Malua

Fat Albert's Cafe, Toronto
Ruth Jenkins, Glen Gary (keyboard), Peter Franke
She's super cool.

I don't even know what to say! This is outrageous. You cannot get a job as a teacher in Asia without sending a picture. No folks, racism is not a white man feature only. It's all over!

From the page:

Important Note For Black American, Asian, African and Indian Sub-continent native English speaking teachers - "We only want white people"

This is a quote from the manager of a Chinese English school

What's the Go with this?
In China, just like in the rest of the world, many people are racist. For an English teacher recruitment business like ours this poses a challenge. We have been trying for a long time to place native English speaking Black American, Asian, Indian, Pakistani, Nigerian and Black South African English teachers into schools in China - mostly unsuccessfully. Occasionally we do place black female North American. We are usually met with a polite "no thank you" or an outright, "nobody wants to be taught English by a black person." This is a problem, particularly as we receive many enquiries from well qualified native English speakers who are not "white", who we know would make good English teachers. Unfortunately tackling this issue from our position is like walking into a brick wall - there is little we can do about it except encourage the employers to be a little more open minded. To avoid embarrassment both to you and ourselves we have put together this page to hopefully help you make sense of it and give some tips on how best to get around the prejudices if you want to teach in China regardless.

How can you change it?
We are not going to change perceptions or values in China, just like Chinese people are not going to change perceptions or values in the West, not quickly anyway. We can steadily influence perceptions, but to fight them is a drain on your energy and you'll only frustrate yourself. Perceptions will change themselves, with time, exposure and education. In most instances, prejudices have been ingrained for hundreds if not thousands of years and are not going to simply disappear overnight. They are not, as some people presume, a result of European colonialisation alone, indeed the histories of most Asian countries is that of conquest, invasion, divide and rule going back thousands of years - the Mongols, the Khmers, The Han, The Javanese, The Burmese, The Brahmans and so on.

MEDIA ALERT: THE SHINING CITY ON A HILL - PART 1
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/americas/6547881.stm [news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/americas/6547881.stm] )


"A pattern was emerging and has never seriously been altered. A pattern of willingness to condemn America for the tiniest indiscretion - or to magnify those indiscretions - while leaving the murderers, dictators, and thieves who run other nations oddly untouched."

In his quest to understand "anti-Americanism", Webb journeyed variously to France - "where", we were informed, "it all began" - and to Venezuela and Egypt. Webb noted of Venezuela that "the nation's leader Hugo Chavez compares George W Bush to Hitler". Unmentioned was the fact that Chavez had been responding in kind to then US secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, who had himself likened +Chavez+ to Hitler. (`Julia Buxton responds to Times article,' vicuk.org/index.php [vicuk.org/index.php] )

In setting the scene, Webb described a strain of French thought that regards the upstart American nation with disdain:

"The kind of anti-Americanism fostered by French intellectuals down the centuries revolves around intense dislike of what America "is" - not what it "does." (Original emphasis)

Webb was then ready to base his task on the following assumption:

"It is time that we understood that this attitude, this contempt for what democracy can do, is at the heart of at least some of the anti-Americanism we see in the world today."

A Smokescreen Of Ignorance

Turning to the United States' neighbours to the South, Webb observed:

"Latin American dislike of the United States and its leaders is a grittier substance than the smooth and heady French cocktail... This is not metaphysical hoity-toityness. Latin America's brew contains real sweat, real tears. Tears from a past where the southerners were the servants; the northerners, the masters. This is, after all, Washington's backyard."

Note the familiar cliché of Latin America as "Washington's backyard". This homely description nestles comfortably into the establishment presumption that the region is rightfully part of the US sphere of influence: an ideology that extends back to the imperialist Monroe Doctrine of 1823. And while Webb was careful to mention "real sweat, real tears", no mention no mention was made of the real +blood+ spilled under US-sponsored wars, tyranny and oppression. (For details see our Media Alert, `Vision of the Damned,' June 10 and 15, 2004: medialens.org/alerts/04/040610_Reagan_Visions_1.HTM [medialens.org] and medialens.org/alerts/04/040615_Reagan_Visions_2.HTM [medialens.org] )

This is where I box.

The boxing gym looks the way one would expect, with sections for speed bags, heavy bags, stretching and skipping, and a large ring in the centre. Walls are covered with boxing photos and motivational posters. The all-encompassing noise includes multiple buzzers, shouted instructions and the thud of gloved fists slamming against solid weight.

The pounding music behind the door says you've arrived. Women who walk through it step into a new world of possibilities.

This is the new home of the Toronto Newsgirls Boxing Club on Carlaw Ave., Canada's first and only all-female boxing club.

Draloo, a stumbler and artist who is not afraid to say it all.

The conservative government of Harper treats cancer with Band Aid and Suzuki tells Harper who's who.
From the page:


The plan calls on major industrial polluters to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but the government will not meet its Kyoto targets until 2025 -- 13 years late.

Respected environmentalist David Suzuki came out swinging Friday, calling the plan an embarrassment that was more of a sham than a strategy. Suzuki said the government must meet the terms of the Kyoto accord on time -- regardless of expense.

"Mr. Baird, you are the minister of the environment, not the minister of finance," Suzuki told reporters at a press conference. "Your job is to protect the environment."

He said Canada needs to set the example for other countries.

"If we can't do it, why should India or China or all of the other developing nations pay any attention to the issue of emissions reduction?" questioned Suzuki.