Previously, I wrote about rapper Azealia Banks and about how she spews social justice rhetoric while failing to understand it or apply it to herself.
In an eye-opening interview with Playboy Magazine (good gawd, have they ever dropped their standards) Banks confirmed that, yes, she really is virulently racist.
But more than that, Banks confirmed another already-known-fact: that she's a blathering moron. Her comments on religion are as incoherent as they come:
"I don’t understand how someone could be an atheist. Think about God as software, right? If you were to look at God’s face, your head would explode. Because your head is a calculator, and the amount of information that would be embedded in his face would fit only on a Google-size data center. Your head cannot handle that much information. Stop looking for God."
It's almost as if someone from the mighty Google paid her to tell Playboy magazine that Google is God. Which shows what she knows. Anyone who has seen Airheads knows that Lemmy is God.
Banks isn't making many friends these days. Other rappers. White people. Homosexuals. Christians. Atheists. Middle America. None of them are people she's coaxing into her dwindling fandom.
I've listened to enough of her music to conclude one thing: she's seemingly got just one gift, and it's not music. Rather, that one gift is alienating absolutely everyone. She's finally alienated enough people that the only way she can get mainstream press coverage is to show off her birthday suit in Playboy. And apparently can't even do that without humiliating herself during the interview.
In the words of other, better musicians (most of whose catalog, oddly enough, I don't really care for): you did it to yourself.
Showing posts with label Race and Racism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Race and Racism. Show all posts
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Azealia Banks & the New Nadir of Social Justice ideology
For an ideology with such lofty goals, social justice ideology certainly manages to stoop to some shocking lows. Every time you think this ideology has reached it's nadir, it manages to stoop even lower.
Enter Azealia Banks.
Azealia Banks would really, really like people to think that she's all about teh social justice. She's openly declared herself a feminist and anti-racist. (Yet she assailed Iggy Azalea under the vaguely-racist guise of "cultural appropriation.") Yet while she quickly built an audience among the LGBTQ community, she's quickly alienated them with her own ignorant behaviour.
She seems to love the word "faggot," and spits it with the zeal of the most stereotypical homophobic redneck you could possibly imagine.
This has led to torrents of criticism from an audience -- gay men -- that Banks seems to think she had locked up. And so in an effort to stave off the criticism, Banks has apparently chosen to shield herself from criticism of her homophobic behaviour with feminism.
"The word 'faggot' came to me from my mother. And it was never a thing about a guy being gay. It was always just a man who hates women. You can be gay or straight. You can be a straight faggot… Faggots are men who want to bring women down, fuck with their heads, control them.
I definitely think a lot of the time with the 'white gay media' – especially with female artists – in order for you to seem successful or seem feminine you have to desire their approval. I feel like a lot of times gay men can be way more misogynistic than even straight men. Even how they come to you picking at your hair, telling you you're fat, telling you all this other shit. Telling you how to be a woman. What the fuck do you know about being a woman?
To be homophobic would imply that I'm, like, 'I can't sit next to a gay man cuz Imma catch the gay, but I already caught the gay. I feel like when I use the word 'faggot,' it comes from, like, a feminist point of view, not a homophobic point of view. It's really just kinda like you feel attacked as a woman."
So to Banks it isn't all gay men she hates. It's just white gay men. The gay white devil. That's supposed to make it all better one imagines, intersectionality and all.
Of course in theory intersectionality is supposed to teach social justice advocates that oppression exists across a wide variety of identities, all of which intersect throughout the population of people who the ideology considers oppressed.
This often also leads to an almost-mathematic tallying of alleged victimhood, wherein people who consider themselves oppressed rank their oppression over the oppression of others. For example, Azealia Banks is a black bisexual woman. Allegedly oppressed as black, bisexual, and a woman. So of course she feels she may disparage those who allegedly not as allegedly-oppressed as she.
But as a general rule, feminists -- even those who believe in intersectionality -- do not accept or tolerate homophobia. So attempting to excuse homophobia by hiding behind feminism shows only how out-of-touch she is with feminism.
Of course feminism isn't the only subvariant of social justice ideology that Banks attempts to hide behind, yet is oddly non-compliant with. In a 2014 feud with Australian rapper Iggy Azalea, Banks accused her, as a white person in hip hop, of "cultural appropriation."
Banks earned any fandom she had in the gay community by absorbing influences from the sub-culture of black gay men into her music. Azealia Banks is not a black, gay, man. Ergo, she herself is guilty of cultural appropriation. You need not believe in the uniquely-bigoted concept of cultural appropriation to realize that Banks is non-compliant.
So should Azealia Banks be excused for her rampant racism and homophobia? Well, I'm not a gay man so it's not up to me to decide. But for any such person who is thinking of forgiving Banks, it seems necessary to remind them that social justice ideologues would suggest that perhaps they've internalized the oppression that is at the root of Banks' behaviour.
Unless social justice ideologues are prepared to expel Banks from under their ideological umbrella this will simply represent a new low these identity zealots have stooped to; a new nadir for social justice ideology.
