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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 2 years ago

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I normally have a strong and probably unfair bias against anyone who gets described with the word “YouTuber”, but I like the Contrapoints channel, and I just watched her new video. It’s very good, really worth watching if you want an educated and nuanced and just good take on the hellfire that is the current “cultural debate”. Seriously, go watch that video, says lot of things that are much more worth saying than anything I have ever written down.

That video made a brief allusion to the “transphobes are just protecting women’s sports from evil trans women” argument, which reminded me of how much I fucking hate that argument, and that reminded me that I’d been meaning for a while to a post about culture war-related questions that I’ve been asked repeatedly in my ten-ish years of coaching and twenty-ish years of being involved in a sport. These are questions that I get asked a lot by people who aren’t involved in sports, who don’t know what it’s like from firsthand experience, but who have heard about issues in sports via public discourse, and wants to know how that lines up with reality. Sometimes this discourse is overtly political, sometimes it doesn’t seem to be political at all. Sometimes people ask these questions in good faith and out of genuine curiosity, sometimes they use curiosity to disingenuously disguise their hope that I’ll validate their shitty beliefs. Every question in this post is one I’ve been asked multiple times, by multiple people, so as a PSA, here are my answers:

[Note: Most of this post will have nothing to do with the Contrapoints video or anything about it, I only mentioned it because that’s what reminded me that I wanted to write this post, and because I want to tell people to watch it, it’s very good.]

Is it weird to be a woman who coaches male athletes? [For context, my team, like almost every team in this sport, is co-ed, but has more male athletes than female ones just because there are more boys in this sport than girls overall – male and female athletes train together in the practice room and go to the same tournaments, but those tournaments have separate male and female divisions so they don’t compete against each other.]

One time in 2013 I had an athlete go into the change room to cry after he lost a match, but his next match was up pretty soon so I really needed to get on with the process of comfort crying athlete/get them back in the right headspace to fight again before the next match, and I ended up having to do that process through a change room door. I’m pretty proud of that one, because I had to talk him out of his decision to forfeit the whole tournament because he was so upset about losing, and then motivate him to go warm up again, and I did it all with a door between us.

So that one time, being a woman who coaches male athletes was a problem. Other than that it’s fine.

Question I got a lot around 2016: I hear Canada has a massive influx of Syrian refugees and they’re taking over everything, has that affected you guys?

It has, actually, since it’s a popular sport in Syria so we got a lot of new athletes and one new coach who came over as refugees. They were, in their own separate and varied ways, all great additions to the team.

By far the biggest issue with that was the language barrier, because a lot of the Syrians spoke almost no English when they first got here. But that wasn’t a big problem, because we already had a bunch of athletes who spoke Arabic and could translate. We quickly learned that different dialects of Arabic are very different from each other, and in some cases the kids who spoke Arabic from other countries spoke almost a different language from the Syrian kids, but there was enough crossover so they could manage to understand each other. Also, the Syrian kids picked up English once they’d been here for a while; now a few of the Syrians who started with us in 2016 with only a few words of English are still on the team and communicate fluently.

Incidentally, this year we’ve again had a few new athletes all join the team around the same time because they recently arrived here as refugees, but they’re white and they speak Ukrainian. One of them speaks English as well, and he translates for the others, who don’t speak English at all. When he’s not around, we just sort of gesture at each other and it works basically fine.

Surely there were other problems with them fitting in, though. Did they cost the club money?

As it happens, most of them did not come over here with enough money to spend on non-essentials like sports fees, due to their country blowing up. But their fucking country blew up; by comparison I don’t consider it a huge sacrifice for the club to waive some membership fees and cover some tournament costs. It’s not a big deal.

Did you have difficulty integrating them socially into the team?

No.

But wasn’t there also an issue with them not fitting in culturally, like coming in with backwards social values and not understanding basic aspects of civilization?

No, you fucking racist.

With the rise of all these new-fangled diagnoses in youth, have you had any kids with autism on the team? How does that work in a sport with physical contact? Aren’t they unable to do that?

We haven’t any autistic young kids on the team that I know of, but we’ve had a few autistic teenagers, none of whom liked being called “people with autism”. One of them absolutely loved physical contact, he was a large – as in tall with big muscles and athletic looking – 17-year-old boy who’s one of the cuddliest people I’ve ever met. He gave giant hugs to anyone would let him, any time he wasn’t actively trying to beat someone up on the mat, he was sitting on the sidelines with his arms and legs wrapped around whatever teammate he could find. When he won the provincial championships, he came back to his corner, lifted me into the air, squeezed me so tightly that it was like a hug wasn’t close enough and he could only get enough physical contact by breaking my ribs, and my neck got wet with his tears of happiness. So it turns out that autism works differently for every person, and some autistic people love physical contact and emotional expression.

