In my fund raising letter, I speak of Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, I was asked why? Both men of very different ideologies united their efforts to back one women, they got together out of love of one woman, who had suffered injustice and prejudice. Rosa Parks inspired both men for different reason and the civil rights movement in the United States was built on love, love of the self, love of a woman, of tradition....

Love was more powerful than hatred. Yes, hatred was exposed and harsh terms were used to describe the evils of racism, slavery and the role of Americans, former slave masters. The realty was a Black person could not drink at the same fountain a White person could. Blacks could not enter in the front door of a Club they had to go in the back even if they were the main attraction and were star, they could not stay in the same hotel as their musicians who were white be seen with them in public. As Canadians we can say but we are different we had the underground rairoad we liberated Blacks and gave them freedom...

Canada was no better, prior to 1970, signs in store windows in Montreal read: NO CATS, NO DOGS, NO BLACKS other times BLACKS was replace by JEWS OR MOHAWKS. Black people could not have leadership jobs in big companies, were not served at the same time of others, one incident at a Howard Johnson in 1980 Montreal I was with a friend from Jamaica, he was Black I am White, we ordered ice cream, it took half an hour to be served even tough we were the only customers, the ice came to our table melted, when I asked for another dish, I was told you let it melt, you took too much time to eat it.... in 1990, another incident, in a bank where I was with a Mohawk friend, I tried to cash a check from my bank different branch, they refused to cash it for me, because I wore a Mohawk insignia... It is this event that made me reflect on the idea of how hatred is used to unite people. A quick look at hatred as a unifying force in Europe and Africa.

Politically in Europe and In Canada, scapegoats are used to create unity in a country that wants to go to war or wants to justify going to war, it was all about a nose. The nose has been used to rally forces together, Hitler used Jewish crooked nose to unite Germans to a common cause and lead them in a war, and the destruction of the Jews of Europe. In Rwanda, the Belgium government caused racial tension because of the size and shape of a nose. Quebec is not exempt as the Mohawk Nose makes headlines. The nose allows me to smell hatred and racism a mile away... yes it is all about he nose...

The Civil Rights movement was started with a dream of equity and justice, where people would be judged by their character and not their skin tone... Where love of justice and love of equity become unifying forces that we can use a role model instead of the divide and conquer method that has been used to cause war and the death of the innocent....


Celine