Enter Azealia Banks.
Azealia Banks would really, really like people to think that she's all about teh social justice. She's openly declared herself a feminist and anti-racist. (Yet she assailed Iggy Azalea under the vaguely-racist guise of "cultural appropriation.") Yet while she quickly built an audience among the LGBTQ community, she's quickly alienated them with her own ignorant behaviour.
She seems to love the word "faggot," and spits it with the zeal of the most stereotypical homophobic redneck you could possibly imagine.
This has led to torrents of criticism from an audience -- gay men -- that Banks seems to think she had locked up. And so in an effort to stave off the criticism, Banks has apparently chosen to shield herself from criticism of her homophobic behaviour with feminism.
"The word 'faggot' came to me from my mother. And it was never a thing about a guy being gay. It was always just a man who hates women. You can be gay or straight. You can be a straight faggot… Faggots are men who want to bring women down, fuck with their heads, control them.
I definitely think a lot of the time with the 'white gay media' – especially with female artists – in order for you to seem successful or seem feminine you have to desire their approval. I feel like a lot of times gay men can be way more misogynistic than even straight men. Even how they come to you picking at your hair, telling you you're fat, telling you all this other shit. Telling you how to be a woman. What the fuck do you know about being a woman?
To be homophobic would imply that I'm, like, 'I can't sit next to a gay man cuz Imma catch the gay, but I already caught the gay. I feel like when I use the word 'faggot,' it comes from, like, a feminist point of view, not a homophobic point of view. It's really just kinda like you feel attacked as a woman."
So to Banks it isn't all gay men she hates. It's just white gay men. The gay white devil. That's supposed to make it all better one imagines, intersectionality and all.
Of course in theory intersectionality is supposed to teach social justice advocates that oppression exists across a wide variety of identities, all of which intersect throughout the population of people who the ideology considers oppressed.
This often also leads to an almost-mathematic tallying of alleged victimhood, wherein people who consider themselves oppressed rank their oppression over the oppression of others. For example, Azealia Banks is a black bisexual woman. Allegedly oppressed as black, bisexual, and a woman. So of course she feels she may disparage those who allegedly not as allegedly-oppressed as she.
But as a general rule, feminists -- even those who believe in intersectionality -- do not accept or tolerate homophobia. So attempting to excuse homophobia by hiding behind feminism shows only how out-of-touch she is with feminism.
Of course feminism isn't the only subvariant of social justice ideology that Banks attempts to hide behind, yet is oddly non-compliant with. In a 2014 feud with Australian rapper Iggy Azalea, Banks accused her, as a white person in hip hop, of "cultural appropriation."
Banks earned any fandom she had in the gay community by absorbing influences from the sub-culture of black gay men into her music. Azealia Banks is not a black, gay, man. Ergo, she herself is guilty of cultural appropriation. You need not believe in the uniquely-bigoted concept of cultural appropriation to realize that Banks is non-compliant.
So should Azealia Banks be excused for her rampant racism and homophobia? Well, I'm not a gay man so it's not up to me to decide. But for any such person who is thinking of forgiving Banks, it seems necessary to remind them that social justice ideologues would suggest that perhaps they've internalized the oppression that is at the root of Banks' behaviour.
Unless social justice ideologues are prepared to expel Banks from under their ideological umbrella this will simply represent a new low these identity zealots have stooped to; a new nadir for social justice ideology.
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Thawing the Nuclear Hellfrost of Social Justice Ideologies
If you've seen a photo of Reece Eber lately, there's a reason why he looks like a scared little bunny.
And if you've never heard of Reece Eber until just now, there's a reason why you're not alone. Then again, there's also a reason why you might only be hearing of him just now.
There can be no doubt that for the last several days Eber has been living in fear for his life, as news exploded that Eber desecrated the grave of "Dimebag" Darryl Abbot.
Eber is formerly the lead singer of a band named "Nuclear Hellfrost." (If you've never heard of them before now there's a reason for that as well.) Nuclear Hellfrost is based in Fort Wayne, Indiana. But a recent post on the band's Tumblr blog -- now deleted -- revealed that during a December tour through Texas, the band paid a visit to Abbott's grave.
There, they spat on his grave. That's the least of what they did as a group. According to Eber's account, he lingered behind after his bandmates departed and attached a note to the plaque covering Abbott's grave simply reading "fag." According to his initial account he also stole a pair of cowboy boots left by the grave.
He even took pictures of his work, and posted it to his Instagram account, with the following explanation:
"I HATE pantera…with a passion. and so does the rest of my band. so on tour going through texas we paid douchebag darrell a visit, we spit on his grave, stole a pair of cowboy boots, and i wrote fag on his grave… in not a homophobe but i hope the panturrrra fans see this… buncha racist hillbillies."
Well, Pantera fans saw it. And now Eber is at least pretending to see the error of his ways. But does he really?
Despite having used a homophobic slur, Eber insists that he is "not a homophobe." But even more disturbing is the final slur uttered on his Instagram posting, which seems to stand apart almost as if offered as justification for his actions:
"Buncha racist hillbillies."