Another teenage autistic athlete I worked with hated most physical contact, but it was never a problem in the sport. On the mat, he did all the moves and had no problem with the contact, but off the mat he’d flinch if anyone touched him. I quickly learned to adapt to that as a coach, never shaking his hand or patting him on the back or anything like that that I’d do with other athletes, but if we were on the mat and I was showing him a move, I’d touch him with no problem. It’s something about context. He was able to accept physical contact in the context of the sport, to compartmentalize and not process it the same way that he did in other contexts.

He lived outside the city limits, so was the only athlete on our team to go to the provincial qualifiers for the rural areas, instead of for our city. I went out there with him, just him and me and his mother as the only people there from our team. It was a great day, he performed really well and won all five of his matches to get a gold medal and a spot at the provincial championships. He and I really bonded throughout that day, I think he benefitted from getting one-on-one attention from the coach since I had no other athletes there, and that may have affected his strong performance. After he won his last match, he came back to the corner and surprised me by throwing his arms around me in a tight hug. I later found his mother with tears in her eyes, telling me she’d accepted that her son didn’t like physical affection and never tried to push it on him, but she still loved that the sport had made him so comfortable in his body that he'd started actually seeking physical contact out. So that was a fucking good day.

I’m sure there are many autistic people in the world who hate physical contact so much that it would be a problem if they did a contact sport, and many autistic people who will never want to hug anyone no matter how many gold medals they’ve just won. That is absolutely fine and does not make them broken or whatever. They just don’t do contact sports, which is fine. There are also many autistic people who are neutral about physical contact, or who love it, or who are fine with it in the right context. Including, for that matter, me. Everyone’s different.

Is it weird that boys and girls train with each other in a sport with close physical contact?

Honestly, not at all. I see why you’d think it would be, why you’d think it would at least be weird at first when they’re maybe not used to it, but it really, really isn’t. As soon as you’re on the mat you just stop thinking that way. When I was in high school, I had a massive crush on this one girl for three years, if her hand brushed against my arm in class I’d get all those exciting butterfly-like feelings that occur with high school crushes. But then she joined our school team, and I worked with her at times during practice, and I didn’t feel anything like that when I touched her while we were on the mat. It’s like the autism thing, I guess – it’s contextual. Physical contact in that context doesn’t feel the same as it does in other contexts, it’s honestly not weird at all to put boys and girls together for that reason.

Sometimes having a co-ed team is an issue outside of the actual practice room, when athletes date and/or just sleep together and the ensuing drama creates problems. Some teams have actual rules against athletes dating their teammates; our team has never created a rule like that because it just leads to them doing it in secret, but we do try to discourage it. When it happens, we deal with it. Try to keep certain athletes apart in the interest of team cohesion.

I once had to spend several months very carefully watching every time two training partners did a match together, because one had recently started sleeping with the other’s ex-girlfriend (she was also an athlete on the team), and they’d started pretty much trying to tear each other’s heads off any chance they got. They were only allowed to do matches with close supervision, so the supervising coach could instantly step in and separate them if they started actually hurting each other. So, you know, that wasn’t fun. But that’s life. Drama like that will happen anywhere.

Is it a problem that you have so many Muslims and immigrants on the team? [for context, our sport in general and our team in particular has a lot of Muslim athletes, for a bunch of reasons, including it being a popular sport in Muslim countries, and it being a very low-cost sport]

I mean, it does affect things in various ways, but I’ve been asked this question in various ways by various well-meaning people, and I’ve never heard it phrased in a way that doesn’t sound racist.

The actual answer to the racist question is obviously it’s fine, people being Muslim or immigrants is not inherently a problem. It does make them statistically more likely to not have much money, obviously not in every case, but they are a statistical majority of the athletes for whom we waive fees and cover costs. Those statistics work out that way for a variety of reasons, some of which involve their countries of origin getting blown up, and none of which involve them being inherently less good at making money than white people. It’s fine, we budget to cover for low-income athletes, we’re able to do it.

