An Onkwehonwe in Kanata

I was driving to work this morning, consumed with the thoughts of what I had to do today, when this seriously old song from my teenage years came on my iPod. It was the Blue Oyster Cult’s “Veteran of the Psychic Wars” from 1981’s Fire of Unknown Origin (Yeah, I know, I’m dating myself, but seriously – I’m an old woman, not gonna deny that). You see me now a veteran of a thousand psychic wars I’ve been living on the edge so long, where the winds of limbo roar And I’m young enough to look at and far too old to see All the scars are on the inside I’m not sure if there’s anything left of me I turned it up very loudly. And I started to listen, really listen, to the lyrics. Don’t let these shakes go on It’s time we had a break from it We’ve been living in the flames We’ve been eating up our brains Oh please don’t let these shakes go on Dude.  This is me and my people. We’ve been living with this thing pressing on our communities and on our bodies and minds for five hundred years. W...

Yesterday I was waiting in line at Shoppers Drug Mart and an elderly Caribbean lady, perhaps in her mid-70’s, was at the lone cashier and fumbling a little with her bag and her purse and her wallet – basically taking some time to get through the check-out process. The woman behind her, a white woman maybe a few years older than me, marched up to the cashier, put all her purchases on the counter and basically stood there tapping her foot and frowning and muttering at the elderly lady and the cashier, who was also a young black woman. She essentially pushed the older black woman aside and was acting extremely put-upon that the other woman was taking a bit of time to finish her transaction. The older woman looked at the white woman with this expression of – damn, it was heartbreaking. Resignation and a touch of humiliation and sadness. Defeat even. The guy behind me was a young black man and I turned to him and muttered, “White privilege in action.” He looked at me with the same kind of l...