I've listened to the entire catalogue of Pantera's work countless times over. Never have I heard a single lyric that would suggest the band is racist. I'm aware of no racist remarks ever uttered by a member of the band.
But even if it were true that Pantera, or Abbott himself, were racist, does that justify desecrating a gravesite?
Only under philosophical conditions that treat only people who hold requisite political or social beliefs as being worthy of even the most basic moral consideration.
It's become no secret that Nuclear Hellfrost considers themselves an "anti-racist" band. Even if they don't adhere to the other requirements necessary in order to be included under the banner of identity politics-based social justice ideologies -- and spewing homophobia is certainly a failure to adhere -- they clearly consider themselves to be adherents of social justice ideologies. As with all such ideologues, they seem to grant themselves infinite "free passes" for violations of that same ideology.
Moreover, their asserted adherence to that ideology -- even if they don't actually adhere to it -- grants them a free hand to heap all manners of abuses on those who don't adhere to it. Alleged racism, sexism, homophobia, or any other violation can be invoked by such individuals as justification for any kind of moral act they may wish to commit.
In the final analysis, they treat themselves as uniquely privileged to decide, on such basis, who is or is not worthy of moral consideration.
There's a phrase that describes this attitude: moral authoritarianism.
Moral authoritarianism has become as much a landmark on the landscape of left-wing politics as social justice ideology; such metaphorical monoliths grow evermore in size, import and prestige the further one moves toward the far-left.
This is why social justice ideologies are uniquely toxic. The ideologies, their teachings and their methodologies should be rejected anywhere and everywhere they appear in favour of means that actually pursue actual social justice.
Here's a general rule of thumb: people who actually pursue actual social justice will not do so by doing things that are unjust, as Reece Eber and Nuclear Hellfrost have done.
Not that Nuclear Hellfrost matters much. Their hatred has not only extinguished any meaningful humanity in themselves, but now also their musical careers.
Simply put, they're not a big enough band to afford the amount of security they'd need to keep themselves safe at a metal concert.
And if you've never heard of Reece Eber until just now, there's a reason why you're not alone. Then again, there's also a reason why you might only be hearing of him just now.
There can be no doubt that for the last several days Eber has been living in fear for his life, as news exploded that Eber desecrated the grave of "Dimebag" Darryl Abbot.
Eber is formerly the lead singer of a band named "Nuclear Hellfrost." (If you've never heard of them before now there's a reason for that as well.) Nuclear Hellfrost is based in Fort Wayne, Indiana. But a recent post on the band's Tumblr blog -- now deleted -- revealed that during a December tour through Texas, the band paid a visit to Abbott's grave.
There, they spat on his grave. That's the least of what they did as a group. According to Eber's account, he lingered behind after his bandmates departed and attached a note to the plaque covering Abbott's grave simply reading "fag." According to his initial account he also stole a pair of cowboy boots left by the grave.
He even took pictures of his work, and posted it to his Instagram account, with the following explanation:
"I HATE pantera…with a passion. and so does the rest of my band. so on tour going through texas we paid douchebag darrell a visit, we spit on his grave, stole a pair of cowboy boots, and i wrote fag on his grave… in not a homophobe but i hope the panturrrra fans see this… buncha racist hillbillies."
Well, Pantera fans saw it. And now Eber is at least pretending to see the error of his ways. But does he really?
Despite having used a homophobic slur, Eber insists that he is "not a homophobe." But even more disturbing is the final slur uttered on his Instagram posting, which seems to stand apart almost as if offered as justification for his actions:
"Buncha racist hillbillies."
I've listened to the entire catalogue of Pantera's work countless times over. Never have I heard a single lyric that would suggest the band is racist. I'm aware of no racist remarks ever uttered by a member of the band.
But even if it were true that Pantera, or Abbott himself, were racist, does that justify desecrating a gravesite?
Only under philosophical conditions that treat only people who hold requisite political or social beliefs as being worthy of even the most basic moral consideration.
It's become no secret that Nuclear Hellfrost considers themselves an "anti-racist" band. Even if they don't adhere to the other requirements necessary in order to be included under the banner of identity politics-based social justice ideologies -- and spewing homophobia is certainly a failure to adhere -- they clearly consider themselves to be adherents of social justice ideologies. As with all such ideologues, they seem to grant themselves infinite "free passes" for violations of that same ideology.
Moreover, their asserted adherence to that ideology -- even if they don't actually adhere to it -- grants them a free hand to heap all manners of abuses on those who don't adhere to it. Alleged racism, sexism, homophobia, or any other violation can be invoked by such individuals as justification for any kind of moral act they may wish to commit.
In the final analysis, they treat themselves as uniquely privileged to decide, on such basis, who is or is not worthy of moral consideration.
There's a phrase that describes this attitude: moral authoritarianism.
Moral authoritarianism has become as much a landmark on the landscape of left-wing politics as social justice ideology; such metaphorical monoliths grow evermore in size, import and prestige the further one moves toward the far-left.
