The Great White Nope

“I wouldn’t call Canada racist. I’m not being nice when I say that, I’m being polite. Canadians are like that. That kind of polite where you hear a racial slur and pretend it didn’t happen. Or you see some bro get too close to a woman and you walk right by because it’s not your affair. This is not a confrontational country. I remember one recent Toronto subway ride where a white workman fresh off some job site, boots muddy, reflector bib on, interrupted two men — one brown, one white — who were about to brawl. You could feel the entire car getting progressively more tense as their voices escalated. But the workman got between them. ‘Come on guys, we’re all tired. Chill,’ he said. And they did. And when it was my turn to get off, I thanked him. ‘It’s just what you do,’ he said. I assume he was from out of town.”

Soraya Roberts – Longreads – December 2019

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We Stand on Guard for Bieber

“How Canadian is Justin Bieber? How to be something which is defined by what it is not — not American, for instance? A better question might be, how American is Justin Bieber? What makes him tell Complex, ‘You see a dude who’s successful and he’s doing what he loves and people don’t take too well to that sometimes. I’d probably be the same way if I was in Canada, seeing this kid driving around in all these fancy cars and shit.’ He does seem to embody the American dream, coming from little and becoming, well, this kid driving around in all these fancy cars and shit. If the Canadian dream is not that then what is it? Is there even one?”

 

Soraya Roberts – Longreads – August 2018