#internalized xenophobia

[tokintormin]

read trigger warnings before reading. tw internalized xenophobia, generational trauma

Please understand that this is the character's flaw, not an actual hate speech on any enthnical group.

[dirtytransmasc]

i’ve been wondering how quaritch the sullys or norm & the others scientists would react if spider actually got brain damage from the machine, like a speech problem or chronic illness and he becomes shaky, also how would spider himself deal with not being able to swing through trees safely anymore?

I've played with a disabled spider before, though I never posted it, so here's my idea of a potential symptom list; tremors/numbness in his hands, auditory processing issues, sensitivity to light and movement, focal seizures, a mild stutter, and fibromyalgia (cause we have to project a little). another thing is, he just drops sometimes, his legs give out from beneath him and he ends up in a pile on the floor, otherwise completely fine. he also gets phantom pains of the connection from the machine (from what I understand, that machine would feel like pulling your spinal cord out the base of your neck and plugging it into a car battery). Add that to his PTSD from the event, and you get one fucked up kid.

now we just apply this to his family.

for neytiri it's one hell of a wake up call; her neglect for the child allowed him to be kidnapped and he is no physically affected, seemingly for the rest of his life. spider was always weary of asking for help, but now that poses a massive threat to his wellbeing, and the mother in her aches at the realization that she did that to him, she made him feel unable to ask for help. its also really difficult to watch him go through his focal seizures after what had happened to kiri. she know's its wrong of her to want to care for him now after years of neglect, but she wants to right the wrongs. the only problem is, is the boy is terrified of her.

jake is forced to realize how spider is a lot like him, and then looking back and realizing he was always like him, he was just too blind and dumb see it the whole time. now his kid, if he even has the right to call him that (he doesn't), is struggling just to function, and he'd been the one to say 'he's a tough kid' and move on. he feels sick every time he looks at the boy, and he ends up avoiding him just like the rest of his problems.

kiri would be furious with her family for leaving spider behind when she had begged to look for him, and now because they left him with those people, he's in constant pain and fear, frustrated because he lacks control over so much of his body. she would be one of his biggest caretakers, as she knows how to go about it without being patronizing, though even then, her constant help makes him antsy.

lo'ak would feel... upset, angry, sad, frustrated. he doesn't have one word to describe it. I've talked about this with a few friends, but lo'ak, while he may not actually have these disabilities, feels very adhd and dyslexic coded in the way that his trauma and neglect/abuse present themselves within the narrative. especially in the sense that he was never accommodated for his own "shortcomings" and now he has a disabled brother and he's torn between his internalized "ableism" (loosely using that word to run with the example) that stems from pushing his needs below the surface and therefore expecting other's to do the same, and his want to take care of his best friend and brother. it's not that he wants spider to hurt himself by not hiding his disability, its just that he doesn't know what else he can do, because for so long he's tried to do exactly that with no help. it also really hurts watching spider go through his day to day life like that, especially in the early days when he and the people around him didn't fully understand what was wrong so he sorta had to suffer through trial and error.

tuk is a good kid, she probably accommodates spider best because things don't change unless they have to. she still plays with him, nags him, spends time with him all the same. she just adapts to his way of life. she doesn't treat him like he's fragile or in need of pity, and I could see her inadvertently putting him through some sense of physical therapy as she gets him up and about, using his hands, and such. she makes him smile even when he feels hopeless she's the best little sister he could ask for.

norm and max feel helpless, every time the offer to help him he shoves them off (cause they treat him like he's 5 years old and made of glass). they see him fading away, looking more and more dull by the day, they know he needs help or the injury won't heal and it will only get worse, they know they should have done more when spider went missing, but they can't do anything now and spider hates them (he doesn't he just doesn't like his brian being rummaged around in anymore then it has, he doesn't want to be fixed, he just wants to be. he's tired of everyone pitying themselves for not looking for him, tired of everyone worrying, he just wants things to be normal again.)

quaritch would hate himself, he had brought spider to ardmore, even if he hadn't known what the machine would do to him, he allowed it to happen, he let spider to get hurt, and now he tries to do everything he can to make it up to him. he took care of him in the field, pulled strings to get him under the table medical care back on base, was even willing to give him up to the sully's when it started getting really bad, cause even if they were and parents, spider would have a stable life with medical attention. he doesn't have any ill feelings towards his son or his disabilities as many would assume he would; he just wants his boy to feel ok, no matter what that means ability-wise. he's also one of the few people spider lets faun after him because he knows it's not out of guilt for abusing and neglecting him for years but for making a mistake that spider can't find within himself to blame him for.

