How to offend a white Canadian

[Mosby]

Given Canada’s current pride in flaunting its “post-national” diversity, it’s easy to forget how overwhelmingly white the country used to be.

According to Statistics Canada, as recently as 1981 Canada’s visible minority population was a mere four percent — basically an entire nation with the demographics of Vermont. Immigration has since changed things, of course, and there are doubtless many who are wistful euphemistically for the cultural cohesion of that earlier age. Yet even in its epoch of white homogeneity, Canada was a land of tense identity politics, much of which continues to this day. The unprepared may be startled at the degree to which the country remains a minefield of anachronistic white sensitivities.

Anthony Bourdain, the celebrity chef behind the marquee CNN program “Parts Unknown,” certainly was. As part of a promotional push for an upcoming episode in the province of Newfoundland, the show’s official Twitter account casually used the word “Newfies” to describe the province’s residents. This was considered tremendously offensive, and after outrage on social media, an official apology was offered.

Newfoundland, an Atlantic island housing just over half a million people, is also the country’s newest province, having joined in 1949 after spending decades as a semi-independent Commonwealth dominion. A long history of alienation from the mainland has fostered all manner of stereotyping on both sides, and teasing residents — who are overwhelmingly white — for their vaguely pirate-like accents and supposedly “Podunk” lifestyle has been a trope of Canadian life for ages. A certain type of modern Newfoundlander has insisted on interpreting such teasing as bigotry, a conclusion that has in turn been obediently incorporated into Canada’s architecture of enforced taboos. In recent years, everyone from Walmart to Pokémon fan artists has been taken to task for using the Newfie nickname, whose purported offensiveness, by some accounts, may be rooted in the history of offensive stereotypes of African Americans.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/05/22/how-to-offend-a-white-canadian/

[bobbieinok]

1. Nfld is fascinating. We lived there 76-77. Excerpt seems very condescending to Nflders' concerns

We learned about the negative attitude much of Canada had/has toward Nfld before we went there.

In my experience, the most obvious prejudice I observed while there was that of the descedants of English settlers towards toward the descendants of Irish settlers. For some I met, anything negative in Nfld life - eg litter in streets, on campus - was obviously the fault of 'those Irish,'

[BannonsLiver]

2. Don't people who have have canine Newfoundlands call them Newfies?

That may only be a US thing but I’ve heard it before watching various dog shows on the idiot box. Very interesting column at any rate. I had no idea it was offensive. Learning is good.

[Jake Stern]

3. Fun fact: part of the reason NL is in Canada is because there was a push to join the USA

Despite the fact that the Canadians didn't really want the colony as a province they supported union because they were apprehensive about being potentially surrounded by American territory.

[Adrahil]

4. I lived there as a kid for a few years...

When I was there, the locals referred to themsleves as Newfies. Dunno.