The truth is that yes, we have, across many years, had one or two problems with Muslim athletes bringing in sexist attitudes (none of those problems were from any of the Syrian refugees). We have also, many times, had problems with non-Muslim athletes bringing in sexist attitudes. The biggest problem we’ve had was a male Muslim athlete who refused to work with female athletes, but I’ve also seen him drink alcohol and try to pick up a waitress when we went to a bar together (he’s in his twenties, I wasn’t out at a bar with a teenage athlete). He blamed his sexism on religion, but it wasn’t about that, because he broke religious tenants when doing so suited him. He just had some misogynist views and religion was a convenient excuse to not treat his female teammates as equals.

I’ve coached a huge number of male Muslim athletes over the years, and from very nearly all of them – all but a couple – this was never an issue. They took direction from me as a female coach with no problem, they worked with their female teammates with no problem, it’s fine. Some of their parents took issue with it. One time a teenage male Muslim athlete won a tournament, and a picture of me hugging him went up on social media, and his parents saw it and he got in trouble with them for touching a woman. His mother came into practice one day the next month, and he told us that none of the girls were allowed to touch him during that practice, or he’d get in trouble. So that was a bit awkward, but by the next day he was back to helping out his female teammates and training with me, and it was fine.

Six months later, a different Muslim athlete had his mother come in to watch practice. He didn’t ask to be treated any differently that night, so I didn’t treat him differently, though I was a bit paranoid about getting him in trouble. I did a match with him at the end of practice, and I kept looking over at his mother, paranoid that she’d be upset. She wore a full Niquab, so I couldn’t see her expression, I could only see her eyes and see that she was watching us very closely and intensely. I was scared that she’d be angry at me for touching her son.

That night, the athlete messaged the coaches to say his mom wanted us to know she’d really enjoyed watching practice and appreciates what we do for her son. I asked him if she was okay with our match at the end, and he said she loved watching it, and “roasted [him] all the way home” for how he got beaten up by his female coach. Which is problematic in its own way, but I’ll accept it. So that’s what I get for assuming something about one Muslim parent based on another, instead of keeping in mind that all Muslim parents are different, just like all Muslim teenagers are.

I’ve coached a few female Muslim athletes as well, and the biggest issues that’s ever created are making sure they get a sport-specific hijab that won’t fall off while they’re training, and getting them accommodation so they can compete in tournaments in modest dress. This is only for a couple of them; I’ve also coached female Muslim athletes who don’t wear hijabs and have no problem wearing the regular outfits. They are, in fact, also all different from each other.

But surely a team that’s mixed Muslims and non-Muslims would have cultural issues, even if they’re not all the misogynists I’ve learned about in stereotypes? [I really have had this as a follow-up question after I explain the other stuff, some people cannot believe that it’s not a big deal.]

If we’re having a team party or hanging out in the hotel at a tournament or something, and we order pizza, we have to make sure that half the pizzas don’t have any pork toppings on them. During Ramadan, half the team gets really sluggish because they haven’t eaten since sunrise and can’t eat until the sun sets, which is usually not until after practice. A couple of them disappear to spend five minutes praying in the back of the room when the sun sets during practice; the other Muslim athletes either don’t do the five-a-day prayers, or don’t feel the need to stick to the schedule perfectly. And those are genuinely all the issues it causes. It’s fucking fine.

Do you have problems with sexism and racism in a sport that’s co-ed and has a mix of races?

Yes, sometimes, obviously. Not most of the time, but sometimes. This sport also has problems with predatory coaches who try to fuck their athletes, creepy referees who harass younger coaches, casual racism and misogyny, athletes who listen to too much Joe Rogan/Jordan Peterson and it starts showing in their fucked up attitudes, and all kinds systemic physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. Just like every other aspect of life. Every problem that exists in the real world exists here too. We deal with it on a case-by-case basis while also trying for whatever systemic change we can manage.

Is it true that hotels at tournaments are a hotbed of athletes having sex with each other? [Not exactly a political question, but it’s one I get asked weirdly often, especially around the Olympics when there are all those news stories about everyone fucking the Olympic village, and people want to know if it applies on smaller scales too]

Yep. It’s a good system. It’s hard to date if you’re seriously involved in a sport, because that sport becomes your whole life, and dating someone who’s not part of that sport is difficult when they don’t share something that takes up so much of your time and emotional investment. Dating, or even just sleeping with someone from your own team is a great way to ruin your team. Doesn’t mean people don’t do it, but everyone at least knows they shouldn’t.

But you know what’s great? Sleeping with people from other teams. Once every week or two, you’re in the same city for some tournament or other, you can kick your roommate out of the hotel room for a few hours and hook up. And then they’re gone again so it doesn’t need to interfere with the rest of your life, or have someone be upset that you spend all your time training and don’t have time for them, because they’re not even in your city and they’re also very busy training. It happens frequently.

