Last week, Canadians discovered, courtesy of an obscure trial in Texas, that "Canadian" does not always mean what they think it does.
This followed the release of an internal memo from Mike Trent, assistant district attorney of Harris County, Texas, in which he congratulates a junior prosecutor because "he overcame a subversively good defense ... that had some Canadians on the jury feeling sorry for the defendant."
The implausibility of there being many Canadians on a Texan manslaughter jury led some to conclude that "Canadians," in this context, might mean "black people," though Trent claims he thought real Canadians were present. And, though noting in passing that the National Post, the ex-Conrad Black newspaper that broke the story, delights in provocation for the sake of it, there does seem to be some evidence that the code is in general use.
It's on the Racial Slur Database, for example.
"It's supposed to be funny and/or informational," its creator said.
It is also, increasingly, on the various blogs that have picked the story up. Apparently, it's most often used among waiters maligning black patrons as bad tippers -- as one blogger put it: "Hey, we have a table of Canadians ... They're all yours."
But it seems the euphemism has been around for at least 15 years, according to another blogger, from Michigan City, Indiana, who remembered "none too liberal white folks" using it about "poor, primarily black sections of town."
Another recalled it being used in a financial brokerage house in New York City.
The question is why. Presumably, it was adopted on the assumption that Canadians are so anodyne and so outnumbered that otherwise unacceptable opinions can be cheerfully expressed in their name without alerting eavesdroppers.
But the motivation might be more confrontational. Some visitors report that in southern states, particularly in rural areas, Canadians are actively disliked -- for their liberalism, their gun control and their refusal to support the Iraq war.
"Raw hate and `we should invade those bastards and kick them out on an ice flow [sic]' rage was quite common," said one.
Perhaps it's time to take a stand, for Canadians, but, more importantly, for maligned minorities everywhere.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
RSS