Dear editor:
I enjoyed Warren Harbeck’s column this week. I just had to respond to one of the comments.
To the German-descended lady who asks if I care, yes! It is wonderful to know where people hail from, or where their parents and/or grandparents and/or great and great, greats and so on hail from. Being nondiscriminatory, i.e. not mean to people who are different, does not mean that we should whitewash (or brownwash or greenwash) everything dear and colourful and wonderful. Multicultural means that I love spatzle, perogies, bannock, sushi, dim sum, curries, kulfi and baklava, and all the music, traditions, religions, histories, and ways that go with those.
Do I care that you’re German? Damn straight I do! Am I interested to learn whether the black guy I met at a party comes from Uganda, or Haiti, or South Africa? You’re darn right I do! Those are vastly different places. I do not know them well enough to distinguish typical facial features between those nationalities, but I am interested to hear the story of how they got here and what life was like before.
Am I interested to hear whether someone from Morley is from the Bearspaw, Chiniki, or Wesley band? Absolutely! Because again, that gives me some context for further questions and to learn each other’s stories.
Chris Hadfield, when he was speaking here last year, said that he likes to tell people at cocktail parties, when they ask him what he does, that he’s an engineer (not that he just got back from commanding the International Space Station). You know why? Because he wants to hear their story. He says everyone has done something heroic.
Just like I am interested to hear how your German ancestors got here. These stories are precious and make up the fabric of our society. Please don’t erase all that glory for some misguided notion of political correctness.
Christa Bedwin
