Sunrise Sunset @lisajage - Twitter Profile

I'll try to be very careful and sensitive with this observation of Canada, because it touches on highly charged questions of ethnicity, immigration, belonging, and public space. But here goes. I've walked around Mississauga's Celebration Square on multiple evenings, and one thing I've increasingly noticed is neither hostility, nor tension, nor conflict, but something more subtle and perhaps more concerning. Public spaces seem to become associated with particular ethnocultural communities to such a degree that many others gradually stop showing up. The result is not segregation in any formal sense. Nobody is being excluded. Nobody is being told they cannot be there. Yet the effect can be remarkably similar. A space that is nominally shared begins to feel less shared over time. To be perfectly clear, what troubles me isn't the presence of any particular diasporic community itself per se, but rather the gradual disappearance of the sense that these spaces belong equally to all of us as Canadians. When a public square begins to be perceived, fairly or unfairly, as belonging primarily to one group, many others instinctively withdraw. Older-stock Canadians withdraw. Other immigrant communities withdraw. East Asians withdraw. Eastern Europeans withdraw. People who have no objection to anyone there nevertheless begin spending their evenings elsewhere. Human beings are, for better or worse, tribal creatures. We gravitate toward familiarity. We seek places where we feel represented. We retreat when that sense of belonging is lost. I understand this instinctively as someone from an East Asian diasporic background myself. The bottom line here is that a healthy Canadian civilization cannot simply consist of parallel communities inhabiting the same geography. It requires common spaces where people from different backgrounds routinely encounter one another and develop some sense of collective belonging within the same civic realm. What I increasingly worry about in Canada is not "diversity" itself, but the erosion of sharedness. A country begins to lose something important when its public spaces cease to feel genuinely collective. And whatever future Canada ultimately chooses for itself, it should never, ever feel like a collection of separate worlds living side by side while gradually forgetting how to inhabit the same one.

sciohn_fhanne's tweet photo. I'll try to be very careful and sensitive with this observation of Canada, because it touches on highly charged questions of ethnicity, immigration, belonging, and public space.

But here goes.

I've walked around Mississauga's Celebration Square on multiple evenings, and one thing I've increasingly noticed is neither hostility, nor tension, nor conflict, but something more subtle and perhaps more concerning.

Public spaces seem to become associated with particular ethnocultural communities to such a degree that many others gradually stop showing up.

The result is not segregation in any formal sense. Nobody is being excluded. Nobody is being told they cannot be there. Yet the effect can be remarkably similar. A space that is nominally shared begins to feel less shared over time.

To be perfectly clear, what troubles me isn't the presence of any particular diasporic community itself per se, but rather the gradual disappearance of the sense that these spaces belong equally to all of us as Canadians.

When a public square begins to be perceived, fairly or unfairly, as belonging primarily to one group, many others instinctively withdraw. Older-stock Canadians withdraw. Other immigrant communities withdraw. East Asians withdraw. Eastern Europeans withdraw. People who have no objection to anyone there nevertheless begin spending their evenings elsewhere.

Human beings are, for better or worse, tribal creatures. We gravitate toward familiarity. We seek places where we feel represented. We retreat when that sense of belonging is lost.

I understand this instinctively as someone from an East Asian diasporic background myself.

The bottom line here is that a healthy Canadian civilization cannot simply consist of parallel communities inhabiting the same geography. It requires common spaces where people from different backgrounds routinely encounter one another and develop some sense of collective belonging within the same civic realm.

What I increasingly worry about in Canada is not "diversity" itself, but the erosion of sharedness.

A country begins to lose something important when its public spaces cease to feel genuinely collective.

And whatever future Canada ultimately chooses for itself, it should never, ever feel like a collection of separate worlds living side by side while gradually forgetting how to inhabit the same one.

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Sunrise Sunset @LisaJage

4 days ago

@litecoin_bull We are all grateful ❤️

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4 days ago

@Meg13403602 She's single now.

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5 days ago

@PublicSvtNoOne Proves she's dumb

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5 days ago

@yegwave Definitely a hard core child abuse victim living his abuse as an abuser. The eyes tell the story... just saying.

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6 days ago

@46_still If only Ciara would stfu so the 2 people who actually had a relationship could talk. She is insufferable.

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6 days ago

@RealityyQueenn2 If Ciara ever wakes up from this victim coma she's in she is going to owe all 3 of them a public apology. She is going too far and no doubt Kyle is disgusted by her behavior. That woman has zero depth.

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6 days ago

@CueTheComments Ciara is making a fool of herself. Move on ya weirdo.

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