View Single Post
  #61  
Old Posted Aug 28, 2017, 4:19 PM
hipster duck's Avatar
hipster duck hipster duck is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: Toronto
Posts: 4,109
Quote:
Originally Posted by esquire View Post
In fairness, things change very quickly on social issues... in 1995, the thought of gay marriage would have existed for the most part on the fringes of society. Even within the NDP and Liberal parties it certainly wasn't mainstream.

A decade later it was legal, two decades later and no one really gives it any thought anymore, it's about as controversial as telecommunications regulations.

So it is possible that bkd and the people on my twitter feed constantly harping on 'settlers' could simply be out in front of public opinion on this issue.
I think one of the reasons why the LGBT movement is one of the most successful enfranchisement movements of our period is because they proceeded incrementally and were always attuned to the social climate of the day.

To simplify things, in the late 1960s and 1970s their main fight was just to decriminalize their existence, arguing (in lockstep with the era) that what people did in the bedroom was nobody else's business. The 1980s was about normalization with society, and the main face that was presented to the world was a gay or lesbian white middle class couple. With that behind them, the LGBT community could focus on marriage equality in the 2000s transgendered rights in the 2010s. It'll take a few more years for the general public to warm over to that, but I think that transgendered people will make meaningful strides in due time.

A good contrast would be the fight for civil rights in the African American community. Within a few years, the movement seemed to go from non-violent protesters being attacked by the police over the issue of voting rights to Angela Davis, supplying guns to hold a judge hostage, and being an unrepentant Communist party member in the year 1969 to boot. This of course vaulted then-governor Ronald Reagan to the national spotlight and, well, we know the rest of the story.

If FN groups do things like trying to erase the name of Sir John A. MacDonald from public buildings and storming out of Truth and Reconciliation meetings, I think their "success" will be very limited and bkd's viewpoint will remain as marginal in 2050 as it is in 2017.
Reply With Quote