This is why social justice ideologies are uniquely toxic. The ideologies, their teachings and their methodologies should be rejected anywhere and everywhere they appear in favour of means that actually pursue actual social justice.
Here's a general rule of thumb: people who actually pursue actual social justice will not do so by doing things that are unjust, as Reece Eber and Nuclear Hellfrost have done.
Not that Nuclear Hellfrost matters much. Their hatred has not only extinguished any meaningful humanity in themselves, but now also their musical careers.
Simply put, they're not a big enough band to afford the amount of security they'd need to keep themselves safe at a metal concert.
Monday, September 8, 2014
Put the Blame for Missing & Murdered Inidgenous Women Where It Belongs
Writing on Rabble.ca, Sarah Hunt has drawn the most predictable (and racist) conclusion regarding murdered and missing indigenous women: blame whitey.
"Over the past few weeks, we have seen a rise in media coverage of violence against Indigenous girls and women following the murder of 15 year old Tina Fontaine. Discussion reached its peak last week during the annual meeting of premiers, which was seen as a venue to push for action to address the root causes of this ongoing atrocity. Yet as the meeting fades out of memory and Tina becomes the latest in the seemingly endless string of murdered young women, I fear that this flurry of dialogue and public outrage has yet again failed to bring about real change.
I fear that no amount of increased awareness and political organizing will actually end the violence if we continue along this current trajectory because we are still not shining a spotlight on the real causes of violence. No, I'm not talking about the drug use and street involvement that some journalists have drawn attention to in their portrayal of Tina Fontaine's final days. I'm also not talking about widespread poverty on reserve, or even the myriad factors that systematically marginalize Indigenous girls and women.
What this latest round of media coverage has failed to address is simply this: white male violence.
Indeed, the erasure of that violence as a topic of social and political concern is arguably a form of violence itself, as it serves to remove white men from the equation. White men get away with being unmarked by the violence they perpetrate, not at fault for carrying out a form of violation that is as old as colonialism itself. They also disassociate themselves from the institutions and systems that serve to normalize violence against Indigenous people -- systems that were designed and are largely upheld by (you guessed it) white male leaders.
For example, we have heard very little about the fact that the multiple murder trial of a 24 year old white man, Corey Legebokoff, is wrapping up this week in Prince George -- an area associated with the Highway of Tears. Indeed, no one has been connecting the dots between Legebokoff's multiple killings and the widespread violence against Indigenous girls and women in that area."
Apparently, Hunt resents the tragic facts of Tina Fontaine's last days being recounted because it impedes her agenda of just blaming the white devil. So instead she moves on to drawing some rather bold conclusions from the Corey Legebokoff trial: the white man is to blame after all.
The especially interesting thing about this is that Legebokoff is on trial for murdering four women. Of those four women, two were white and two were aboriginal. (Legebokoff is literally an equal-opportunity murderer, so far as race is concerned.) And so on the basis of half of Legebokoff's victims, Hunt casts the finger of blame at white people (especially white men) for the murders of indigenous women.
In social science, this is called a sampling error. It occurs when a subset of a statistical sample is used to draw conclusions about the sample as a whole.
So far, Hunt has found two murdered indigenous women killed by a white male. And based on this sample (of two) she draws her conclusions about the entire sample.
Well, the RCMP did not draw its conclusions based on a subset as small as two. They drew it based on the entirety of a sample of 1,181. Based on that sample of cases, this is what they concluded:
-The solve rate for murdered or missing indigenous women is practically identical tothe solve rate for non-indigenous women.
-Indigenous women were most likely to be murdered not by a stranger such as Corey Legebokoff, but by someone known to them. Either an acquaintance (30%), their spouse (29%) or other family member (24%). More than 90% of murdered indigenous women knew their killer in some way.
-The bulk of the killers of these women were men with criminal records, attained via previous violence against the women they eventually killed.
So the overwhelming majority of the murderers of indigenous women were indigenous men already known to the victim. Somehow Hunt has managed to look at this and conclude that "white male violence" is the underlying root cause.
The only way that Hunt could have even possibly reached these conclusions is to wilfully disregard the results of the exhaustive RCMP study and simply create her own out of whole cloth, with nothing more than a sampling error to support them. Why would motivate an academic to do such a thing?
It turns out that the answer is in her bio:
"Sarah Hunt (PhD) is a writer, educator and activist currently based in Lkwungen Territories (Victoria, BC) and is of Kwagiulth (Kwakwaka’wakw), Ukrainian and English ancestry. She has more than 15 years’ experience doing community-based work on issues of justice, education and cultural revitalization in rural and urban Indigenous communities across B.C. Most recently, Sarah’s research investigated the relationship between law and violence in ongoing neocolonial relations in BC, asking how violence gains visibility through Indigenous and Canadian socio-legal discourse and action."
It's only natural Hunt would be wilfully blind to the grim realities reflected in the RCMP report. Simply put: she, and the kinds of policies she has advocated, has a direct hand in this matter becoming as out-of-control as they have gotten. While indigenous women have been murdered by the violent thugs sent loose by a justice system instructed to go easy on them because they're aboriginal, she and her ideological cohorts have been telling us that if you can just hug a thug hard enough, everything will be OK.