(including the tonowari family, because I can, I love them too much to exclude them)

tonowari and ronal would throw a fit when they found out spider had been knowingly left behind with the RDA, especially because he knew what they were capable of doing firsthand, but also because he was clearly a worse father than the man he claimed to be running from (quaritch getting a redemption arc and being 'adopted' by ronal and tonowari is my favorite thing, sorry, I just can't leave it out). spider accepts treatment from her because its na'vi medicine, it feels right to seek the Great Mother's help in fixing what the Demons did to him. this quickly turns into him getting adopted, cause ronal has taken to this small human child, and tonowari just wants to see this boy happy.

ao'nung tries to throw hands with jake. that it, he treats spider like he would any other kid, any other brother, he just tries to kill jake for letting that happen to him.

tsireya is just a gentle soul to keep him company. she is a rock in the storm, always calm and caring, always asking permission to care for him, never assuming he wants her help. she holds him steady when the world around him is chaos.

now for spider himself? he feels even more useless and like a freak then before. he feels weak for being so screwed up by what he only lets himself think of as 'a flashy spinning machine' as if it wasn't created to break him. he would hate having attention on him because why should it have taken being tortured to receive this sort of attention? was being a kid not enough, he just has to suffer first? pair that with the fact that he is so self sacrificial and quick to defend the sully's he's shameful of his own anger. he's an emotional disaster, so many different though processes mixing and fighting with each other. but most of all he's frustrated, so frustrated, in the span of a few hours he lost the one thing he had, which was trust in his body, his physical capabilities that allowed him to survive on pandora and be a 'tough' kid that burdened no one. now he needs help with basic tasks and constant supervision so he doesn't just fall down and die somewhere.

[cepheusgalaxy]

Oh you're Brazilian, correct? *saw ur bio*

I was wondering if there's anything I should or shouldnt do when making a Brazilian OC.

Oh hi!

First of all, thank you for the ask :) I'm very happy you decided to make a brazilian oc, whatever is the reason (if any at all lol) 👍 Keep up the good work.

Now, generally, what you should avoid are the most common stereotypes assossiated with latin people in general (like the Latino Lover stereotype), and some specifically assossiated with us a lot:

The Soccer Player ("every brazilian [black] guy obv plays soccer"), the Samba Dancer ("every brazilian black girl dances samba"), the Sexy Brazilian (everybody has their preferences ig but try to step away from fetishization--also falls into the latino lover a little) and the Carnival Party Person ("brazil is a very big carnival party all of the time") are some examples of stuff you should avoid.

Some things I would advise you to consider aside from this are A. Their race, B. The area they're from and C. Cultural differences (I'm gonna list them in a bit).

I mention race here because a very common thing in Brazil, actually (at least if you don't consider the South/South East) is the miscigenation phenomena. Long story short, some centuries ago, the colonizers had an... "idea" of toning down the population of black people in the country, so interracial relationships were very incentivated to "breed" lighter skinned black people. Results: On this day, most brazilian people in the Northern areas are not 100% black, but very very mixed (like me). A lot of people have dark skin, though.

Now, the area where they are from would also play a big factor in the things you want to consider, because Brazil is big, so we generally divide it into five areas (this division was made in 1969 i think, by the IBGE--the brazilian institute of geography and statistics): The North, North East, Central West, South East and South. If you search for a map with this categorization you'll be able to see it.

Culturally, these areas are very different, but I'll go through them briefly here.

North - most of the indigenous folk are concentrated here (for many historical reasons) and here is also the Amazonic forest (a bit of it is in other countries' territorries but I don't remember exactly which). The demographic density (which is the amount of people per say, mile) is very sparse, and despiste it being the largest area out of the five it isn't the most populated. Indigenous cultural heritage is the strongest here.

Nort East - warmest area in the country. The majority of people here are black or brown (for a lot of other historical reasons i unfortunately can't go on about here but they are very interesting if you wanna search up) and African cultural heritage is the strongest here.