I’m making myself sound way cooler than I actually am by telling this story, as I never hooked up with people from other teams at tournaments. Back when I was competing in high school and then in university, however, I was sometimes the roommate who sat in the hotel lobby playing Pokemon on my Nintendo DS while waiting for my roommate to be done fucking a guy from a rival team. A service I was happy to provide in the name of making sure she didn’t start fucking guys on our own team, inevitably causing the team to implode.

Most male coaches and referees who are married to people outside the sport cheat on their wives at tournaments. This is a well-known open secret. I know several referees who pretty much only do the job because it gives them an excuse to travel every weekend and cheat on their wives in hotels.

What do female athletes do if they have their period during a tournament?

Complain about how annoying it is, especially if they have to cut weight because it messes that right up. But otherwise, deal with it. It’s not that big a deal. Not as big a deal as some people who’ve asked me that question seem to think it is.

I hear weight cutting is a big problem in sports like this, that separate people by weight classes. Is that true?

Yep, massive. However bad you’ve heard it is, the reality’s probably worse. The stuff I did to cut weight as a teenager has left me with a messed up relationship with food to this day, and some of my teammates did worse than what I did. I know some people who are shorter than they should be, having stunted their growth from cutting weight when they were young. As a coach, I discourage significant weight cuts, and very closely monitor any cutting that does happen to make sure it’s done safely. Sometimes athletes do stupid things to cut weight anyway, and lie to hide it from me. I’ve gotten better, over the years, and spotting signs of that and stopping it.

So what about this massive influx of trans people everywhere, and how all the youth are trans these days and trans women are taking over women’s sports and ruining them?

That is not happening, and none of the people who say it is give one fuck about women’s sports. I say this as someone who has been fighting for more than half my life, in one way or another, for the betterment of women’s sports. I have seen what type of people are ruining women’s sports and what types of people are fighting to make them better, and the sorts of people who become transphobic assholes are not my fucking allies.

Come on, it’s never come up at all?

We have one trans kid on our team, at first we were a bit concerned about the gendered divisions at tournaments and where to put them, but we solved that by having one conversation with them. Another athlete I used to coach has recently come out as trans and will be starting testosterone soon, is a bit sad that this means they won’t be able to compete for their university team anymore, but overall they decided it was worth that sacrifice. In a couple of years, once their body has fully adjusted to testosterone, they might compete in the men’s division, if they decide they still want to.

Those are literally the only two trans athletes I’ve ever met. Even if the existence of trans athletes were inherently a problem, which it fucking isn’t, there would not be enough of them to be “taking over” sports and ruining them. There are so few of them, and the rhetoric is so overblown by comparison to their actual numbers. And even if there were more of them, that would also be fine. We would have some more conversations, put them in the division that makes sense according to where they’re at physically, and figure it out. It’s fucking fine.

What’s the biggest thing you’ve noticed about the way this generation of teenagers differs from previous generations of teenagers, as someone who sees a lot of teenagers?

1) They’re all on fucking Tik-Tok, and 2) We’re having a lot more issues than we had pre-COVID with casually sexist and other bad attitudes from boys, often quoting Joe Rogan and/or Jordan Peterson almost word for word. I genuinely think everyone being locked in their houses and listening to Joe Rogan for a couple of years has fucked up a generation more than most people realize.

That’s the real plague that’s taking over the youths right now. Do you know what’s threatening women’s sports? The myriad cultural factors that mean girls have returned to sports at far lower rates than boys after lockdowns ended, causing normally co-ed sports rooms to be much more male-dominated than they were a few years ago (this applies to my own team, but I’ve talked to people from a lot of other teams and have heard it’s the same story everywhere). When girls enter a sport room, they aren’t faced with a plague of transgenders taking over their space. They’re faced with a toxic environment created by boys who used the lockdown time to get on the Joe-Rogan-to-Andrew-Tate pipeline, which makes those girls less likely to come back, and that makes the culture harder to change. And if you have never said one word about that sweeping issue, much less tried to do anything to counter it, then you have no fucking right to pretend to give a shit about female athletes when it’s an excuse to use them to hate a different vulnerable minority.

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fieryrondo · 5 years ago

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my report on skate canada 2019 and how i fell in love with figure skating all over again (part 1)

It’s taken me about a month to sit down and write this. Not necessarily due to lack of time (though that is a factor) but because the experience was so much. Even now, with grainy photos and videos taken with a trembling hand as proof of my time there, Skate Canada feels like a bit of a fever dream. The best kind that leaves you breathless, heart-pounding and longing for more.

