The difference is the Holocaust isn't used as an excuse to dispossess my people, in fact, Israel, which was created because of the Holocaust, enabled Western civilization to gain a foothold in the Levant. Also, the Holocaust was an atrocity.
You missed my point. The point was your "get over it" attitude reminded me of what this woman said over on the TrekBBS forum. It shocked quite a lot of us.
The cultural differences between white and black in South Africa are much larger than the cultural differences between white and black in North America.
Well, you are entitled to your opinions. The fact is that everyone suffers and dies at some point. Is someone killed by an oppressor any more or less dead if it happens on a different continent?
I'm sure she was just as appalled by your views as you were by hers.
Do NOT presume that I grant you the right to 'splain my own mother to me.
Whether or not you're correct (you are, to some extent, as she was upset that I liked going to a particular restaurant run by people who had immigrated from Pakistan - good food for a fair price and not too crowded - or that I was on friendly terms with a man from India who worked in the same theatre company I did; she would have been even more appalled to learn that he was married to a white woman, not that it was any of her business), it's not your place to make assumptions.
If you're in your 60s, how did your grandfather even know what Star Trek was? IIRC, Star Trek was created about 50 years ago. Since when do grandparents get in to, what was at that time a hip new show? My grandfather preferred movies from decades ago.
Here's a bit of advice: If you're going to air opinions about me based on my age, do your homework. I've never hidden my age on this forum, and it's freely visible to anyone who cares to look up my profile. I am not in my 60s. Not yet, anyway; I don't turn 60 until next year.
Star Trek premiered in 1966. I was 3 at the time, but we lived on an acreage in the county and only got one or two channels. Star Trek was not one of the shows we got, nor would it have been one I'd have been interested in anyway, even if my parents had allowed me to watch. My 3-year-old self was into cartoons, and the only live-action shows I remember from those years are Bonanza, Gunsmoke, the news, and hockey games, as well as the kids' shows on CBC. In short, typical '60s stuff, most of it Canadian.
Fast-forward some years... my parents divorced, I went to live with my grandparents, and my grandfather decided we would move into the city. In 1975 he decided to get cable TV, and it was in November of that year that HE was watching Star Trek (he sampled a wide variety of TV shows due to having a much wider selection of channels than just 2). I took one look at it, thought it looked stupid, and told him I wanted to watch something else (I was into cop shows at the time). He told me to either sit down and be quiet, or go to my room.
So I sat down, shut up, and gradually got interested in the episode. At the end of it I figured okay, that was interesting, and I'd like to try more. Star Trek was on 5 days/week at that time, and it didn't take long to admit I was hooked. Then, on one of the twice-monthly visitations with my mother (my dad got custody in the divorce), we happened to go to Woolco (now Walmart), where I was browsing the book department and discovered that someone named James Blish had adapted the Star Trek episodes into short story format. Those two Blish books I bought were the beginning of a science fiction collection that now numbers in the thousands.
Oh, and the irony of this? My grandfather eventually declared that he was "tired of that damn silly Star Trek!" though he continued to watch shows starring William Shatner (he liked T.J. Hooker). He hadn't realized until I told him that Shatner was Jewish (this is something known to anyone who has read any of Shatner's autobiographical books or behind-the-scenes books about Star Trek, but while my grandfather read a lot of my books, he never read any Star Trek ones). My grandfather died the same year that Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home ("the one about the whales") came out.
So I'm a bit confused as to why you would think that my grandfather couldn't have been interested in Star Trek. He was a casual viewer, and I think he might have regretted creating the "monster" he did; my life would have been very different if not for that show, as it had a tremendous influence on my life in numerous ways. I wouldn't have gotten into science fiction in general, and wouldn't have gotten into the Society for Creative Anachronism (since I heard about it via science fiction), nor would I have been interested in the theatre (after reading
The Making of Star Trek I thought that working on the tech side of performing arts sounded fascinating, so when applications were sought for the theatre, I jumped at the chance and got in). We wouldn't even be having this argument if not for all this - it was someone in the SCA who introduced me to Civ games, and someone on an RPG forum who gave me the link for CFC.
Just think what my grandfather unwittingly set in motion all those decades ago!
Oh, and while you're at it, ponder this: Elderly people aren't one bloc of group-think that cares only about "old people stuff". I am definitely not the oldest person on CFC, and there is no rule about how old a person can be when they acquire a new interest or pick up a more modern outlook on something.
And yet, the residential schools helped to Westernize them. While there were excesses at those schools, the original intention was noble.
The original intention was anything BUT noble. The original intention was to
"kill the Indian in the child".
Read this article and then tell me how Macdonald and Langevin and others had "noble" ideas. They considered the indigenous people to be savages.
And while you're at it, I suppose you think the Sixties Scoop was also "noble". This is something that was never taught in schools during the years I attended. I hadn't even heard of it until a few years ago when there was something on the news about it. Indigenous kids were literally kidnapped from their homes and sold in black market adoptions to couples in the U.S. and Europe. Do tell me: HOW IS THIS "NOBLE"?
You call yourself Christian. Even Pope Francis finally stated that the residential schools were a form of cultural genocide. Yes, the kids were taught to read and write. But they were also forced to live in substandard conditions, with substandard health care, and their language and culture were literally beaten out of them as much as their oh-so-"kindly", oh-so-"Christian" teachers could manage. There were numerous sexual assaults, and some kids died while trying to escape back to their families.
ARE YOU SERIOUSLY SAYING THIS WAS ALL "NOBLE"?
There are searches being conducted now at numerous sites of former schools, to see if there are any
more unmarked graves or mass burial sites. They found hundreds of remains in BC. There are 4 sites of former residential schools/trade schools for indigenous kids in this very riding, one of them only a few blocks from where I live, in the Minister of Education's own riding.
I wonder what meaningless "thoughts and prayers" she'll mumble if a search is done and bodies are found. She used to be the chairman of the Catholic school board in my city. She's on record as recently as November 2015 stating that she wants teachers to "teach the positive things" about residential schools. She hired an anti-indigenous racist to oversee the writing of the social studies portion of the new curriculum the UCP intends to force on the students and teachers of this province.