“All ideas of nationhood are fictions. The fiction cultivated by the #Canadian studying abroad may be more likely than that of the Canadian educated at home to eschew regionalism, depending on a more overarching, all-embracing idea of nationhood.”
One of the American I shared office space with lashed out that Canadian didn’t have any ‘real’ Black people so we had to borrow them from Jamaica to compete as athletes in Track and Field.
That’s a crazy assertion. What’s the implication, Canada should have more actively participated in chattel slavery, had it’s own emancipation proclamation and civil war, and then introduced birthright citizenship in order to have ‘real’ Black Canadians?
I was absolutely dumbfounded at the time.
There was so much revealing racism and more in that statement, but also American Exceptionalism and willingness to do anything to get a gold medal.
It’s also crazy because the reason why Americans win so many medals is because an American decided to make a bunch of swimming events which rich white Americans have an advantage in because many minorities in the US — including blacks — don’t live in communities with access to pools, let alone in their homes.