I’m not a stranger to traveling alone but this would be my first international venture for something solely recreational, something solely just for me. A purely selfish pleasure. The planning itself was a.process that evolved over the course of months. And to be honest, there were times when I thought this trip wouldn’t happen at all. My flight, booked months in advance, got moved up several hours earlier than expected, forcing me to decide between missing part of the gala or to stay an extra night. Personal problems drained my stamina, and several bouts of poor health stoked the fear that this day would never come. It only became real when I set off for Boston, carry-on, and swan plush in tow, for the first leg of my journey.

Kelowna, a charming lake-resort town in the middle of nowhere British Columbia. There are no direct flights from the East Coast there and I ended up having an overnight stopover in Toronto. From what I saw from the vantage point of the aircraft, Toronto was a beautiful city and reminded me a little of Los Angeles. However, I had little time to appreciate the city. I checked into a hotel to shower, warm up some leftovers, and resurrect my dying phone.

(above) My companions for the journey.

The swan was for Yuzuru, I know it is traditional to give him a Pooh bear but I picked the swan because it was the first program of his that I saw and to this day, it is still my favorite. It has a lot of meaning for me. The Sakura Pooh was my lucky charm, the Pooh ears a last-minute purchase.

Due to my schedule, I had to miss the first day, which itself was a bit of a risk. Isn’t it crazy? Traveling thousands of kilometers just to watch half a competition? I certainly thought so. Not to mention how Yuzuru performed during the short would have a direct impact on how he would approach the free skate. Skate Canada has never been his strongest competition. Even if he was the overwhelming favorite, like most fanyus, I’ve learned to take nothing for granted. When I heard that he skated well in the short, I breathed a little more easily before settling down to draft my letter.

“Perhaps it’s a bit forward of me, a complete stranger, to wish you this, but congratulations on your chest muscles” was the opening line of my letter, as suggested by my good friend Tanya over @turistinmyowncity. I was too embarrassed to actually take photographic evidence but rest assured I did include it. I like to think that it may have made Yuzuru smile. A gold foil origami crane was added for additional luck. Like many fans, I was keeping my fingers crossed for Yuzuru’s first Skate Canada title.

And then it was off to the airport again, this time for the second leg of the flight. Unlike the first flight, not so many passengers were flying to Kelowna and we all got to pick our own seats.

It did not occur to me that catching Yuzuru’s practice was even within the realm of possibility until I had realized that we had arrived in Kelowna 30 minutes earlier than scheduled. A fanyu i had been corresponding with had texted: “Yuzuru’s skating second to last in practice. If you hurry, you might make it.”

*insert dramatic cinematic action sequence where I race to the nearest cab driver, shakily request to be taken to Prospera Palace expediently without breaking any traffic safety laws and then quietly die to the barely heard strains of Origin while the main entrance security guard painstakingly searches my luggage.*

One of the most vivid memories I have of Skate Canada is dragging my ridiculously bulky carryon (gimpy wheel and all) up the flight of stairs in Section 114, trying to flatten myself and become one with the stairwell wall and not get in anyone’s way. A volunteer took pity on me and let me stand on the top of the steps for a closer look. The first thing I saw, of course, was Pooh-san, that bright splash of red and yellow works perfectly as a homing beacon.

I missed Origin but was able to catch the last few minutes of practice. As for first impressions go, I’m afraid I don’t have anything particularly new to offer. Yuzuru looks as exactly as he does in photos. Sharp, precise, graceful. And fast! He kept practicing what looked like his entrance into quad loop.

With men’s practice over, I met up with fellow fanyu VentusCantabile, an extremely sweet person with an excellent singing voice :). I dropped off my luggage at our Airbnb (conveniently located two blocks away) before rushing back over to the arena for the free dance. The venue itself is not that big so even in seats from the nosebleed section you can get a pretty good view. I was in section 112, the closest I could get to the judges' side view and also got a decent(ish) view of the kiss and cry.

I must confess that I don’t really follow ice dance and am unable to provide anything insightful. To me, everyone looked absolutely stunning. I cheered extra loud for Sara Hurtado/Kirill Khaliavin, the first Spanish ice dancers to win a Grand Prix medal. It’s no secret that I miss Javi terribly since his retirement so it was so nice to see Spanish figure skating continue to make strides. Sara’s story is also particularly inspiring. Like Javi, she has worked extremely hard to put Spanish figure skating on the map.