Central West - has a very little amount of states here, and also the Federal District--aka the capital, Brazilia (fun fact: Brazilia isn't localized in any state, like the capital used to be, it is separated, so that's why we say Brazil has 26 states + one federal district). I don't know a lot about this one, so I'm gonna rely on Google a little, but basically:

That's the only area that is not bathed by the Atlantic, so no sea here at all, and back in Colonization Days, it was a very explored area for mineration (one of the states here, Minas Gerais, was named because of that, fun fact). Most of the population here is white (50,5%) and brown [mixed race] (43%) source (wikipedia page for the Central West in portuguese).

South East - as we go down here, the areas start getting cooler and whiter. The biggest cities of the country are here: São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. White population, as I said before, is strongly concentrated here, because Back In Colonization Days, a lot of europeans (mainly italians and germans i think, although i might be wrong on this one) migrated to there and the South because the climate is more like in Europe than in the northern areas. This is probably what most people think when they say 'Brazil' (that or the amazonic forest, ofc), because media wise, it covers mostly carioca Carnival (Carnival from Rio de Janeiro) or the super urban city of São Paulo. Fun fact: One of the Seven World Wonders, the Christ The Redeemer statue is located there, in the RJ.

South - smallest area in the country. There are literally just three states here. It's also the coolest area out of the five, and there is even snow here! The European heritage is very strong here, also because of the migration from a few centuries ago.

If you want more insight on a certain specific area for your character, I'd be very happy to help! :) I myself am from the North East, so I have the most information about that, tho.

Now about the cultural differences in general.

A few important things that really differ are:

The culinary (depends of the area, though: up north it will have more african and indigenous dishes, down south there will be more european dishes and stuff)

The climate (if your character is from the northern areas, they will have a hard time adapting to any cool areas they might be in now--in the North East we're used to an average 25º C, or 70º F, for example, so if things go cooler they're gonna want to be very warm)

The measurements (celsius degreees vs farhenheit, miles vs kilometers, centimenters vs feet and inches, etc.)

The calendar: In the South Hemisphere, unlike in the North Hemisphere, summer is on the last and first months of the year and winter is in the middle. Basically, the seasons are inverted up there in relation to here

The school year also works a bit differenly, for that matter: Janurary and the first week of February are summer vacations, and then the year starts. A few weeks later, we have a few more weeks off for Carnival, so no school then too, and *then* you could say the year actually starts. In June (winter), we have a 10-day break for São João festivities (at least in the North East because São João is a cultural "festival"--if that's the right word), and then summer break starts around the end of November or the end or December, depending on the exact school.

Oh yeah, and one more big difference your character might find strange assuming they're in the US or a similar country now: In Brazil we have a thing called SUS - the Unique Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde), which is a free health service for everybody, funded by taxes. I heard that in the US all medical care is private, so I wanted to highlight that in Brazil we have free public healthcare and then also the private hospitals, so that could cause some cultural chock, lol

Same thing for college: There are a lot of public universities. There are actually many differences between usamerican and brazilian education system, but the main ones are that.

If you have any further asks, feel free to send them, I'd love to go deeper into one single thing if you want it. Good luck with your oc <2

[tearlessrain]

people do get weird about Imperial characters though it's like. these people spent their entire lives in a combination fascist dictatorship/cult whose infrastructure depends on military conquest and slavery, both of which have been normalized for multiple generations now. I don't think most of them are gonna have super progressive world views or be normal about interacting with aliens and outside cultures. even the ones with good intentions. at the very least it's gonna take some work and introspection to get there.

[madohomurat]

its important to analyze why you feel comfortable or uncomfortable sometimes. if you actually sit back and think about these things you can often uncover prejudices that you subconsciously hold on to.

for example, a someone might say they "get bad vibes from lesbians" and leave it at that. if they sat down and thought about why they feel that way, they would likely uncover that these "bad vibes" are actually their own lesbiphobic ideas projected onto other people.

you see the same kind of phenomenon when a white person says they "get bad vibes" from a group of POC. being vague about how and why you feel the way that you do because deep down youre afraid of realizing that you are the intolerant asshole instead of the innocent victim you act like you are.

[not-your-asian-fantasy]

Airlines now stop 'undesirables' from boarding flights to Hong Kong

Immigration officials have already turned away international rights activists and journalists on arrival at the airport under an ongoing crackdown on dissent, which the government blames on instigation by "hostile foreign forces."

@radiofreeasia

[xceanlynx]

Hey, I thought it would be nice for international swifties to hear Brazil's side of things from someone from Brazil.

I don't know if or how much money Taylor (or more specifically her PR team) spent with all the tabloids and stuff, but whatever it was, it's only working internationally. Here, the consensus among fans and non-fans is that Taylor did not act as expected from a big artist like herself.

