The Alberta Human Rights Commission is at it again.
The latest embarrassment from this out-of-control government agency is their gift of tax dollars to a group called “Racism Free Edmonton.” It’s an ironic name, because the world view of Racism Free Edmonton is racist itself.
The Alberta Human Rights Commission is a specialist at the Orwellian perversion of language. Their counterfeit “right not to be offended” has meant the infringement of real rights, like freedom of speech.
What is Racism Free Edmonton’s advice for stopping racism? You must “acknowledge your white privilege.”
They say white Canadians “have likely harmed non-white people with our own whiteness.” Sorry, the only people I know who talk that way are race-obsessed bigots.That's today's "human rights" racket for you: bogus, bigotted, megalomaniacal and in the grip of magical thinking.
And in case you aren’t willing to be called a racist just because you’re born white, Racism Free Edmonton has another insult for you: You’re just a racist in denial of your racism. And denying your racism “perpetuates racism.”
The last time a government tried that logic was in the 1690s in Salem, Mass. There, 150 people were arrested and accused of witchcraft. Of course, most denied it — which is exactly the sort of thing you’d expect a witch to say.
So let’s be a little more accurate. Racism Free Edmonton should be called Racism Edmonton. They have violated our rights as individuals to be judged on our own merits, by our own words and deeds. They have stereotyped us, saying everyone who is white is guilty. The corollary is obvious: Anyone who isn’t white is a victim. That’s a form of bigotry, too...
Update: How are the good people of Edmonton taking being branded "racist"? As an Edmonton Journal scribe reports, not very well at all:
But the more bizarre and offensive part of this campaign isn't its assumption that all "whites" -- and only whites -- are inherently racist. It's the explicit assumption that "real" Edmontonians are all white.Exactly. I, however, am sure that there was malice behind the creation of these web pages, since the malign, power-crazed UN is behind the scheme.
Look at the wording here -- "you," "we," "us" -- all used to refer exclusively and specifically to white people, as though they were the only Edmontonians. It is unbelievably patronizing, exclusionary and ahistorical.
It's true that "white" North Americans have historically been more culpable for the systemic inequities in our society. But racism isn't something that well-meaning white people can "fix" for people of colour. The site reads as though "racialized groups" are passive victims who must sit back, uncomplainingly, waiting for "whites" to see the light. The site doesn't empower "people of colour." It infantilizes them. It mutes their voices, ignores their experience and their efforts.
Racism, says the Racism Free Edmonton website, is "often committed UNCONSCIOUSLY by people WITH GOOD INTENTIONS."
Exactly. I'm sure there was no malice behind the creation of these web pages, nothing but an honest desire to make this city a better place. But alienating people, pitting them against each other on the basis of skin colour, is no way to fight racism.
2 comments:
Working in a government-run, tax-funded organization several years ago opened my eyes. Of course, they had anti-white hiring practices before anyone else did, so it was a very diverse workplace.
A Chinese person accused a Japanese person of racism and persecution.
The white boss (of Irish descent) couldn't give an East Indian Muslim woman her well-earned bad work review because she worshiped at the same mosque as the big boss's secretary.
The Jehovah's Witnesses shared an apartment and took the same days off "sick". They slacked off with the best of them.
Some of the Black people blamed anything & everything on racism. They preferred each other's company in any get-together and wouldn't mingle. (Again, not all of them.)
A failed Catholic priest was a union leader and he was best friends with a nasty Jewish lesbian who is now an anti-Israel agitator.
An Italian woman, whose family had fled to South America after WWII, informed me that "all Polish women are whores". (That's an exact quote - I never got over my shock at her comment, which came out of the blue while watching some permissive mothers fail to discipline their children to our standards.) Her husband was Polish.
An East Indian (non-Muslim) woman was very proud of her name and privileged upbringing. She sent her mentally ill, paranoid psychologist son back to India to find a bride. She said she didn't want him to marry a white woman. And, even though the Indian bride would be kept at home, she had to have a university degree. She told me never to date an Indian man because he would wrongly consider himself a modernized Canadian and not realize how heavily he was influenced by his parents' culture.
A Chinese woman from Hong Kong bragged about how she could buy children's sizes in clothes and therefore not pay the tax. (She was a nice person, though.)
A Chinese man ate with such bad table manners that I almost threw up the two times I was in the lunchroom with him. As much as I liked him, from then on I had to eat elsewhere if he was eating. Of course, no one would have taken him aside and informed him of the way we do things in Canada -- that would be racist! imperialist! colonialist! white, white, white!
Me, I just wanted to be friends with everyone.
Thanks for sharing, Josephine. The people who really need to be "re-educated" are the ones who have persuaded themselves that their liberal guilt makes them smarter and more virtuous.
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