Other teams that impressed were: Gilles/Pourier, Hubbell/Donohue and Fear/Gibson. Fear/Gibson had an especially fun program and the Russian family next to me were so cute in that they were cheering for all of the European teams.

And then it was time for the ladies.

Media will talk about Trusova’s mindbogglingly difficult quads, Rika’s sublime triple axel, Medvedeva’s fight of a free, but the free skate of the night for me personally was Marin’s La La Land. So tenderly skated! Marin is so lovely and a true pleasure to watch live. To watch her bravely skate through (bandage and all) the best free she’s had in ages, how meaningful it must have been. And thus the first sea of Japanese flags washed through the stands.

Here is Evgenia! Her dress is actually extremely beautiful. A very charismatic skater, there were a lot of fans who had come from overseas to cheer for her.

Cute podium :)

Then a break for lunch. The funniest thing I found about being in Kelowna is how it is no exaggeration that figure skating fans just take over the town. The restaurant we went to was packed full of figure skating fans. Talking with fanyus was surprisingly easy. A bit awkward at first but it wasn’t long before we were easily chatting about scoring GOE guidelines and work and other fandom interests.

Then back to the rink for pairs. Given that there was a dearth of filled seats in the lower rows, I half-guiltily took the opportunity to sit a bit closer.

Watching pairs. Is. Terrifying. Lifts are hella more impressive. Twists are gravity defying. Throws are put your hands together and pray the guy does his part to help his partner land those jumps.

Vladimir Morozov lifting Evgenia Tarasova. I appreciated them a lot more live. Their elements are huge and so so clean.

Boikova/Kozlovskii are also now officially my favorite Russian pairs team. I had originally planned on filming their free since seeing quality pairs skating is such a rare opportunity in the US (cough, cough, please invest in pairs more, usfsa). I could not take my eyes off of them for one second. They were so confident and radiating electric charisma from start to finish. A young team with a very bright future!

Between the break, I also spotted Elladj Blade and Kevin Reynolds, the latter was kindly signing autographs. I was too shy to approach either of them but let me tell you Kevin is very sweet with little kids.

And then on to the men! The arena was starting to fill again so I ended up moving up a few rows. I was nervous (for a variety of reasons) but this was ultimately the event I came to see. Watching men is a bit like Russian roulette, you can either expect magnificence or implosion (or sometimes both). Not too many falls but pops are quite painful to see, especially when you know they are so costly. Still, there was a lot to like. Watching Matteo made my heart ache because his style reminds me so much of Javi’s (and doing a flamenco program does not make that association any easier). Roman is also really gorgeous to watch live, but he was so nervous during the free he was unable to show us what he’s really capable of.

At some point, you can sense the audience’s point of focus shift, probably during Camden’s skate (also really liked Camden!). I was sitting pretty close to the side of the skater’s entrance and noticed that all of the fans right by the stairwell had their phones/cameras out. Stairwell shooting is always a reliable indicator of Yuzuru’s arrival ^^

That roar of approval when Yuzuru takes off his jacket is something else. Origin 2.0 is a beautiful costume and way, way more sparkly in real life. Photos don’t quite do the sparkles justice.

Those six minutes of warm-up were honestly some of the most stressful I’ve experienced. Yuzuru kept drilling the quad loop, the jump that he had been having trouble with during practice. After he had gotten a beautiful one under his belt (good, please do that again in the free), he seemed to calm down.

I found it very difficult to concentrate on the other skaters in the second group. By then the stadium was packed and every seat was filled. I had doubts about whether or not I would even get the chance to throw my gift onto the ice because I was so high up and nowhere near the aisle. Worst case scenario, I would just keep my swan.

Keiji!!! He was so fun to watch here. I really love both of his programs this season and he was totally on from the very first jump! Not gonna lie, I saw my life flash before my eyes when he almost ran straight into the boards on his second sal, and then the dainty single toe on the end made me laugh. :)

So it never occurred to me, a formerly strictly broadcast viewer, the amount of time that skaters have right before they skate. There is SO much time. While they were doing the slow-mo replay and the judges were punching buttons, Yuzuru was already whizzing on the ice. He landed a very beautiful quad toe. Feather light. Airy. Calm and commanding, he looked good to go.

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At this point, I put down my phone. Although part of me cried at the thought of not having a personal recording of Yuzuru’s free, it felt important to focus entirely on him with my own two eyes.

There are no words that can quite describe what I felt when watching Origin. When I look back on this skate, I can only remember how hard I ground my teeth. How I could feel the opening drum beats like the beats of a human heart. How my knuckles whitened as they grasped the edge of my hard seat. Yuzuru went for the loop and spun out, clinging on to the ice by the edge of his blade. Not the prettiest landing but he made it.

