Focus on the Inside

Physical appearance and being female are conjoined. When you’re a child, the cuteness of your outfit might overshadow your recitation of the alphabet; the fit of your gi may catch more attention than the precision with which you execute the kata you worked so hard to master to reach the next level in karate; your femininity may be judged before your straight As in school are; and when you’re older, your hotness will often predispose someone to assess your ability to carry on an engaging conversation. So, whether you consciously try to or not, you will pursue achieving some standard of beauty, and beat yourself up every time your jeans feel just a little bit tighter or you see a photograph of yourself.

Let’s say you fancy yourself a fairly rational person, and you commit to learning to accept yourself despite your physical flaws—and you succeed. You look in the mirror and you like what you see for the first time in your life. Problem solved, right? Wrong. Nothing else changes. You realize that while you were focusing on the outside, you forgot about the inside. You battled against those who judged your exterior, without seeing that you were guilty of the same behaviour.

I often come across statements meant to inspire, like “Accept yourself for who you are” or “Love yourself as you are.” In general, what do people really mean when they say “accept” or “love” yourself? If you’re a liar and a cheat, are you supposed to accept and love yourself as you are? Let’s be honest; such self-affirmations tend to be about body image.

I’ve been various sizes, and at no time did the shape and girth of my body affect how I lived my life or how I treated others or myself. So, while I advocate loving yourself, I reject the idea that we should accept ourselves as we are. At no point should we stop striving to be better people. And, as I see it, the key to being a better person is to recognize the interconnectedness between yourself and others, and your environment.

The notion of accepting ourselves as we are, besides reflecting superficiality, is born from a harmful individualism. When you see yourself as entirely autonomous, rather than as part of something far greater, it is easy to think negative thoughts, be driven by greed, and feel indifferent toward what is happening to others. You may even cut yourself off from the people you care for the most.

If I know anything, it is that my actions and words affect others, and if I fail to exhibit that awareness, if I don’t show compassion and love, I cannot accept myself as I am, no matter what I look like.

Covering Columbusing or Covering for Cultural Appropriation?

Is it okay to appropriate someone else’s religious festival for fun? Writing for the CBC, Adam Carter touches on this question in the article “Multicultural or ‘my culture’? Who ‘owns’ the colour festival?” Specifically, he addresses whether the event A Midsummer’s Dream, which began in 2012 and will be held for the fourth time on August 15 at Gage Park in Hamilton, Columbuses Holi. Columbusing refers to when white people “discover” something that has in fact existed for a long time.

This event is the brainchild of Mark Gowland, who aligns A Midsummer’s Dream with Holi in the celebration of “the triumph of good over evil and the renewal of spring.” He further describes his objective as follows:

[aiding] with the movement in helping humanity push forward towards a bright new future, that embodies inclusion, balance, and service. It was created to serve as a massive force for good in the community, and to create a spiritual vibration that would echo through the energies of the people who attend. We want to bring diverse group of people together and encourage them to do acts of good and make positive changes in their community. We want to honour the principles of Holi, and share that message here in Hamilton, in hopes of opening the hearts and minds of all who attend.

When I started reading the CBC article, what immediately struck me was the significance of the location of this event. Hamilton was recently ranked second on Canada’s list of cities with the highest rates of reported hate crimes. And Hamilton’s Hindu Samaj Temple, which is partnering with Gowland this year, was destroyed by arsonists in 2001, days after the 9/11 attack in the United States. Also relevant is that last year the arsonists were finally sentenced for burning down the Hindu Samaj Temple. It took more than a decade for the police to catch the suspects, and this hate crime was ultimately deemed “mischief” by the court. The members of the temple may have forgiven these men, but that does not mean that we should forget the crime or the outcome of the case.

Context matters. So, I was hoping the author would connect these dots in his article. Rather, it appears that the author’s intention in writing the piece had more to do with defending Mark Gowland than with mounting an argument for how one can borrow from a different culture without being guilty of cultural appropriation. I say this because he does not mention what Holi is until the final section of the article. The focus is instead on showing the reader that in researching the article, he reached out to the Hindu Samaj Temple management and McMaster University professor Chandrima Chakraborty.

The event’s website states that Gowland sought the advice of the Hindu Samaj Temple before launching the event in 2012, and the CBC article echoes this. But highlighting the mere fact that one obtains “permission” to hold a celebration from those whom it views as the owners of the celebration—which is problematic in itself—is an insufficient counter-argument against the accusation of Columbusing someone else’s culture. This is not a simple haters gonna hate situation. The truth is that Canadians are routinely shut down when they try to highlight racism in this country, thus preventing any further discussion on the matter. This is a real problem in Canada that is preventing us from living up to our commitment to multiculturalism.

In seeking to defend the event’s creator and overlooking the context of the setting of the event, the article is unwittingly dismissive. What is the point of borrowing from a tradition that celebrates the triumph of good over evil and renewal if you don’t acknowledge the local problems that need to be overcome?

