Racism Peanut

 I'm Back!

It's been a while. And there really is no reason other than every once in a while, you need a break from the routine. 

I also spent last week in Newfoundland with my mom and daughter. We spent the week living within our own schedule (for the most part) and stopping whenever we felt like it to see whatever sparked our interest. One stop was a shipwreck, another for an ice cream cone. 

Whenever I spend time somewhere other than where I live I wonder whether I could live there or not. I think we all do some form of this. New places are just that, new. We are on vacation and have the time to poke around instead of the seemingly endless race of routine when we are living our normal lives. 

Vacation places don't have the same issues. Unless you do research or watch the news where you are staying, you don't really know what is going on there. The politics of home and the difficulties in the local area are lost to us. 

So when we think about relocating, are we thinking about the area? Or the simplicity of something different?

I currently live in a dry, and sometimes too hot place. We are close to the mountain, which is nice, but I am more of an ocean person. Then there is the political side of where I hang my hat. To keep it simple, I hate it here as far as politics go. We have a leader that stepped down, only he didn't. Our leading party cares about themselves and what they can do for themselves, not what is best for the people who live here. 

We have a provincial election coming up and it looks like the person who thinks that cancer patients are to blame for their illness stands a good shot at winning the election. There is an ongoing rift in this country. And that divide just keeps growing wider and wider. There is a certain type of person, a small part of the political landscape that up until the great orange one was elected across the border realized that some things should not be said out in the open. 

They knew that the hatred they felt had no place in this province. That the narrow-minded xenophobic view that they had was one of the past. Or at least one that did nothing to improve the province. Growing up I knew that these people existed. We learned about the "peanut of racism" in school in the '90s.  It was an area of Alberta where there was a concentration of white supremacist groups. Like a noxious gas though, their ideas have spread, and thanks to the internet and its anonymous networks, it isn't just locals that have influence anymore. 

These are the people we should be fighting against. Our province is on a precipice. We can either choose to move forward and make this place somewhere we don't desperately want to leave or leave it to those who want to move us 75 years back. People who want to continue having this province be a joke and somewhere that people think of with black mirth and derision. 

This province can be great, it has been great. There are people here worth fighting with and fighting for. We can't let those who are full of hate for what is different win. It's time to stand up and use your voice. Let's save this place from becoming a shipwreck.