With 1,181 murdered and missing indigenous women to show us how wrong Sarah Hunt and her cohorts are, I say "enough. It's over. You're done."
It only reaffirms my belief that there should be a Parliamentary Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, but not the one that Sarah Hunt and her ilk imagine. They imagine an inquiry as a soapbox from which they can disregard the facts, invent their own, and push their failed agenda. The result will be more missing and murdered indigenous women.
Canada needs a very different inquiry: more of a trial, with Sarah Hunt and her cohorts in the docket, answering for the policies they pushed. One in which they will not be able to evade the blame for softening Canada's criminal justice system so that it no longer even tried to protect the women who eventually wound up murdered at the hands of those who had already victimized them. A trial that will discredit them so thoroughly that, PhD or not, the public will recognize their unworthiness and we will never hear from them again. They will be relegated to the irrelevance they have so richly earned.
Then the rest of us will go on with the business of protecting indigenous women by an act so simple, obvious and intuitive as keeping their assailants in jail so that they cannot harm their victims again.
"Over the past few weeks, we have seen a rise in media coverage of violence against Indigenous girls and women following the murder of 15 year old Tina Fontaine. Discussion reached its peak last week during the annual meeting of premiers, which was seen as a venue to push for action to address the root causes of this ongoing atrocity. Yet as the meeting fades out of memory and Tina becomes the latest in the seemingly endless string of murdered young women, I fear that this flurry of dialogue and public outrage has yet again failed to bring about real change.
I fear that no amount of increased awareness and political organizing will actually end the violence if we continue along this current trajectory because we are still not shining a spotlight on the real causes of violence. No, I'm not talking about the drug use and street involvement that some journalists have drawn attention to in their portrayal of Tina Fontaine's final days. I'm also not talking about widespread poverty on reserve, or even the myriad factors that systematically marginalize Indigenous girls and women.
What this latest round of media coverage has failed to address is simply this: white male violence.
Indeed, the erasure of that violence as a topic of social and political concern is arguably a form of violence itself, as it serves to remove white men from the equation. White men get away with being unmarked by the violence they perpetrate, not at fault for carrying out a form of violation that is as old as colonialism itself. They also disassociate themselves from the institutions and systems that serve to normalize violence against Indigenous people -- systems that were designed and are largely upheld by (you guessed it) white male leaders.
For example, we have heard very little about the fact that the multiple murder trial of a 24 year old white man, Corey Legebokoff, is wrapping up this week in Prince George -- an area associated with the Highway of Tears. Indeed, no one has been connecting the dots between Legebokoff's multiple killings and the widespread violence against Indigenous girls and women in that area."
Apparently, Hunt resents the tragic facts of Tina Fontaine's last days being recounted because it impedes her agenda of just blaming the white devil. So instead she moves on to drawing some rather bold conclusions from the Corey Legebokoff trial: the white man is to blame after all.
The especially interesting thing about this is that Legebokoff is on trial for murdering four women. Of those four women, two were white and two were aboriginal. (Legebokoff is literally an equal-opportunity murderer, so far as race is concerned.) And so on the basis of half of Legebokoff's victims, Hunt casts the finger of blame at white people (especially white men) for the murders of indigenous women.
In social science, this is called a sampling error. It occurs when a subset of a statistical sample is used to draw conclusions about the sample as a whole.
So far, Hunt has found two murdered indigenous women killed by a white male. And based on this sample (of two) she draws her conclusions about the entire sample.
Well, the RCMP did not draw its conclusions based on a subset as small as two. They drew it based on the entirety of a sample of 1,181. Based on that sample of cases, this is what they concluded:
-The solve rate for murdered or missing indigenous women is practically identical tothe solve rate for non-indigenous women.
-Indigenous women were most likely to be murdered not by a stranger such as Corey Legebokoff, but by someone known to them. Either an acquaintance (30%), their spouse (29%) or other family member (24%). More than 90% of murdered indigenous women knew their killer in some way.
-The bulk of the killers of these women were men with criminal records, attained via previous violence against the women they eventually killed.
So the overwhelming majority of the murderers of indigenous women were indigenous men already known to the victim. Somehow Hunt has managed to look at this and conclude that "white male violence" is the underlying root cause.
The only way that Hunt could have even possibly reached these conclusions is to wilfully disregard the results of the exhaustive RCMP study and simply create her own out of whole cloth, with nothing more than a sampling error to support them. Why would motivate an academic to do such a thing?
It turns out that the answer is in her bio:
"Sarah Hunt (PhD) is a writer, educator and activist currently based in Lkwungen Territories (Victoria, BC) and is of Kwagiulth (Kwakwaka’wakw), Ukrainian and English ancestry. She has more than 15 years’ experience doing community-based work on issues of justice, education and cultural revitalization in rural and urban Indigenous communities across B.C. Most recently, Sarah’s research investigated the relationship between law and violence in ongoing neocolonial relations in BC, asking how violence gains visibility through Indigenous and Canadian socio-legal discourse and action."
