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I Should�ve Taken That Left Turn at Albuquerque |
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Hello and welcome. If you're new here, be a dear and Read my Disclaimer. My diary not good enough for you? Fine, be that way. Try these instead: plf
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2001-06-17 - 10:13 p.m.� Ever since I first moved to this city, some 11 and a half years ago (where does the time go?), I have not experienced very many moments where I think, if I could be anywhere else right now, I'd still want to be right here. As anyone who reads this regularly knows, I have some strong feelings of hate for the city I live in. 99.9% of the time I would rather be, um, elsewhere. Most of the time just about any elsewhere at all would be fine with me. This weekend was one of the rare times when I am actually happy to be in Barrie. What brought about this rare moment of satisfaction and content at finding myself to be in Barrie? Outdoor music festival, naturally. This weekend was the 6th annual Barrie Jazz and Blues Festival. Good times, good music. I love the Blues. I heard a whole bunch of really talented blues guitarists this weekend, and an extremely talented blues harmonica player. The latter gave me chills. Completely, 100% awe inspiring. Despite the good time I had, there was something that troubled me throughout the whole weekend. This festival, this celebration of jazz and blues music, was so very, very white. The majority of musicians, the festival organizers, and pretty much the entire audience was lily white. Little white girl that I am, I was no exception. With the exception of the musician who closed the festival today, one could have very easily looked at the event as a whole and assumed that The Aryan Nation was a proud sponser of the festival. Much of this is due to the simple fact that Barrie is a very, very white city. There is not a whole lot of cutural diversity here. Example: when I first moved up here, if I wanted to go out and eat something "exotic" I pretty much had the choice of Chinese take-out or Italian food or teriyaki sauce poured on a steak. Example two: when my brother graduated from grade 8, out of about 65 students, there was exactly one who not caucasian. Maybe I have always noticed this more than people who have lived here all their lives simply because the city that I had lived in for all my life prior to moving up here was a richly diverse city, and I had always been taught to appreciate and celebrate that. And I don't really know where I'm going with any of this, or what I should make of it. All I know is that it just felt a little wrong to be have an event celebrating music of Africian-American roots with so little African American (or African-Canadian) presence. At times it made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I felt as if just by being there I was taking part in apropriating something that I didn't have right to take.
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The big 3 0 - 2006-06-03 Hello again - 2006-05-03 Random stuff in place of an actual update - 2006-03-15 Pictures. Just Because. - 2006-02-23 Christmas 05 - 2005-12-26 Currently listening to: |
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