I have been warning about the disturbing rise of white supremacy groups acting within the wellness space for a few years now. Having worked in this field for a decade, it’s been an anomaly that we’ve been seeing much more frequently and there are worldwide discussions around how best to address it.
My first major kerfuffle came during the Unified project - a pilot project for school that involved developing a model for and regulations around bringing complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) disciplines into the Canadian healthcare system so that it would no longer be fee-for-service and instead covered by our healthcare system.
The thing with the CAM professions is that you, generally, have to pay out of pocket for these services, or have a job that has some kind of health insurance that covers them. The vast majority of people who would benefit most from these services can’t afford them - people with chronic pain, disabilities, and marginalized groups.
The model proposed that if we set aside an amount of money from each service that people are already paying for - similar to extra taxes on cigarettes and alcohol - and pool that money, we could establish a self-paying way of integrating these services into the medical model for those who can’t afford them.
It worked really well, for the record. Though you wouldn’t know it from the media coverage.
The thing that I found fascinating at the time was that my work attracted the attention and harassment of a number of known white supremacy groups in the states who were none too happy about the regulations part of the study.
Why would white supremacy groups in the states care about better wellness regulations in Canada, or that these services would become incorporated into the mainstream healthcare system?
Turns out, the wellness-to-white-supremacy pipeline is a thing.
https://www.fridaythings.com/recent-posts/angela-liddon-oh-she-glows-canada-trucker-convoy-2022
Think about it, the wellness space is filled primarily with wealthy white women who can afford to spend the time and money on a bunch of woo who like to reject mainstream healthcare and are easily misled by junk science and misinformation.
I was taking away their ability to influence and recruit an entire fundraising group.
I wasn’t super vocal about it at the time because I was also involved in the court case against that serial sexual predator massage therapist who had a very fervent following hell bent on discrediting me and ranting about white supremacy groups infiltrating the wellness world seemed like I would just be giving them easy fodder for their campaign against me. Plus, historically, they aren’t the most stable bunch and who needs that in their lives? But it seems a good time to point it out now.
This isn’t new. I’ve been speaking out more lately about the seedy underbelly of the wellness world and the infiltration of white supremacy groups within this sphere is important to acknowledge. We can’t fix a problem if we don’t acknowledge that it exists. So let’s start some conversations about what we need to do about this to safeguard vulnerable people from hate groups in Canada. It’s important. And it’s time that we start to pay attention to it.