It's only natural Hunt would be wilfully blind to the grim realities reflected in the RCMP report. Simply put: she, and the kinds of policies she has advocated, has a direct hand in this matter becoming as out-of-control as they have gotten. While indigenous women have been murdered by the violent thugs sent loose by a justice system instructed to go easy on them because they're aboriginal, she and her ideological cohorts have been telling us that if you can just hug a thug hard enough, everything will be OK.
With 1,181 murdered and missing indigenous women to show us how wrong Sarah Hunt and her cohorts are, I say "enough. It's over. You're done."
It only reaffirms my belief that there should be a Parliamentary Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, but not the one that Sarah Hunt and her ilk imagine. They imagine an inquiry as a soapbox from which they can disregard the facts, invent their own, and push their failed agenda. The result will be more missing and murdered indigenous women.
Canada needs a very different inquiry: more of a trial, with Sarah Hunt and her cohorts in the docket, answering for the policies they pushed. One in which they will not be able to evade the blame for softening Canada's criminal justice system so that it no longer even tried to protect the women who eventually wound up murdered at the hands of those who had already victimized them. A trial that will discredit them so thoroughly that, PhD or not, the public will recognize their unworthiness and we will never hear from them again. They will be relegated to the irrelevance they have so richly earned.
Then the rest of us will go on with the business of protecting indigenous women by an act so simple, obvious and intuitive as keeping their assailants in jail so that they cannot harm their victims again.
Monday, January 13, 2014
My Problem With "White Privilege"
Anyone who's been following me on Twitter for more than a few weeks has probably taken note of something I like to do every Sunday. I like to use Twitter to identify people pushing the idea of "white privilege" -- the idea that white people enjoy unearned advantage by the simple virtue of having being born white.
Sometimes the debates that unfold are interesting. Other times they aren't. Sometimes the people pushing this idea are up to the task of defending it. More often they aren't. Sometimes they're willing to try. Sometimes they aren't.
But after months of this, I certainly feel like I owe my Twitter followers an explanation for why I plug up their timelines every Sunday with arguments between myself and angry new-age racist lefties. That explanation is simply thus:
The idea of "white privilege" is intellectually offensive.
Note that I said "intellectually offensive," not "emotionally offensive." I have no emotional investment in this idea, and it wouldn't matter if I did; no idea should be dismissed simply because it's emotionally offensive. Intellectually offensive is another matter.
Once considered at any length, "white privilege" is an idea that simply does not pass any degree of muster. It's an insult to the intellect of any individual asked -- although more often demanded -- to consider it.
Purveyors of "white privilege" will often insist that it's a fact, but the idea is at best a theory. But if we treat "white privilege" as a theory we quickly encounter a serious problem: we find the idea of "white privilege" distinctly at odds with what a theory is.
Simply put, theory is used to explain fact. The purveyors of "white privilege" certainly have an arsenal of facts -- the disproportionate representation of people of colour amoung prison inmates, and among those afflicted with poverty being key among them. For those who wish to empathize with minorities, the idea of "white privilege" has a particular appeal.
The problem with "white privilege" is a theory isn't the facts it tries to explain. The problem is that it designates specific facts as ineligible for consideration. To put it most succinctly. under "white privilege" theory, we are permitted to consider racism -- as these theorists most often call it institutional racism -- as an explanation for structural inequality. What we are not permitted to consider is any degree of internal dysfunction within impoverished racial communities. To even discuss these things, "white privilege" theorists insist, is blaming the victim. Purveyors of "white privilege" cast everyone within an oppressor/oppressed dichotomy. To even consider internal dysfunction is even considered an act of oppression.
It would be one thing if facts such as the prevalence of single-parent families among impoverished minority communities were irrelevant to their poverty. For example, we don't expect the big bang theory to explain evolution. But we do expect it to explain why the universe appears to continually expand. Simply put, ongoing expansion is a fact we expect that theory to at least consider, if not produce a plausible explanation for. If the individuals who promoted such theories refused to even consider such facts, it would at the very least be cause for greater skepticism.
Obviously, those who peddle "white privilege" as if it were a passable theory have encountered such skepticism before. Their literature outlines some rather draconian methods for dealing with it: to shorten matters significantly, "educators" who encounter such skepticism are advised to interpret it as "resistance," and to essentially bully their way through it.
Resistance, it seems, is supposed to be futile.
The inadequacy of "white privilege" as a theory is one thing. The sources used to support it frequently rely on specious reasoning based solely on very selectively-chosen evidence. The source material is, at times, actually quite comical. I'll save some of that for a later time.
Sometimes the debates that unfold are interesting. Other times they aren't. Sometimes the people pushing this idea are up to the task of defending it. More often they aren't. Sometimes they're willing to try. Sometimes they aren't.
But after months of this, I certainly feel like I owe my Twitter followers an explanation for why I plug up their timelines every Sunday with arguments between myself and angry new-age racist lefties. That explanation is simply thus:
The idea of "white privilege" is intellectually offensive.
