I recently finished reading a book called How To Be A Canadian by Will and Ian Fergusson, Canadian author brothers. First US edition 2003. It's one of those formulaic info-'comedy' things...more informative than funny mostly it has to be said.
In the light of recent ongoings in relation to racism etc. on here, the following passage is most interesting. I wonder whether it would have got into print today. ( lovingly copied out in my own shaky typescript...see what lengths I go to for you *******
...)
Ian was once in an elevator in downtown Toronto and the only other occupant was a dear old lady who kept asking him if he knew her grandson. The elevator doors were about to close when a smartly-dressed young woman came running up. The elderly lady immediately stopped the doors with her cane and called out ' Come on in sweetie '. The younger woman got on and glared at the older woman 'I think that was very rude' she said.
Ian was agog. What could this well-tailored. ill-mannered woman have to be insulted about ? He waited until the grandma, obviously flustered, got off on her floor and then asked the wounded party what had set her off. Well, it turned out that although her family had been in Canada since Christ went down with the Titanic, her last name was Svenson or something. She was of Swedish extraction, you see, and she thought the old woman was making a racial slur 'Sweetie / Swedie' Got it ? And no, we aren't kidding.
So, hell, Ian did the only thing he could do. Which was to tell this woman to take her IKEA-buying, herring-eating, ABBA-playing, sauna-sweating, meatball-eatingass back to wherever it was she came from. Which, as it turned out, was Mississauga. Those damned Swedes. We let them in, give them jobs and the next thing you knowthey're taking over. This used to be a great country until those ' Swedies' moved in.
Quoted verbatim. Racist ? What do you think ? More importantly, what will the Facefuck gestapo think as I post it there !!!!
