“I Hope When You Get Cancer…”
It’s no secret I roundly detested Rob Ford.
Rob Ford was an actual bona fide menace to society in the Greater Toronto Area for much of his life, from the time he was a high school bully/drug dealer until the time (and after) a child died in the botched sale of his crack tape.
Cancer does not change any of the facts.
Rob Ford was a racist. Rob Ford was a homophobe. Rob Ford actively participated in the pain of many of the communities he was in charge of, laughing and making fun of the LGBT community, non whites, and anyone who he deemed “weaker” than him.
So, when you point this out, you present Canadians with a weird conundrum. Deep “white manners” conditioning tells them “you must never speak ill of the dead,” yet they also hated the man in life. What do you do if you’re a person who can’t deal with this?
You tell the person “I hope when you get cancer, you remember this.”
This is just about the shittiest, least mannerly thing you can say to a person in retort.
The comments about Rob Ford have nothing to do with his disease, and everything to do with his legacy. His legacy is one of a man who relished causing pain to others so he could keep all the marbles. That is indisputable and can be backed up with a literal airplane hangar of reporting, police documents, ITOs, and depositions.
Rob Ford was also a person who had cancer.
Both of my maternal grandparents died of cancer. They were kind contributors in their community who always had an open door and a sympathetic ear. My grandmother also swore like a trucker and my grandfather had a weird admiration of George HW Bush. Neither of them were abusive people who used their position to harm others. They died of cancer and it was sad.
DO NOT EQUATE KIND PEOPLE WITH ROB FORD, USING CANCER AS A CUDGEL.
When you invoke cancer, it’s the equivalent of Godwin’s Law. We’re all supposed to be quiet and listen to what you have to say because everyone knows someone with cancer, right? It could be you, right?
Well, yes, it could be me, but also, I’m not in the public eye, and I didn’t spend my life as a public servant where MY LIFE AND LEGACY ARE FAIR GAME TO CONSTITUENTS AND THE MEDIA.
Rob Ford was.
Superstition over “speaking ill of the dead” and “I hope on your deathbed” is ridiculous, specious reasoning that serves 2 end goals:
- It attempts to make the chastiser feel morally superior because “they would never say that” and
- It attempts to emotionally blackmail a person who likely has experience with cancer into silence
If you do this, you’re a piece of shit.
These same people have a canned comeback if you press them on this issue: What about his kids? What about Renata?
What indeed. We know from the ITOs that he didn’t do them any favours either, and that Edenbridge was the site of many domestic abuse calls over the years.
Rob Ford didn’t care about his wife and kids when he was hurting them. Because of his power and influence, charges were dropped and CPS was warned off the house.
Where was the sympathy for the family then?
The truth about Rob Ford is inescapable, and the takeaway should be that people who spend their lives hurting others don’t get cookies just for dying, not that speaking the truth about a person is in and of itself a violent act.
If your initial thought when someone expresses indifference over Rob Ford is to essentially wish cancer on to them and not express deep sorrow for the incredibly shitty legacy he left for his kids and wife to live down, you’re actually an uncaring person who has no business telling anyone what to do.