How Canada tries to hide its racism by pointing a finger at the U.S.

"In 1969, then prime minister Pierre Trudeau famously said that living beside the United States was like “sleeping with an elephant.” Indeed, a beast of such size is impossible to ignore in even a king-sized bed, and his every grunt and movement becomes the problem of his bedfellow.

Canadians love to conceive of our relationship with the United States like this: we are helpless and can do little against the giant beside us. Roll over. Put a pillow on your head. Hope to God he doesn’t roll over on you.

But the relationship is much more than a tale of a helpless small animal keeping an even keel in the midst of an elephant. Our identity is formed not simply by lying beside the beast, but also by using the United States to whitewash and obscure our own reality."