First, the surprise song "dedicated" to Ana. Look, as far as I understand (I'm not a swiftie), Taylor sings one or two "surprise" songs each night, or each city, something like that. A song that no one knows beforehand. Maybe it was a coincidence that it was that specific song, maybe Taylor chose to sing it after Ana's tragic passing. I can't tell you because I wasn't involved in concert production. What I can tell you is that this is in no way a proper tribute. Ana's name wasn't spoken, not even once. Her picture wasn't shown. I'm sorry, this is no tribute. People are interpreting it as such, and Taylor won't correct them, it's better for her that we believe it was.

Second, fans are most disappointed at Taylor because she didn't give any support to Ana's family. Yes, Taylor is not at fault for what happened, but we, as human beings, always do stuff just to show we care. To show our kindness. Not because we're obligated judicially to do so. The Brazilian fans are not saying she has to pay compensation for the family, they're saying that it would've been nice if she even contacted them, to see if there was something hr and her team could do. Just to know them.

Many artists have shown their respect for their fans in various other circumstances, circumstances they were not responsible — brazilian fans were even ringing back a situation, many years ago, in which Beyoncé (yeah I know, swifties, but this is not the time for a fandom war) just shouted a late fan's name during her Halo song (sorry I could only find info in ptbr) in a concert here in Brazil. The fan died way before the concert, and just because he was a big fan and had already bought tickets, she showed us her sympathy that way.

Another example people are bringing up is when RBD (latam, you know them) came to Brazil and did an autograph event for free — they were (and still are, they had a concert a few days before taylor) so popular back then that over 15.000 people showed up in a venue that only supported 7.000 afaik. There was a stampede, and people died. RBD did unimaginable things to show how much they cared. They were literally traumatized by this incident (Alfonso is very vocal about it), but they still showed respect for the victims, THEIR FANS, and the families.

Would it really hurt Taylor's image, if she did something like that? If she showed that she actually cared? Is she "grieving" so much that she can't show more sympathy?

[macrocosmus]

no words make me more upset than "you live in america, speak english." my great-grandparents were forced to assimilate and now a century later the same bullshit keeps getting pushed on folks... i felt so much joy in high school when all the asian kids across different cultures realized they all never spoke english that much at home, so they didn't need to speak english with their friends either. i feel so much joy when im just out at the grocery store and hear so many different dialects and languages, it's mostly spanish i think, and that's just good. and now im jealous. i wasn't born to be monolingual. im mourning something that was taken from me decades before i was even born. im supposed to know italian, i was supposed to be at least bilingual, and now im stuck monolingual throwing myself at language learning resources as an adult, desperate to try to wrap my brain around something that should have been there since before i spoke my first words. and its a slim chance i'll actually be able to walk along side someone and have a conversation in anything other than english, at least for a long time, because its not just knowing another language that i need, its speaking it, not as an exercise, but in mundanity.

i wasnt supposed to be monolingual, and now im struggling to fix that as an adult

[necromanceyourgays]

currently wanted to complain so can I mentioned how much I hate the “Russian Spy” stereotype in movies?? how much I hate how no one talks about the prejudice towards Slavic people in general in media?? marvel is literally the biggest example of this and it pisses me off to NO END.

like, listen, I get older people (80-90) having knee-jerk reactions when someone mentions communism due to their trauma, (my grandmother was one of these people!) but to stereotype a huge group of people in the year of our lady discord 2024 based on a decades old war is INSANE???

also, Stalins idea of communism was a very warped one. instead of using the resources of the rich to aid the poor he actively stole from the poor to keep things “balanced” and killed people who did not believe in his ideologies.

so, maybe before calling some random Slavic person a communist and proceeding to judge them (whether that be internalized or not) you should consider the fact they have heard that a million times before. maybe consider the fact that a lot of people living in countries formerly occupied by the Soviet Union are still suffering from that today.

in conclusion, you should maybe, instead of creating Slavic characters based on American Propaganda, actually look into the very deep culture in Slavic communities. It’s so beautiful!! And it sucks that people ignore it!!!!

sorry. ahem. rant over, I swear.

[dykesbat]

btw once you free yourself from the shackles of artistic elitism you will be so much happier and realize a lot of your elitism was just a symptom of bigotry!

