{"id":6498,"date":"2011-04-20T08:03:43","date_gmt":"2011-04-20T13:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=6498"},"modified":"2011-04-20T10:09:53","modified_gmt":"2011-04-20T15:09:53","slug":"woo_and_the_eth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/20\/woo_and_the_eth\/","title":{"rendered":"The Politics of Courting a Community"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"560\" height=\"349\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZsEyxQ5Wm6k\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n\n<p>CBC&#8217;s radio program <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/thecurrent\/\">The Current<\/a> recently examined the politics of courting the so-called ethnic vote in the context of Canada&#8217;s current federal elections. The <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/ZsEyxQ5Wm6k\">conservative ad<\/a> embedded above, which opens with historical photos of the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Komagata_Maru_incident\">Komagata Maru<\/a> and MP Nina Grewal saying &#8220;things haven&#8217;t always been fair for us, but the conservatives have always recognized our history&#8230;&#8221; is one of several ads&#8211;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/thecurrent\/2011\/04\/19\/some-political-ads-targeting-the-ethnic-vote\/index.html\">liberal and conservative<\/a>&#8211;targeting ethnic voters.  <!--more-->Political parties court ethnic communities presumably because they want their support. But things can go sour in this courtship if people feel disrespected. Take for example, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/story\/2011\/04\/14\/cv-election-ethnic-counter-rally.html\">last week&#8217;s &#8220;ethnic costumes&#8221; request<\/a> coming from the campaign of Toronto conservative candidate Ted Opitz, seeking to create a multicultural photo-op at a rally in support of him and the Prime Minister.<\/p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/story\/2011\/04\/14\/cv-election-ethnic-counter-rally.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"ethnic-rally\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/ethnic-rally-kady.gif\" width=\"270\" height=\"350\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right; margin: 0 20px 20px 0;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p>&#8220;Do you have any cultural groups that would like to participate by having someone at the event in an ethnic costume? We are seeking one or two people from your community,&#8221; the email signed by Zeljko &#8216;Zed&#8217; Zidaric said.<\/p>\n  \n  <p>&#8220;The opportunity is to have up to 20 people in national folklore costumes which represent their ethnic backgrounds,&#8221; the email said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>People who didn&#8217;t like the idea of being ethnic props responded with a counter-rally.<\/p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p>A Facebook page formed after the email was leaked calls the email &#8220;patronizing and offensive&#8221; and invited people to participate in a counter-rally outside the Etobicoke event.<\/p>\n  \n  <p>&#8220;Whether you&#8217;re Chinese, Arab, Portuguese, Italian, South Asian, Irish, Vulcan, Klingon, Zombie, or Ewok. Let&#8217;s show the Conservatives that &#8216;ethnic voters&#8217; are not props for photo-ops,&#8221; the Facebook page says. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/story\/2011\/04\/14\/cv-election-ethnic-counter-rally.html\">CBC News<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>One advocacy group composed a bit of musical satire in response. Their take on Michael Jackson&#8217;s &#8220;Beat it&#8221; aims its lyrics at the kind of politician who would reduce important issues relevant to a community down to song and dance and food: &#8220;We have to show them that we&#8217;re more than a vote\/We have our views and voice, our rights are not a joke\/They call us when they need us\/To join their campaign bus&#8230;&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/brownpeople.tumblr.com\/post\/4667727226\">Brownpeople.tumblr.com<\/a> first brought it to my attention.<\/p>\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"560\" height=\"349\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/T5UE0SgN5ic\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p>They are taking aim at politicians who get their photos taken eating various ethnic fare&#8230; baklava, guava, okra, spring rolls or samosas, cassava or rice.<\/p>\n  \n  <p>Avvy Go came up with the idea for the song Go Ethnic Go &#8212; and the video that goes with it &#8212; as a way of expressing her concerns about being labeled and targeted as an &#8220;ethnic&#8221; voter. The song and video were released last week by an advocacy group called The Colour of Poverty. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/thecurrent\/episode\/2011\/04\/19\/the-ethnic-vote\/\">The Current<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CBC&#8217;s radio program The Current recently examined the politics of courting the so-called ethnic vote in the context of Canada&#8217;s current federal election. Political parties court cultural communities presumably because they want their support. But things can go sour in this courtship if people feel disrespected.<\/p> <a href=\"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/20\/woo_and_the_eth\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,3,48],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6498"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6498\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}