Fox when he was just starting out, and there are huge numbers of Canadians in U.S. news media who have taken some of the best jobs our society offers, from Peter Jennings (who refused U.S. citizenship for over 30 years before finally coming on board) to John Roberts and Keith Morrison and Arthur Kent (the "Scud Stud") to the aging Morley Safer. How did they get past immigration?
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Still, Canadian seniors who'd like to retire to the Sunbelt and young Canadians who'd like to pursue careers in the huge job market of the United States do run afoul of the INS. The border does matter. So there are at any given time a number of small organizations and websites across Canada promoting either Canada-wide accession to the Union or statehood for their own province, no matter what the rest of Canada does. One snazzy site, based in Winnipeg, in the Prairie Provinces, favors admission of all of Canada, as several states: www.unitednorthamerica.org. A website in Ontario favors statehood for Ontario without regard to the rest of Canada (tho its organizer believes that if Ontario goes, everything goes, because Ontario is the keystone of Canada): www.ontariousa.org. And a website in British Columbia advocates statehood for BC, whether the rest of Canada joins or not: www.annexationbc.com.
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They have allies in the Expansionist Party of the United States, which favors admission of Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico — you name it — and in an interorganizational alliance, United States International ("USI") that seeks to become a central registry of all statehood-oriented organizations. I serve as Chairman of the Expansionist Party and webmaster for USI — tho I shamefacedly admit to being remiss in updating the USI site to show an additional Philippine organization, two Taiwan organizations — that's right, many Filipinos want in to the Union, and some far-sighted people in Taiwan want their island to join the Union too — as well as AnnexationBC (which hasn't formally joined yet).
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Mexicans are the neighbors more on our mind, because there are a lot more of them here, and they stand out, whereas Canadians fit right in, as to be virtually undetectable. Some Canadian nationalists have played silly games about being able to tell Canadians from Americans on sight, but that is of course nonsense. If Canadians drop the one or two speech peculiarities for which they are known, e.g., use of "eh?" where we might say "you know" or "don't you think", and a pronunciation of OU in "out" that is more like OA in "boat", nobody can tell Canadians apart from Americans. That is the only reason Canadian actors can be hired as members of American television and movie families without seeming hopelessly miscast.
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Chicano comic Paul Rodriguez years ago did a routine in which he claimed there are as many Canadian illegals here as Mexican, but when the police approach them, they just say 'Oh, we're here on vacation, don't you know.' So "La Migra" carts the Mexicans off to a bus headed south of the border, while Canadian illegals are left alone. Most of the Mexicans deported on sight stand out racially, whereas Canadians do not — tho of course in East L.A. Canadians would stand out like a sore thumb while recently arrived Mexican illegals would fit right in. That leads me to the second part of last nite's Tough Crowd.
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The show moved on to one of its favorite topics, race, as, refreshingly, it often does. Patrice O'Neal (who is black) made the silly comment that black Americans top the list of oppressed people around the world, a notion that Colin (white) naturally ridiculed. I hasten to point out that black Americans are understood outside the U.S. to be (as the Paris-based expat magazine Jeune Afrique ("Young Africa") observed decades ago) the richest and most influential black community on Earth. And that was long before Colin Powell became Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice became National Security Adviser, and Oprah Winfrey became one of the most powerful people in television.
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Aside from some soreheads who have no perspective on the way most people in the world live, American blacks know how good they have it. They have had for decades both the right and the wherewithal to leave the U.S. for Africa, Jamaica, or anyplace else they think they'd be treated better, but almost nobody has left. News reports from Liberia — a country established in 1821 by freed U.S. slaves — of dictatorship and hideous violence by rebels (e.g., amputation of teenagers' arms) match other reports of astonishing violence from neighboring Sierra Leone's civil war, the Congo's civil war, the Rwanda massacre, etc. Black Americans have better sense than to rush into that — even tho they could create a hugely important trading network joining black Africa to the black diaspora in the U.S. and West Indies (more on that some other time).
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A black comedienne I saw on TV once, years ago, said she has been to Europe, but "came right back", because it is not her country. And she's been to Africa, but "came right back", because that's not her country either. Colin Quinn should get her on his show to shake Patrice O'Neal out of his paranoid delusions about black Americans being "oppressed".
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I live in Newark, New Jersey, a city that is only about 55% black but has a black mayor, many black city councilmen (if not an actual black majority), a black superintendent of schools, etc., etc. Most of NJTransit's bus drivers in Newark are black, as are people in occupations of all kinds and levels of difficulty. You can drive thru well-repaired streets past well-kept, tastefully landscaped private homes in Vailsburg and other predominantly black areas to see black Newarkers living good, solid, middle-class lives — the American dream in living color.
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If Patrice O'Neal is oppressed, maybe it's because of where he's living, and he should move to Newark. But he should leave the chip on his shoulder at the city line.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 9:30 PM