National Post (National Edition)

Mini glossary of campaign terms for the unwoke

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Monday night’s English-language debate, which pitted the six leaders of the largest parties against one another, featured something approximat­ing an exchange of ideas.

It also, though, featured the flinging of terms with which anyone not currently on a university campus might be unfamiliar. Indeed, that’s hardly been unique to the debate. The campaign himself has been awash in terminolog­y that requires a bit of explanatio­n.

And so, the National Post presents, a mini Campaign Glossary ...

STRUCTURAL

VIOLENCE

Elizabeth May, the leader of the Green party, used the term in the English-language debate, discussing the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and the United Nations Declaratio­n on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

What it means, basically, is that there are things in society — laws, attitudes, customs — that cause harm to certain people by preventing them from achieving something or having their needs met fully.

Johan Galtung, a Norwegian sociologis­t to whom the idea can be attributed, explains it this way in his 1969 paper Violence, Peace, and Peace Research: “Thus, when one husband beats his wife there is a clear case of personal violence, but when one million husbands keep one million wives in ignorance there is structural violence.”

He continues: “Correspond­ingly, in a society where life expectancy is twice as high in the upper as in the lower classes, violence is exercised even if there are no concrete actors one can point to directly attacking others, as when one person kills another.”

GLOBALIST

In his opening salvo, People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier said his fellow party leaders were “globalists” and noted that, himself, was not, and opposed being a member of the United Nations.

But what’s that? Any relation to globalizat­ion?

Well, kind of.

While it’s often used as a synonym for globalizat­ion, and with it comes the outsourcin­g of labour and whatnot, the use of “globalist” to describe someone who believes in internatio­nal co-operation has a slightly darker side.

And that, mainly, is because it’s become a catchall for concerns over internatio­nalism on the right, having worked its way back into the recent mainstream — its origins date back to the Second World War — via far right and conspirato­rial circles and through to the White House.

It is also in use currently as an anti-Semitic slur, according to the Anti-Defamation League, a U.S.-based non-government­al organizati­on dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism. “It gained currency in recent years as the alt-right used their understand­ing of technology to spread that term into the mainstream,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the ADL.

“But make no mistake, where the term originates from is a reference to Jewish people who are seen as having allegiance­s not to their country of origin, like the United States, but to some global conspiracy.”

RACIALIZED

This one takes us back to the blackface scandal. Justin Trudeau, caught several times having darkened his skin for costumes, apologized repeatedly on the campaign trail. In Winnipeg, he said this:

“I want to begin by saying a few words directly to racialized Canadians who face discrimina­tion every single day in their lives, even in a country like Canada,” he said. “What I did hurt them, hurt people, who shouldn’t have to face intoleranc­e and discrimina­tion because of their identity.”

But what does racialized mean?

The Ontario Human Rights Commission calls “racialized” a synonym of “visible minority,” or “person of colour,” but says that unlike the other terms, it recognizes that race is a social construct. Moreover, racialized is intended to reflect that race isn’t a physical attribute but rather one that’s imposed socially.

“In societies in which ‘White’ people have economic, political, and social power, processes of racializat­ion have emerged from the creation of a hierarchy in social structures and systems based on ‘race,’ ” says a citation in a University of Winnipeg glossary. “The visible effects of processes of racializat­ion are the racial inequaliti­es embedded within social structures and systems.”

PRIVILEGE

Justin Trudeau also brought this one up during the blackface controvers­y. “I have always acknowledg­ed that I come from a place of privilege, but I now need to acknowledg­e that that comes from a massive blind spot,” he said.

And, for that matter, Andrew Scheer brought it up during the debate, saying carbon offsets purchased for Trudeau’s two airplanes were something “privileged people” did in order to keep polluting.

This one’s the most straightfo­rward of them all. Basically, privilege is unearned advantages compared to others. So, for example, if you are able to walk versus using a wheelchair, you have a certain level of privilege in that you don’t need to worry about accessibil­ity to businesses in the same way.

As for that second definition, there’s a privilege included in wealth: a wealthy person is able to purchase carbon offsets, the rest of us aren’t. Hence, privilege.

 ?? CARLOS OSORIO/REUTERS ?? Green party Leader Elizabeth May spoke about “structural violence”
during Monday’s English-language debate.
CARLOS OSORIO/REUTERS Green party Leader Elizabeth May spoke about “structural violence” during Monday’s English-language debate.

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