4 - Sunday, September 13, 1992 —

North Shore News

Same sex cheques, another joke on stra ights|

I AM not a homophobe.

At least one of my best friends
is a homosexual. I’ve met plenty
of homosexuals over the years. |
even had one punch me in the
nose.

I've been prepositioned. But all
Lhad to do was give them a look.
Didn’t even have to say ‘‘Forget
it.’* Mostly it’s a given that 'm
straight, so why bother?

However, you wouldn’t
automatically know I’m not a
homophobe, talking to me. It de-
pends.

In gatherings of strictly (so far
as is known) heterosexual males,
for instance, | utter the ap-
propriate manly guffaws at crude
jokes about homosexuals, which
probably means {'m some kind of
hypocrite or moral failure.

The way I fook at it, I’m nota
homosexual, so why should I take
on the burden of getting into
arguments defending homosex-
uality?

I’ve got enough hassles just get-
ting through the day. Extra stress
I need like a hole in the head.

Also, there's the fact that
homosexuals tend to teli a lot of
jokes about hetercsexuals, just
like women tell jokes about men,
and men, God knows, tell lots and
fots of jokes about women.

Hey, it’s just part of being ‘‘the
guys.’’ Not a particularly big deal.
Give us our little pleasures.

I think, in fact (not a lovely
thought, but a viable thought,
given the evidence), it’s part of

being human. Tribal identification

rituals, and all that.

Native North American
aboriginal persons (arch-correctly
speaking) have a pronounced
tendency to make jokes about |
white men, I’ve noticed.

Career prep

THE NORTH Vancouver
District 44 School Board
was introduced Tuesday
night to six new career
preparation courses to be
offered at North Vancouver
secondary schools.

By Kevin Gillies
‘ Contributing Writer

@ Forty-eight Grade 11 and 12
Sutherland students will be able to
enrol in a pre-employment course
-that will augment their classroom
studies with off-campus work ex-
perience during a two-year period.
@ Also offered to 30 Grade 11
and 12 students at Sutherland will
be a general mechanics course that
will include on-the-job training
-away from the school.

‘@ Sutherland will offer” a video

STRICTLY PERSONAL

I did a freelance gig many
months ago as a speechwriter for
an Indian chief up the coast,
which required me to fly to the
reserve every now and then and
hang out long enough to figure
what the chief wanted to say.

This meant sometimes sitting in
on the band council meetings,
which would usually begin with 10
minutes of whiteman jokes for my
benefit.

I'd smile, keep my pencil pois-
ed, and wait for them to get it out
of their systems.

This is the heart of tolerance,
even brotherly love, isn’t it?

My experience with the band
council was a little bit like having
to listen to black comedians on
American television shows, telling
despicable racist anti-white jokes.

It always astonishes me when

’ their mostly white audiences laugh

wildly and even applaud.
By ducking my head and taking
it from the Indians (apart from

464 What is a cheque from the

taxpayer if not paternalism of the

highest order?99

earning my pay, which is always
an argument to be made for tak-
ing abuse), I hope f was doing
something different from merely
displaying pathetic knee-jerk lib-
eral guilt.

Apart from being tolerant, I
hope I was showing that I could
laugh at myself as well as my nut-
ty race.

in any event, the jokes told by
the Indians were wry and mock-
ing, rather than hateful. In con-
text, | knew that most of their
humor is self-deprecating to a
fault.

(Example, told to me by an In-
dian: ‘*What do you call a white
man surrounded by Indians?”’
Answer: “‘A bartender.’’)

There is balance. An essential
fairness. Maybe this *‘fairness’”
thing we Canadians are iato is
something we picked up from the
indians, ch?

Besides, by ‘‘race,”’ what dces
anyone mean? I’ve got Scottish,
French and, so P’'ve been told
recently, even a trace of Huron
diood in me, courtesy of a great-
great-grandmother on the French

side.

So !’m Canadian for sure, if

courses launched in NV

NORTH VANCOUVER
SCHOOL BOARD

production course that will give
students an opportunity to be in-
volved in all facets of producing

District 44 video projects to be

aired on community television. _
The course will also explore
print journalism, and students will
submit articles regularly to the
” Zap! youth

© Carson Graham will be offer-
ing a media technology course to
teach students video, audio and
photography skills.

The course will use professional
filming and recording studics and
editing labs.

@ Carson Graham will be using
local. theatre productions and
dance/movement studios to train
students in movement, dance and

_ STEEL-MOND ETAL INDUSTRIES (B.C.) 7D. ;
Unit 137 & 139-1305 Welch St. N.Voncouver, B.C.
Tel:-(604) 987-4999 FAX (604) 987-4545

choreography for their performing
arts/dance course.

@ Also taught at Carson will be
First Nations Studies. Language,
caltuze and secial, legal and polii-
ical issues will be covered! in the
course. .

nothing else. But is that a race
yet? Not when | last checked.
Getting back to homophobia,
the issue shouldn’t be whether one
laughs at jokes about people who
are different in style and prefer-
ences and skin pigmentation and
eye color and hair color and
culture and language and religion
and job position and ciass and
club membership and political af-
Gation and neighborhood and
couriry anu sexzal organs, but
whether ane acknowledges the
basic right of the other to enjoy
the same proatsctions and benefits '
as oneself and one’s ‘‘tribe,””
however that may be defined, in-
dividually and collectively. .
Having said all this to establish
my liberalism (even if I have a
weakness for off-color jokes of

Community

Report

Cur community office is
open again after summer

holidays.

You will be hearing a lot
about the referendum on the

constitution this fall,

but .

‘that’s not the only issue
affecting British Colum-
bians. Watch for a letter ‘and

questionnaire from David in
your mail." Let us know

what’s on your mind.

David sits on three legisla-
tive committees: Public
Accounts; Health and Social
Services; and Parliamentary
Reform. The last two will be
holding hearings this fall.

every description), ] have to say
that I nearly fell out of my chair
when I read that the Ontario
Humar Rights Commissica has
decided that civil service spousal
benefits should be extended to
homosexual partners.

Hey, I don't begrudge anyone a
good harmless scam, so I’m not
automatically opposed to thisin
principle. It’s just 1 that I have a
very hard tirue seeing the justifica-:.
tion.

Such benefits are of course of-
fered in cases of common-law’
relationships, but surely that was
done in the first place to protect
women and children from _
avaricious, irresponsible men.

In a homosexual relationship,
who is being protected from:
whom?

Lesbians and gays are doing nt
their thing partially because they |
reject the old patriarchal Gomi-
siance system, with its dependen-
cies and power ts, Or.
so I’m iold. Yet what is a cheque :
from the taxpayer if not paternal.
ism of the highest order?. ..,:

Think about it. A gay civil Sex-
vant’s boyfriend can get medical
benefits and a pension just for -
cohabitating with his lover. Now
that’s a joke on the straights ft
ever heard one.

David Schreck, MLA -
(North Vancouver Lonsdale) |. —
Legislative Office:

Parliament Buildings

Victoria, B.C. V8V 1X4
Phone: (604) 356-3003

Community Office:
140 B Lonsdale Avenue
North Vancouver V7M 2E8

Phone: (604) 986-2254