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A group of 180 organizations have called on Twitter owner Elon Musk to combat anti-Semitism on the social media platform.

"To maximize the probability that the future is good, the world needs an online platform where everyone can participate," states the Wednesday letter. "Unfortunately, this is not the case, as Jewish users are subject to unrelenting harassment on Twitter."

The non-governmental organizations and civil rights groups called on Musk, who purchased Twitter last month for $44 billion, to have Twitter adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism that has been adopted by dozens of countries, including the United States.

The IHRA definition is: “Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities."

The letter cited that "between 2020-201, anti-Semitic incidents surged by 78% in the United Kingdom and 75% in France, while the United States saw an all-time high with 2,717 recorded anti-Semitic incidents, a 34% increase from the prior year."

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associated dean and director of global social action at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, named for the late Nazi hunter, noted that there's been a drastic increase in content spreading anti-Semitism and Holocaust denialism.

"There is a direct correlation between social media posts and the continuing spike of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial in 2022," he said in a statement. "We need Elon Musk's leadership to serve as a key component of the solution to degrading online hate and anti-Semitism."

Musk has yet to publicly address anti-Semitism on Twitter.

[cavalierzee]

Sweden’s Shameful Hypocrisy

[queerbauten]

@catgirltoes said: The Heritage Festival organizers do have that level of psychic rot, unfortunately. :(

My brother was telling me about this, and I hate it. For one, it's bad on general principle—not only is it disgustingly xenophobic, but it's wildly inconsistent (it's not like they're removing other cultures whose related nation-states are committing atrocities...).

For another, the only person I can remember who has both outright asked me if I'm Russian (instead of probing to find out if I'm broadly spicy white) and acted like they weren't about to get weird about it was... a Ukrainian refugee at my work. She'd only been in Canada a few months at that point, and she still hasn't been here a year yet. She asked if I was Russian (and/or Ukrainian), because she had seen my (very Slavic) first name on a sign-in sheet. A few weeks later, she told me she had forgotten my name (but that I was Polish, heh). I told her my full first name, along with the diminutive I go by in most settings. She then asked if she could call me by a culturally-specific diminutive, specifically pointing out that it is used in places like Russia, Ukraine, and Poland.

I said yes, of course, because: 1) that's so, so sweet; 2) I like her; and, 3) it was one of the few instances where anyone outside of my family cared to engage with my Slavic ethnicity beyond, "Ooh, cultured foreigner!!" (I'm... a second-generation Canadian.)

And so, the point here is that Ukrainian civilians and Russian civilians aren't enemies. They're friends. They're family. They're neighbours. I have no reason to believe my coworker would have treated me differently had I been Russian. She could see that my cultural background was an opportunity for unison, not discord.

It really all comes back to that Marjane Satrapi quote: "The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same."

[somaligovernment]

“The most disrespected person in England is the Gary Lineker. The most unprotected person in England is the Gary Lineker. The most neglected person in England is the Gary Lineker”

-every sports personality on Twitter rn

[tumbleringismycopingmechanism]

The world would be so much better if people didn't internalize the hate thrust upon them. Like, no fat people with internalized fatphobia, no queer people with internalized homo-, bi-, inter-, trans- or aphobia or anything of the sort, no BIPOC people with internalized racism. Conservatives would have so little backhold, it would be laughable

And no, this is not arguing that it's okay to be hateful to a group you don't belong to or that any of those -isms are any better if they're held by straight white cis people. I just got a paragraphs long message from someone with migration background arguing why immigrants are bad and I still can't wrap my head around it.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Unfortunately, at the same time, another, more ominous threat began to influence non-English socialists at the Lakehead. The general anti-war position of the SDPC [Social Democractic Party of Canada] before the war and its role in radicalizing local union activities during the strike of 1913 made socialists and non-English workers the subject of rumours and speculation regarding plots of espionage and sabotage. As in many communities throughout Canada, this belief was rooted in two things that demonstrate how many residents of the twin cities imagined their communities’ roles within both Canada and the world. The editor of the Port Arthur Daily News best summarized what many in the region felt in an editorial published on 25 June 1915. He charged that Port Arthur, as a port of strategic national importance, needed to become more vigilant against impending threats to the community. This position was strengthened by the apparent sabotage of a government wireless station in Port Arthur. The stationing of men from the local militia and police departments at those industries and services deemed critical only served to heighten tensions. Incidents between workers and soldiers increased during the first years of the war at the coal docks and grain elevators of both cities, including gun battles and fistfights. Although labourers from every ethnic group participated in the taunting and fighting, however, the local press targeted only “aliens” and known socialists in its condemnation. As the work of Gerald Ross has revealed

in spite of the perceived notion that the threat of sabotage came largely from the unemployed and impoverished workers, there was also strong sentiment among Anglo-Canadians and immigrant workers from all allied powers that the enemy aliens should be released from their jobs.

