Electric Turnip
  • Blog
  • Stories
    • Story 000
    • Story 001
    • Story 002
    • Story 004
    • Story 007 - Unfinished
    • Story 008
    • Story 010 - BattleWagon
    • Story 012
  • Images
    • Adventure Caddie concept gallery
    • Page Design Gallery
    • Older Work
  • 5FEAT Video
  • Videos
  • Game Experiments
    • Climb
    • Super Shapetoy
    • TurboGarbageTruck
    • 031 - Best Games - Enchanter
    • 033 - Shader Test
  • Contact

029

5/20/2013

3 Comments

 
There are some things I don’t understand. Can’t understand, and probably won’t understand. I don’t think I have the tools to understand. I hope that I never do.

Here is a fun little story that I think makes me look very stupid, but, I think, makes my parents look unquestionably brilliant. We used to watch The Nature Of Things regularly on CBC. I was, as most children are, fascinated with science, technology, robots, spaceships, aliens, volcanoes, and dinosaurs. If there had been a show with robot dinosaurs, piloting a volcano through space meeting aliens along the way, it would have been my favorite show. In fact someone should probably get on that.

Anyway, we used to watch The Nature of Things all through the 80’s. I have more than a few fond memories of laying on the carpet in front of a monolithic, wood clad, television tube, thoroughly entranced. Occasionally I would be allowed to stay up late to watch a particularly interesting episode that aired later than intended, usually due to a hockey game running long. Any episode that centered on robots, computers, or dinosaurs could usually hold bedtime off for a spell.

As I got older and more of my evening time was spent at the rink, I would only watch the show sporadically. Usually, an episode about robots or computers or dinosaurs that would catch my attention, since I am perpetually locked at a mental age of 8-12.

This time though, the topic of the episode was the human genome project. The projects goal to map out the entire human genome was not yet complete, so this episode aired sometime in the early 90’s. That means I was in my mid teens. The host of the show, David Suzuki, told a story about how he became interested in science, nature, and most importantly, genetics. He described how his father had fostered in him an interest in nature, and exploration. He also went on to describe how he and his family had been placed in an internment camp during WWII. Listening to him recall this troubling story, at the age of at least 15 or 16, I realized that David Suzuki was japanese.

-

I have read a lot of the #1ReasonWhy and #1ReasonToBe comments on twitter. Most of them posted by women in the game industry, or women who comment on the game industry. Seriously, go and read some of these. When taken in aggregate, it paints a pretty bleak picture.

What should be done? What can we do to improve this situation?

Why did it take until my mid teens for me to realize that, David Suzuki, a man I watched explore the natural world as often as weekly, was japanese?

Of course, David Suzuki is not japanese. He is canadian. As canadian as I am. As japanese as I am scottish/irish/french mutt. He’s more canadian, If you take seniority into account. Aside from having the same last name as a cool motorbike, he was that science guy on TV. In other words, he was someone that I could aspire to be like, emulate, if i chose to.

That is all the information my spongy young brain had to go on. That was how my parents let me picture the world. That a family could have their business and possessions taken from them, that they could be imprisoned due to a minuscule variance in their genome, simply did not exist for me. That a girl couldn’t grow up to be an astronaut or an engineer, or a game developer did not exist. Maybe that was something that happened in a long gone, barbaric past, but we lived under the banner of the federation of planets. People were all basically equal. Only their circumstances were different. If you lived next door to me, we share the same circumstances, regardless of where you were last week, so we should probably go play Star Wars and Transformers.

I realize that claiming ignorance of racism, or sexism, means that I am guilty of some unique form of both in some peoples eyes. I feel the positives outweigh the negatives.

We try to make sure that our sons image of the world is this:

Most people are good, but some aren’t, so be careful.

We are mammals, just like a lot of other animals. We do a lot of the same things.

People come in different shades of brown and orange, just like other animals.

People believe different things, but mostly for the same reasons.

We like to live together peacefully, but sometimes we don’t.

We speak different languages, but say the same things.

Most of the time boys fall in love with girls, and vise versa, but not always.

Be curious. Ask questions. Good scientists ask questions. They don’t always get answers.

Do what you like doing, help other people do what they like doing.


Some day, when their brains are nearly fully formed, they will hear a story about how one group of people discriminated against another. They will comprehend the history, and they will be able to empathize with the story in the abstract, but they won’t really understand. They will realize that they never understood, and now, having grown and experienced the world, the will know that they don’t have the tools to understand. I hope, that like me, they see it as a gift.


#1ReasonToBe So that my sons grow up never knowing the difference.
3 Comments
Peg
6/3/2013 12:17:23 pm

And this is how your dad and the rest of us were raised too - I think it's a good way to start off in life :)

Reply
Dani
6/4/2013 01:15:24 am

That was Awesomely True!! I in fact was going to Lt. Uhura!!(still would like to be:)

Reply
Owen McManus
6/4/2013 03:35:27 am

Only 12 or so languages left to learn. Oh, and become an astronaut.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    June 2012
    October 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    November 2010
    October 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010

    Categories

    All
    Adventure Caddie
    Best Games

    RSS Feed

Owen McManus
  • Blog
  • Stories
    • Story 000
    • Story 001
    • Story 002
    • Story 004
    • Story 007 - Unfinished
    • Story 008
    • Story 010 - BattleWagon
    • Story 012
  • Images
    • Adventure Caddie concept gallery
    • Page Design Gallery
    • Older Work
  • 5FEAT Video
  • Videos
  • Game Experiments
    • Climb
    • Super Shapetoy
    • TurboGarbageTruck
    • 031 - Best Games - Enchanter
    • 033 - Shader Test
  • Contact