Note that I said "intellectually offensive," not "emotionally offensive." I have no emotional investment in this idea, and it wouldn't matter if I did; no idea should be dismissed simply because it's emotionally offensive. Intellectually offensive is another matter.
Once considered at any length, "white privilege" is an idea that simply does not pass any degree of muster. It's an insult to the intellect of any individual asked -- although more often demanded -- to consider it.
Purveyors of "white privilege" will often insist that it's a fact, but the idea is at best a theory. But if we treat "white privilege" as a theory we quickly encounter a serious problem: we find the idea of "white privilege" distinctly at odds with what a theory is.
Simply put, theory is used to explain fact. The purveyors of "white privilege" certainly have an arsenal of facts -- the disproportionate representation of people of colour amoung prison inmates, and among those afflicted with poverty being key among them. For those who wish to empathize with minorities, the idea of "white privilege" has a particular appeal.
The problem with "white privilege" is a theory isn't the facts it tries to explain. The problem is that it designates specific facts as ineligible for consideration. To put it most succinctly. under "white privilege" theory, we are permitted to consider racism -- as these theorists most often call it institutional racism -- as an explanation for structural inequality. What we are not permitted to consider is any degree of internal dysfunction within impoverished racial communities. To even discuss these things, "white privilege" theorists insist, is blaming the victim. Purveyors of "white privilege" cast everyone within an oppressor/oppressed dichotomy. To even consider internal dysfunction is even considered an act of oppression.
It would be one thing if facts such as the prevalence of single-parent families among impoverished minority communities were irrelevant to their poverty. For example, we don't expect the big bang theory to explain evolution. But we do expect it to explain why the universe appears to continually expand. Simply put, ongoing expansion is a fact we expect that theory to at least consider, if not produce a plausible explanation for. If the individuals who promoted such theories refused to even consider such facts, it would at the very least be cause for greater skepticism.
Obviously, those who peddle "white privilege" as if it were a passable theory have encountered such skepticism before. Their literature outlines some rather draconian methods for dealing with it: to shorten matters significantly, "educators" who encounter such skepticism are advised to interpret it as "resistance," and to essentially bully their way through it.
Resistance, it seems, is supposed to be futile.
The inadequacy of "white privilege" as a theory is one thing. The sources used to support it frequently rely on specious reasoning based solely on very selectively-chosen evidence. The source material is, at times, actually quite comical. I'll save some of that for a later time.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Is This the Racialization of Class? Or the Class-ization of Race?
This weekend's White Privilege Conference in Seattle, Washington has presented a unique opportunity to peer behind the curtain erected by many "anti-oppression" activists around their ideology of choice.
I personally think of this ideology as new-age racism: essentially the belief that discriminating against specific racial groups (more specifically white people) is a mark of some form of "enlightenment."
The ideology falls flat on its face by attributing complex patterns of inequality and disparity to race, gender, and sexuality. It refuses to acknowledge any effect that the internal dysfunctions of any number of identifiable groups may have on such disparity and inequality. And its obsession with race can lead it into some very strange places. The following is an actual excerpt from a study discussed at the White Privilege Conference:
For the record, the paper is entitled "Can 'Baby Bonds' Eliminate the Wealth Gap in Putative Post-Racial America." Its authors are Derrick Hamilton and William Darity Jr. And whether out of intent or mere prosaic clumsiness, the authors seem to have raised a very pointed question about the motivations of so-called "anti-oppression" activists.
The paper speaks of the apparent impossibility of race-based wealth redistribution -- taking wealth out of the hands of a particular racial group (say, white people) and putting it into the hands of another racial group (everyone else). In light of this practical impossibility, the authors suggest that re-distributing wealth along the lines of the amount of wealth that an individual already has is the next-best thing.
It almost seems like an admission that the activists participating in the White Privilege Conference could literally not give a crap about impoverished white people, and only advocate for measures that they think could alleviate their poverty because alleviating all poverty is the only practical way to alleviate the poverty of poor non-whites.
This provokes three key questions:
First off, if it were possible to simply re-distribute wealth from whites to non-whites until there are no more poor non-whites remaining, haven't you at best left behind the existing poor whites and at worst created additional poor whites while further impoverishing those who were already poor?
Second, what would this have created other than simply another form of race-based privilege?
Third, does the second-best solution suggested by Hamilton and Darity racialize class? Or does it class-ize race?
Either way Derrick Hamilton and William Darity Jr have missed the forest for the trees.
I personally think of this ideology as new-age racism: essentially the belief that discriminating against specific racial groups (more specifically white people) is a mark of some form of "enlightenment."
The ideology falls flat on its face by attributing complex patterns of inequality and disparity to race, gender, and sexuality. It refuses to acknowledge any effect that the internal dysfunctions of any number of identifiable groups may have on such disparity and inequality. And its obsession with race can lead it into some very strange places. The following is an actual excerpt from a study discussed at the White Privilege Conference:
For the record, the paper is entitled "Can 'Baby Bonds' Eliminate the Wealth Gap in Putative Post-Racial America." Its authors are Derrick Hamilton and William Darity Jr. And whether out of intent or mere prosaic clumsiness, the authors seem to have raised a very pointed question about the motivations of so-called "anti-oppression" activists.