Canada is a multicultural country, and Hamilton is a diverse city; we should come together and open hearts and minds. So why not discuss the significance of bringing people together in a city where some inhabitants are attacked for the colour of their skin and/or their religious affiliation? I’m curious as to why the Hindu Samaj Temple has only this year become a partner in the event, and how this might influence A Midsummer’s Dream.

The most important question is not who “owns” Holi, as the article’s title suggests, but how one goes about promoting multiculturalism and genuinely trying to understand each other.

Accepting Ugly Truths

Like countless others, I grew up watching The Cosby Show and Fat Albert. And for thirty years, the former remained my favourite TV show, re-watched with delight for years in re-runs on television and on DVD. I idolized Bill Cosby. I even saw him do stand-up live a little more than a decade ago and laughed myself to tears for the duration of the show.

But I have since had to accept that my childhood idol is a monster.

After the news broke this week that Cosby had himself admitted to obtaining Quaaludes to drug and have sex with rape women, and drugging at least one woman for this purpose, I thought his relentless defenders would admit that they needed to rethink their position. Thankfully, some have. However, the overall response seems to have changed very little. Some, like Whoopi Goldberg, still defend him, arguing that one is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Cosby’s admission of guilt while under oath isn’t close enough for Whoopi, I guess.

The fact that Whoopi Goldberg has allowed herself to become attached to this story in the media helps me bolster my argument. Thanks, Whoopi! She is another actor/comedian whose work I enjoyed as a kid. I saw The Color Purple probably before I was old enough to, and who didn’t love Sister Act and Ghost?! But that was Whoopi Goldberg acting; I never knew the real Whoopi Goldberg. Now that she is on TV and social media daily, with the ability to share her thoughts with the public, she can show us more than the characters she has portrayed on screen—and she’s not very impressive. Remember when she defended Justin Bieber for using the n-word, because she felt that it doesn’t have the same meaning in Canada as it does in the U.S.? Bill Cosby, too, might have written timeless material and played a convincing dad character, but we, his viewers, never knew his character because we enjoyed his work. I’m not sure if his defenders are clinging to their cherished memories of Heathcliff Huxtable or they just can’t admit that they need to change their position.

Was it easy to admit that my childhood idol is a monster? Of course not. But it had to be done. Life is about change. As you age, you realize this more and more. If you can’t learn and grow, and admit when you’re wrong or ignorant about something, then you’re not evolving as a human being. Our basic human nature should cause us to feel outrage and disgust in response to dozens of women accusing a man of sexually assaulting them.

The fact that there are people who continue to find it easier to question the women’s motives than accept that Cosby might be a vile man says something about North American culture.

Much has been written about rape culture, and fortunately this term has finally entered the mainstream discourse, making people question what they see and hear around them and generating discussion about what consent means. Thank you, feminists! By the way, the concept of consent is why I put a strikethrough through that text above, in case it didn’t click when you read it. Conflating sex and rape is part of why we still need to talk about consent and teach the ignorant—youth and adults alike—what it means. I had a conversation with someone about Cosby a few days ago, and I uttered the words, “He admitted to drugging women so he could have his way with them.” As those words came out of my mouth, I realized that the phrase “have one’s way with” is a euphemism that English speakers throw around like it’s nothing, and this shows how murky the understanding of consensual sex vs. sexual assault can be. Here is a great explanation of what consent is:

We tend to look outward rather than inward. It is easy to say things like, “Women are treated so badly there [insert the name of any so-called developing—read non-white-dominated—nation].” Introspection is hard work, but it is necessary. We must do it both as individuals and as societies. Besides the fact that the accusations of roughly 40 women don’t matter to everyone, the fact that people can make jokes about Cosby raping women, or say nonsensical things like “This happened so many years ago. Move on!” (a comment I saw in response to an article posted on Facebook) suggests that we have a cultural problem.

Let us not forget that marital rape wasn’t deemed a criminal act in Canada until 1983, and it wasn’t until 1993 that it was outlawed in all 50 U.S. states! How civilized are we, really? And honestly, is there ever a time when a woman’s accusation isn’t met with questions about her character or behaviour? Yet some men seem to take it personally when another man is accused of rape, as in Bill Cosby’s case, as though the default position—in complete contrast to how women are looked at—is that one should naturally assume a man’s character to be good.

I have learned in the last year. I have learned that I used to idolize a monster; I have learned that it is okay that I used to idolize a monster, because I didn’t know that he wasn’t worthy of my idolatry; I have learned that a woman’s word is still of less value than a man’s in this culture; I have learned that education about sex and consent is still lacking and is absolutely essential; I have learned that rape culture is insidious and must be identified and challenged on an ongoing basis; and I have learned that it is important for these stories to come out, if for no other reason that the reactions to them shine the spotlight on the individuals and systems that either tacitly support patriarchy or utterly despise women.

Don’t “move on” from this. Grow up and have difficult discussions with yourself and others about unpleasant and inconvenient truths, like the fact that Bill Cosby is a monster who got off on raping unconscious women and has been getting away with it for decades because women’s choices and bodies are not necessarily their own.