The sal next, smooth as silk. Step sequence, violin choreo(!!), that scream for the prettiest triple lutz I’ve seen. Quad toe. How many quads left. My fingernails were digging into my plastic wrapped swan. THAT FUCKING QUAD TOE-EULER-TRIPLE FLIP. Ahhhhhhhh, roll of thunder, hear our cry.

The CLAPPING. 6000 voices in perfect synchrony. Every completed jumping pass felt like a victory charge. That bionic knee bend determination to eke out that double toe. All jumping passes cleared. At some point I must have started breathing again. A song in my heart, indiscriminate joy squeezing the heck out of my vocal cords. Lay down that ina bauer! A tiny slip on the hydroblade but he’s done it. He’s ground the silver curse to dust. When you’re screaming at the top of your lungs but you can’t hear a thing because everyone else around you is screaming louder than you. Final clapping sequence. Dramatique pose, punch the air. Sound your barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

322.59!!! Feels. So. Damn. Right.

#yuzuru hanyu #skate canada 2019 #season: 2019 2020 #personal #my ears are still deafened from the screaming #part 2 will be gala!

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dailynewswebsite · 4 years ago

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Canadian citizenship study guide should tell the truth about racism

As a part of the citizenship course of, new Canadians are required to replicate a information of Canadian historical past and politics. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

At this important time of confronting systemic anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism, the Canadian authorities should take accountability for its enduring function in propagating racism. This consists of by way of its deceptive self-portrayal in Uncover Canada, the official research information for the take a look at taken by Canadian citizenship candidates.

Issued in 2011, the information goals to show potential residents about Canada’s historical past, geography, tradition, and political and justice techniques. Disgracefully, the doc whitewashes colonialism, conceals genocide, minimizes systemic racism and its inhumane penalties, and portrays these as remnants of the previous even because the information itself engages in racist discourse.

We write as ladies school members on the Dalla Lana College of Public Well being, College of Toronto. Our perspective on these points is borne of our shared issues but differing relationships to “Canadian” nationality. Considered one of us is Algonquin (Timiskaming First Nation); one other is a lady of African ancestry, born in “Canada,” surviving transatlantic enslavement; two are new-ish Canadians (white European heritage, from america and South Africa); one other is a everlasting resident from the U.S. (from Venezuela).

Revising the information

Recognizing Uncover Canada’s flaws, the federal government set out in 2016 to take away sure offensive parts, together with the portrayal of immigrants’ “barbaric cultural practices” and the glorification of navy exploits.

A draft shared with The Canadian Press in 2017 included protection of the Reality and Reconciliation Fee’s 2015 report, in addition to dialogue of discrimination in opposition to individuals of racialized backgrounds, individuals with disabilities, LGBTQ2S+ individuals and different marginalized communities.

Regardless of an anticipated 2017 launch — throughout Canada’s sesquicentennial — the brand new model, inexplicably, by no means got here to mild.

Citizen disgrace

The information was issued by the Authorities of Canada in 2011.

Outrageously, Uncover Canada remains to be the welcome information for brand new Canadians. Only a few of its shameful parts embrace:

1) It presents a sanitized account of Indigenous Peoples, earlier than and underneath colonization. This erases the historical past and legacy of stolen lands and dispossession, the upheaval of countries, cultural genocide, damaged treaties, assimilation insurance policies corresponding to residential colleges, police and carceral racism, continued heinous residing circumstances on reserves and vastly inequitable well being outcomes.

From the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which states Indigenous persons are sovereign, to the British North America Act of 1867, there isn’t a dialogue of how the Doctrine of Discovery formed the nation. Uncover Canada additionally omits Indigenous individuals’s resistance actions, previous and current, that contest historic and ongoing types of colonialism and oppression.

2) The information celebrates Higher Canada as “the primary province within the Empire to maneuver towards abolition” and as a “secure haven” for enslaved Black individuals escaping america, however there isn’t a point out of Canada’s personal historical past of slavery, nor of the pervasive racist violence and human rights violations confronted by African and Black Canadians. The information’s omission of the Code Noir (1685, revised in 1789) additional erases the truth of policed and enslaved African lives, which included pressured non secular conversion, sanctioned punishment and different brutalities.

This legacy, mixed with successor insurance policies, has generated over-representation of Black and Indigenous kids in foster care and Youngsters’s Support amenities and excessive charges of academic, meals and housing insecurity, all producing worse well being outcomes amongst Black Canadians.

