Derek Hough, the talented dancer from
Dancing With the Stars
I was by the lovey Jubilee Garden in Mississauga when I saw a young man moving gracefully. At first it looked like he was dong some kind of stretching exercise, but he was moving to some inner rhythm. He was not a dancer (I didn't think so) but he was artistic.
The Jubilee Garden as winter approaches
[Photo by KPA]
"Are you an artist?"
"No."
"What do you do?"
"Nothing."
"Oh. What did you study?" I've met before another young man who told me he had recently been a student at the nearby Sheridan College and was going on with more school since he couldn't find work.
"Philosophy," said this young man.
"You're a philosopher!" I concluded, pointing my finger at him telling him off for his lazy withdrawal.
How many times did this young, white man hear that he was "nothing?" In this world where the brown-skinned man rules, where Chinese and Indian philosophers are venerated, where multiculturalism runs the world, the heir to the white western civilization is deemed "nothing."
Does this young man realize that it is this "nothing" civilization that his "nothing" ancestors built which draws all these people here, reaping all the benefits but giving him nothing in return, other than to call him "nothing?"
Derek Hough