Getting back to the OP!
Speaking as a Canadian tourist who went to New Orleans in Jan. 2009, I am very glad I got pictures of all those monuments before they get pulled down. I personally had absolutely no idea who they were made to remember, but I think if I did, I probably still would have taken the awesome pictures I got, along with one of a Mark Twain style riverboat coming out of the mist which had people raving about how beautiful it was for days.
I am totally against segregation and racial discrimination against anyone from any race or ethnicity. We have had a close black Jamaican friend for over 30 years now. He was going to spend Christmas with us, but has to have surgery on Christmas Eve. We attended his daughters' weddings, two summers ago for one, and many years ago for the other.
We have blacks in our church, although they are all from Africa. But in Alberta, when I was a chaplain, there was a sweet old 95 year old black lady who was an historical Canadian black. From an historical black community, which was not something they taught about in school - only the French and the English counted, another kind of discrimination. Esp. since the city I came from had over 25% Ukrainian orgin and almost no French, or should I say Quebeçois,which is really the kind of French language they are talking about. (My grandmother was from France and couldn't live in Quebec she hated they way they spoke so much when my grandfather brought her to Canada.)
But we do have our prejudices, native Americans being one, or so the media promotes, and East Asian, many of whom are working the low paying service jobs that Canadian teenagers do not want to work, as they did in my day. So I try not to be prejudiced. My ideal is all of us worshipping God together. I guess that would be the biblical ideal too!
PS. As for not putting out her cigarette, maybe the officer was allergic to second hand smoke? I can't even go near someone with 2nd hand smoke on their clothes, without it hurting my ability to breath. And if he wasn't, maybe he just didn't want to breath in second hand fumes? I had not heard that Sandra Bland did that. Those kind of details don't make it through the PC Canadian media filter!
Speaking as a Canadian tourist who went to New Orleans in Jan. 2009, I am very glad I got pictures of all those monuments before they get pulled down. I personally had absolutely no idea who they were made to remember, but I think if I did, I probably still would have taken the awesome pictures I got, along with one of a Mark Twain style riverboat coming out of the mist which had people raving about how beautiful it was for days.
I am totally against segregation and racial discrimination against anyone from any race or ethnicity. We have had a close black Jamaican friend for over 30 years now. He was going to spend Christmas with us, but has to have surgery on Christmas Eve. We attended his daughters' weddings, two summers ago for one, and many years ago for the other.
We have blacks in our church, although they are all from Africa. But in Alberta, when I was a chaplain, there was a sweet old 95 year old black lady who was an historical Canadian black. From an historical black community, which was not something they taught about in school - only the French and the English counted, another kind of discrimination. Esp. since the city I came from had over 25% Ukrainian orgin and almost no French, or should I say Quebeçois,which is really the kind of French language they are talking about. (My grandmother was from France and couldn't live in Quebec she hated they way they spoke so much when my grandfather brought her to Canada.)
But we do have our prejudices, native Americans being one, or so the media promotes, and East Asian, many of whom are working the low paying service jobs that Canadian teenagers do not want to work, as they did in my day. So I try not to be prejudiced. My ideal is all of us worshipping God together. I guess that would be the biblical ideal too!
PS. As for not putting out her cigarette, maybe the officer was allergic to second hand smoke? I can't even go near someone with 2nd hand smoke on their clothes, without it hurting my ability to breath. And if he wasn't, maybe he just didn't want to breath in second hand fumes? I had not heard that Sandra Bland did that. Those kind of details don't make it through the PC Canadian media filter!