Politically Corrected
When bureaucrats start telling MPs what they can and can't say, what does it mean for democracy?
Terry O'Neill - May 17, 2004
IT'S NOT WHAT YOU SAY, IT'S THE COLOUR INK YOU USE TO SAY IT
To Derek Smith, the Carleton University professor who condemns Jim Pankiw's writings as discriminatory, it's more than the MP's words that offend: his choice of colours makes him see red. A 19-page report prepared as part of the Canadian Human Rights Commission's (CHRC) investigation into whether the MP is guilty of human rights violations, claims that the chiropractor from Saskatoon has printed his brochures using colours that are subliminally racist.
In one of the leaflets which led to the investigation, featuring the phrase "Stop Indian Crime" and a stop sign, Smith asserts that "the cumulative effect of the red stop sign and the words in red capital letters are clearly calculated to express several connotations at once." The professor went on to explain that "the referents of red in our symbolic language include such things as 'danger,' 'stop,' 'alarm,' 'anger,' 'fury,' 'fear,' 'fire,' 'blood,' 'emergency,' 'urgent,' and may even contain a sub textual reference in this case to 'redskins' or 'red Indians.'" Though Carleton's website does not mention his credentials in semiotics, the Harvard PhD is interested, according to Carleton's website, in "cultural analysis of public policy and colonial relations" and "projects of governance and relations of ruling, especially state systems of codification and registration of Native peoples."
Still, Smith went on deconstructing the nuances of the Pankiwian colour palette: "One notes that the colours of the pamphlet (white of the paper, red and black inks) wittingly or unwittingly utilize colours very much associated with aboriginal people, for whom four colours have come to be associate with the four cardinal directions and have great spiritual significance," he writes. "These colours, yellow, red, black, and white, are to be found in much of the aboriginal ritual contexts and are frequently to be found in regalia and clothing." He concludes that "one can hardly claim that the symbolism in this pamphlet is not inflammatory." Smith declined the opportunity to explain his theories, on the grounds that, because his report is not meant to be public at present, it would be "unethical" for him to comment. Pankiw says that since Smith was contracted last year by the Kitselas Indian band of B.C. to help prepare its treaty and land-claim case and as a supporter of Indians' treaty rights, he's not likely to give a "fair shake" to someone who questions the legitimacy of treaties, as he does. As for the choice of colours, Pankiw says his printer told him red and black were the only two ink colour options available to him. (And of course white tends to be one of your more common colours for paper.) Any implication that he selected the colours to offend Indians is, the MP suggests, simply ludicrous. But if he wants to avoid trouble from the CHRC the next time he distributes some controversial literature, he might want to make sure his printer has lots of purple ink on hand.
-- Terry O'Neill
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