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With Naheed Nenshi and Jagmeet Singh talking about how the anti-lockdown movement is (clearly) a white supremacy movement, let me take you through a year of knowing about this (thread) --
A year ago, Sandy and I recorded this episode - The Economy is Code for White Supremacy. COVID-19 was already having a clear and disproportionate impact on racialized people and it was clear then that re-opening would injure non-white people. https://sandyandnora.com/episode-99-the-economy-is-code-for-white-supremacy/
That's not the same thing as saying organized neo-Nazis were pushing for this -- no, it was far more respectable groups like CFIB and others who wanted us to rush back to normal.
But the impacts and hotspots were clear, making it a very obvious and easy thing to mobilize around
But the impacts and hotspots were clear, making it a very obvious and easy thing to mobilize around
Throughout the summer, journalists mindlessly gave the mic to way too many people who held really fucked up opinions on COVID, vaccines and masks. It was more funny than serious to far too many media outlets.
While at the same time, old faces started to appear...
While at the same time, old faces started to appear...
Writing for CBC Montreal, Jonathan Montpetit linked Quebec far-right personalities to the movement. It wasn't exactly hidden, with Alexis Cossette-Trudel's Radio-Quebec being front and centre of this movement... https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-anti-mask-movement-qanon-covid-19-1.5737040
But Quebec's organized far right had its grubby stubby fingers all over the organizing. It was very clear by watching both the rise of far right organizing in Quebec City and the rise of this movement that the tactics were the same.
In November, I wrote this -- pleading with whoever reads what I write to look at this pandemic through a racial lens. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/23/canada-covid-19-crisis-ontario-british-columbia-quebec-minority-communities/
The division between white safety and non-white, especially Indigenous and Black, lack of safety meant that the organized white supremacist movement would find more supporters than usual thanks to the strain of the pandemic and the distance that so many white people had.
In January, I did an update to where things were at, through the lens of the fourth anniversary of the shooting at the Quebec City mosque. https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/01/27/analysis/far-right-extremism-quebec-city-mosque-shooting-anniversary
Finally -- a month ago, I wrote this. And it remains true, and even more urgent. These movements have caused more harm than we will ever know. And it's absolutely critical for them to be understood for what they are. https://readpassage.com/media-has-ignored-the-anti-vax-movements-white-supremacist-roots/
