2019.11.14 Hey Dad: Don Cherry?

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ME: "Hey, Dad. I know you're dead and everything, but I have some questions about Don Cherry."

DAD: "Hey Sport. It's kind of an inconvenient time. There's a hockey game coming on."

ME: "That excuse won't work any more, dad. Partly because of how we watch things now at our own convenience, but mostly because I doubt time works like that when you're dead."

DAD: [scowling] "When did you start questioning my hockey time?"

ME: "Well, honestly, since always. Just maybe not out loud. And that's kind of the point, maybe."

DAD: "Are you sure this is about Don Cherry?"

ME: "Um... yes? Because the thing is how much you and Don Cherry were similar. The idolization of what life was supposed to be about, mostly in terms of a very narrow cultural viewpoint."

DAD: "Sport, you come from the exact same cultural viewpoint that I do, so I'm not sure what it is that you think you're seeing so differently."

ME: "Yeah, Dad, I know. I'm a lot like you in a lot of ways, and we both belong in the mountains. But the cultural piece - that small-town BC dynamic had a lot of problems bundled up with it. There was a lot of good stuff - it was mostly good stuff. And maybe you couldn't see it, because of how well you fit in, but the problems really sucked when you are someone who doesn't fit in. I definitely came from the same cultural place as you, Dad, but I feel like I had to crawl out from under it. A bit."

DAD: [huge eyebrows ripple] "I know you mentioned that you didn't tell me about how you got bullied in High School. Is that what you mean? Because I can't help but wonder if you would have gotten bullied less if you just figured out how to fit in better."

ME: "Maybe." [I take a long breath] "But maybe that wouldn't have been a trade I'd want to make. I really like how I am, even though it's different and didn't fit in with the tribal standards."

DAD: [eyebrows softening into a steeple of worry]

ME: "And maybe that's why I had such a hard time believing that you liked me. I think I knew you did, but I couldn't understand it in a way that let me trust it. It was so easy to imagine you being disappointed in me."

DAD: "I've always loved you, Sport. And I've always been proud of you. I couldn't be prouder of how you've turned out."

ME: "I know that's the correct answer, and it's what you've always said. But it's hard not to remember your frustration with my aversion to team sports or anything social. And I can't help but recognize a certain similarity to the assumption that fitting in is required with Don Cherry's racist assumptions about who decides to wear poppies. There weren't a lot of opportunities for overt racism when I was growing up, simply because of how very un-diverse it was where I grew up. But even so, every time there was a rare instance where race was actually a factor, you generally managed to say something racist."

DAD: "So, you think I was racist to you?"

ME: "No, Dad. I mean that your drive for me to fit in has the same basic source as racism. And that the way you actually love and accept me is the way we should try to treat everyone."

DAD: [skeptical look] "I'm not sure if I'm up to loving and accepting everyone..."

ME: "No, me neither. I'm an asshole; probably a genetic condition. But I do really think that it's important to try, even though we might fail. Hell, especially because we're probably going to fail. Because we need to keep trying to be better, and not just accept that how we're currently shitty is acceptable forever. Like Don Cherry - he was acceptable back when his humour / bullshit ratio was mostly funny. He's not sufficiently funny any more; maybe hasn't been for me for a long time."

DAD: "Genetically an asshole: funny boy."

ME: "Exactly."