This resulted not only in the dismissal of thousands of workers across Canada but also in the establishment of work camps throughout Northwestern Ontario under the War Measures Act. Internment plainly often had more to do with relieving governments of the burden of maintaining the unemployed than with questions of national security. It was of a piece with a growing climate of hostility against “foreigners,” one from which members of the left were by no means exempt. Moreover, it fit comfortably into a long-standing state interest in repressing labour. Workers participating in strikes were considered by local authorities to be unemployed and they, along with “any suspicious individuals,” could be arrested and interned. For many, internment meant both being sent to work camps located in the Canadian hinterland and confiscation of property. Far from doing nothing, internees were required to build additional camps and their labour was used for road building, land clearing, woodcutting, and railway construction.

...

The Lakehead held one of the largest prewar Ukrainian communities in the country, and although little is known about them, they comprised a significant portion of the working class. This included a purported Ukrainian-language branch of the SDPC. The nature of the Ukrainian workforce in Fort William was similar to those in Edmonton and Montreal. Ukrainians in Fort William predominantly worked for the CPR as freight and coal handlers, and in the local iron foundries in the eastern part of the city. The work was hard, heavy, dirty, and often some of the most dangerous in the region. These areas of employment were also ones in which labour unrest had been rampant before 1914, and thus were targeted by officials. Italians living in Fort William and Port Arthur were also treated with suspicion despite the significant role Italian troops were playing in the fight against the Central Powers. This had more to do, however, with their involvement in past labour unrest than with any real concern felt by employers over the loyalty of their employees, a situation highlighted by the fact that preference continued to be given to Austrian and German workers in both cities. So acute had the situation become by June 1915 that the Italian consular agent, E. Marino, publicly criticized local hiring practices. He chided employers for ignoring the fact that, unlike many in the region, these men were “offering themselves for service in defense of the principles [for] which Britishers were fighting in France against Germany.” Those most targeted for their “socialistic tendencies,” however, were members of the Finnish community. In large part, such attention was due to the leading role many Finns in Port Arthur and Fort William had played in the establishment of the Finnish Socialist Organization of Canada (FSOC) in early 1914. That March, the Port Arthur Finnish Labour Temple had in fact been the site of the first convention, which had been attended by delegates representing 3,062 Finns from Finnish socialist societies across Canada. From Northwest-ern Ontario, locals from Port Arthur (359 members), Fort William (235 members), Nolalu (16 members), Nipigon (42 members), Kivikoski (39 members), Fort Frances (27 members), Intola (37 members), and Wolf Siding (37 members) were present. Those in attendance included a young Sanna Kannasto, who was given the task of organizing both men and women in Northern Ontario. Prompted by the FSOC’s apparent interest in radicalizing Lakehead workers and the salience of socialists in its leadership, the RCMP began an intensive campaign of harassment. As future Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and Communist organizer Amos Tobias (A.T.) Hill later recalled, more than once the RCMP would “march to the [Finnish] hall during just an ordinary dance, or during the middle of a play, and stop everything, then [demand] naturalization papers or other forms of identification to prove that they were ‘loyal Canadians.’” It was not uncommon for a dozen people attending a dance to be arrested and imprisoned in the local jail for a couple of days. Considering the ethnic factionalism that defined the experience of the working class at the Lakehead before the war, it should come as no surprise that the predominantly Anglo-controlled labour organizations remained relatively quiet about this issue. Even as hundreds of local workers were interned, the local trades and labour councils supported government officials. Only when federal or municipal officials intended to let employers use “alien labourers” did they protest. Workers, who had stood shoulder to shoulder in strikes before the war, were divided further between those labelled “enemy aliens” and those who were not. For all those deemed to be a menace, real or imagined, the threat of deportation was an ever-present danger. This included any who spoke out against municipal, provincial, and federal authorities or against the war in general."

- Michel S. Beaulieu, Labour at the Lakehead: Ethnicity, Socialism, and Politics, 1900-35. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2011. p. 44-46.