Where Can You Find 460,000 Newfies?

Answer: Just go to Google.

While reading an article about Newfoundland and Labrador tourism this week I came across a line in the piece that noted the large number of web sites still using the slanderous term, “Newfie” in either their title or prominently in the content.

This piqued my curiosity of course so I decided to take a look for myself.

A quick search on Google confirmed the article’s assertion by turning up more than 460,000 web sites matching the query “Newfie”.

I have to admit to being more than a little shocked. I knew the term was still in use, even after so many people have finally begun to see it for the bigoted slur it is, but I never suspected it was as widely accepted as it still appears to be. Not in the twenty first century.

Perhaps my saddest realization was that some of the web sites in question appear to have been, believe it or not, developed by well meaning people either living in, or formerly from, Newfoundland and Labrador.

These sites often discuss everything from Newfoundland and Labrador history and culture to family backgrounds or local cuisine. Believe it or not the creators seem completely oblivious to the derogatory stereotype they’re perpetuating on their own people.

They also fail to understand the irony of what they’re doing.

When Newfoundlanders themselves display such an obvious ignorance of the connotations of that particular term they help perpetuate the long standing Canadian tradition of “Newfie” jokes and the stereotype of the “Stupid Newfie”.

There is no question about it.

How intelligent can someone be who refers to themselves in such a belittling way without even realizing they’re doing it?

These sorts of misguided people, and the web sites they run, are bad enough but there are others out there far more disturbing. Some even border on outright hate mongering.

On visiting some of the links I discovered blogs and forums where people, most of whom are from other parts of Canada, gleefully spend their time defending the use of the word Newfie with whatever convoluted logic their limited brain capacity can muster.

On one such site, I found comments like, “…most Newfoundlanders are smart enough to NOT bite the hand that feeds them”. Clearly making the argument that that it’s OK to belittle Newfoundlanders because without the financial support of Canada “Newfies” would starve to death.

In other words, “We keep you fed (which is not true) so we damn well have the right to call you whatever we want” (also not true).

Never mind that by saying Canadians are supporting the “Newfies” these neophytes are also suggesting that they don’t see Newfoundlanders as being Canadians.

This may not be too far from the truth since the Province has never been treated like an equal partner in Canada since Confederation, but that’s a subject for another article.

Clearly the people who perpetuate these myths have one brain cell between them and, on the day that specific bigoted comment was made, it clearly wasn’t the writer’s turn to use it.

Another example of outright Newfoundland and Labrador stereotyping, whether intentional or not, can be found at the site of the Goofie Newfie Restaurant at 105 Queen St. West in Fergus, Ontario.

Here we find online advertising for a pub and restaurant using the name “Goofie Newfie” in an effort to attract and serve bigoted or uneducated clientele living in Ontario.

The proprietors, whether former Newfoundlanders or not, are clearly quite happy to pander to the lowest common denominator in an effort to sell a few chicken wings and make a quick buck, regardless of the harm they’re doing to an entire culture.

I wonder if they would be as willing to sell those hot wings at an establishment called the “Nasty N*gger”?

Perhaps they might expand their business to one day offer a nice bagel at the “Jittery Jew” or a fruit salad at the “Fancy Fag”.

I seriously doubt they would but the “Goofie Newfie”, that’s just fine in their books.

These are just a small sampling of what’s considered acceptable and what is being said every day about the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

With nearly half a million web sites (a number that rivals the entire population of the province itself) it’s impossible to know what other, perhaps even more disgusting, dangerous or destructive uses of this, or similar, terms are actually out there.

After so many years of hearing the “N” word you’d think I’d be used to it but I can’t bring myself to quietly accept it. In many ways it comes across to me as being reminiscent of the old south and I simply don’t like it.

It’s disturbing to realize that after decades of paying Canadian taxes, helping build the national economy, providing workers for the factories, mills and oil fields of the nation, supplying raw materials such as ore, oil and timber to the rest of Canada and after consistently filling the ranks of the Canadian forces with nearly ten times more personnel than the province’s population would suggest it should, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are still treated with such open contempt.

It’s perhaps even more disheartening that all too often it’s Newfoundlanders and Labradorians themselves who are continuing to spread the term by buying into the bigotry, or buckling under its onslaught, and simply accepting that it’s somehow OK to be demeaned and belittled in this way.