Likewise, anti-Asian racism is roofed solely superficially. The horrendous Komagata Maru occasion is totally missed. The internment of Japanese Canadians in the course of the Second World Warfare is mentioned fleetingly, with no point out of numbers affected (over 22,000), uncompensated liquidation of property, household separation or pressured postwar relocation.

Folks being shipped to Japan are escorted to the immigration constructing in Vancouver circa 1946. Through the Second World Warfare, many Japanese Canadians have been despatched to Japan along with internment camps. (Hukazawa Ezaki/Nikkei Nationwide Museum)

The information flags authorities apologies however not the racist ideologies and practices justifying such insurance policies. That is the case with anti-Chinese language discrimination, together with the “Head Tax, a race-based entry payment,” and extra not too long ago witnessed in hateful assaults on Asian Canadians throughout each the SARS and COVID-19 pandemics.

3) Amid overwhelming, longstanding proof of systemic police brutality focusing on racialized communities, the information’s use of the phrase, “Keep in mind, the police are there that will help you.” contradicts the on a regular basis actuality of policing for Black, brown and Indigenous peoples. This consists of: repeated situations of violence, racial profiling and harassment in opposition to Black and Indigenous communities; the RCMP’s complicity in lacking and murdered Indigenous ladies and ladies; and grossly disproportional incarceration of Black and Indigenous populations.

4) In discussing the 1982 Constitution of Rights and Freedoms, the information is very selective relating to which rights are acknowledged and emphasised. Whereas the information repeatedly stresses the significance of spiritual freedom, it fails to say equality and non-discrimination as basic rights. This selective presentation of key human rights protections provides potential residents a distorted image of the rights afforded to Canadians.

The information additionally misses the chance to endorse key human rights protections in opposition to racism, that are central to mitigating the consequences of systemic discrimination on individuals’s well-being, monetary safety, schooling and work aspirations.

Moreover ignored are previous and modern insurance policies that undermine the rights of racialized migrant employees. Examples of those teams embrace Black migrants, who traditionally have been solely admitted as home employees or in different menial roles; Filipino employees recruited to be dwelling care aides and private help employees; and Latin American and Caribbean migrant farm employees at this time. Racialized migrants are often denied landed immigrant standing, household reunification, provincial well being protection, unemployment advantages, office protections and different social entitlements and employee protections.

An trustworthy information?

In sum, a substitute citizenship information is lengthy overdue. A brand new information ought to actually additional spotlight working-class struggles pushing Canada’s efforts in realizing rights to well being, schooling and social safety, together with the function of previous age safety pensions in lowering poverty amongst seniors.

Even so, these measures have been markedly scaled again lately, with resultant will increase in poverty. They’ve by no means totally addressed racial, class and gender inequities.

On Might 28, 2019, the Liberal authorities launched a invoice to replace the citizenship oath with regards to Indigenous peoples.

A brand new citizenship information should additionally acknowledge ongoing patterns of institutional oppression if we’re to start to deal with them. Constructing on sources such because the Reality and Reconciliation Fee and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal’s rulings, a revised citizenship information ought to reaffirm the significance of respecting everybody’s human rights as outlined within the Constitution.

We urge the federal authorities to situation a brand new citizenship information that precisely displays the previous and acknowledges present challenges of redressing systemic racism and pervasive social and financial inequalities. It is a pivotal first step in making certain dignified futures for brand new Canadians, and constructing a society that really fosters fairness, human rights, and social, financial and cultural respect.

Anne-Emanuelle Birn at present receives funding from AMS Healthcare. She has acquired funding from SSHRC, CIHR, NIH, and the Canada Analysis Chairs Program. She is affiliated with the Folks's Well being Motion.

Amaya Perez-Brumer receives funding from SSHRC and NIH.

Angela Mashford-Pringle receives funding from CIHR, SSHRC, eCampus Ontario, Public Well being Company of Canada – CPHO. She is affiliated with Eagle Spirits of the Nice Waters (Mississauga, Ontario) and Neighborhood-Campus Partnerships for Well being (CCPH) in america.

Lisa Forman receives funding from the Canada Analysis Chair program. She has acquired funding from CIHR, IDRC and the European Fee. She is affiliated with the International Well being Regulation Consortium.

Roberta Ok. Timothy doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or group that may profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their educational appointment.

from Growth News https://growthnews.in/canadian-citizenship-study-guide-should-tell-the-truth-about-racism/ via https://growthnews.in

#Growth News

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