The paper speaks of the apparent impossibility of race-based wealth redistribution -- taking wealth out of the hands of a particular racial group (say, white people) and putting it into the hands of another racial group (everyone else). In light of this practical impossibility, the authors suggest that re-distributing wealth along the lines of the amount of wealth that an individual already has is the next-best thing.
It almost seems like an admission that the activists participating in the White Privilege Conference could literally not give a crap about impoverished white people, and only advocate for measures that they think could alleviate their poverty because alleviating all poverty is the only practical way to alleviate the poverty of poor non-whites.
This provokes three key questions:
First off, if it were possible to simply re-distribute wealth from whites to non-whites until there are no more poor non-whites remaining, haven't you at best left behind the existing poor whites and at worst created additional poor whites while further impoverishing those who were already poor?
Second, what would this have created other than simply another form of race-based privilege?
Third, does the second-best solution suggested by Hamilton and Darity racialize class? Or does it class-ize race?
Either way Derrick Hamilton and William Darity Jr have missed the forest for the trees.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Settling the Score With Madeline Smith
Sometimes life throws you remarkable little curve balls. Things that show you that you're either more or less important than you thought you were.
The one thrown my way yesterday by one Madeline Smith, Managing Editor of the University of Alberta Gateway -- the publication with which I plied by journalistic trade for four years -- was certainly one of the former.
In the midst of a pitiful meltdown by Tolbold Rollo (aka Blinky McFlopsweat, aka Troll-bold, aka @SettlerColonial), Ms Smith made the decision to interject herself. Unfortunately, she couldn't resist the urge to say something that was trumped-up at most, and made-up at least. Via her Twitter account:
What Smith says is entirely false. I can't pretend to have never had any disagreements with a Gateway opinion editor, but I can describe the most significant of them -- the ones which, to my eye, Smith seems to be referring -- as such:
In one case an editor informed me that my work wouldn't be printed unless I burned a day of my summer work schedule to travel all the way from Lloydminster, SK to Edmonton, AB to have a new headshot taken by Gateway photographers. When my offer to have a new headshot taken by a local photographer -- saving me the time and expense, including in foregone wages, of traveling to Edmonton -- was rebuffed, I told him to go pound sand.
I've never considered this to have been a legitimate issue, merely an excuse for that particular editor -- who will go unnamed -- to push out a writer that he didn't like. In light of my rebuked efforts to compromise with him, I feel this conclusion to be entirely justified.
In the latter case an editor -- who had described "perogies, not prorogue" signs as comic genius and wanted to print more articles about, of all things, bacon -- informed me that debate would not be tolerated in Gateway opinion meetings, as the younglings didn't appreciate their opinions being challenged. This was something of a new policy at Gateway opinion, and as I consider the combination of a bully pulpit with a shrinking violet to be specifically toxic, I also told her to go pound sand.
Banned twice? That's certainly not an even-handed description of the events in question. But I suppose that must be the fun thing about having a dispute with someone when you hold all the power -- afterward, you can tell it however you want it, regardless of however it really was.
In my subjective opinion, this kind of behaviour is the hallmark of a shitty person. I doubt that very many people would disagree. But Smith isn't just a shitty person. It turns out that she is, in my opinion, also a shitty journalist.
I'm not usually in the business of dredging up the past work of people who I don't know or have never even heard of. But as Smith decided to blindside me by blatantly making things up about my history, I felt it entirely fair to take a look at some of her past work. See what ostensibly got her elevated to the lofty office of the Gateway's Managing Editor.
The results were not particularly impressive. To whit, consider this opinion article from the November 2, 2009 issue of the Gateway in which she recounts an incidence of what she considers to be "pub racism" but really just makes it clear that she has a hate-on for pub bouncers:
"Recently, I made a trip downtown to a certain retro dance club with a few friends for a night of drinking and good old-fashioned debauchery. Like any university students after a long midterm week of sleepless nights, we were all ready to order a round (or three) of tequila shots and altogether forget about the pressures of the world of academia as we retire to a place you can stand for one night only.
Unfortunately for us, we were about to encounter one of the most notoriously loathed demons of city nightlife: the dance club bouncer. These lecherous beasts aren’t found at every bar, but meeting one usually leaves you feeling violated in one way or another. In this case, a member of our group was held up and harassed by one of these creatures, who refused to let her into the bar because he claimed her ID wasn’t legitimate. Despite the fact that she held perfectly valid Alberta government identification (bearing her photo, signature, and proof that she was indeed over the age of 18), he continued to insist that she couldn’t be allowed into the club. The problem? My friend’s ID is an Aboriginal status card.
The bouncer informed us that status cards weren’t accepted based on some mysterious bar policy, having experienced 'problems' with them in the past. He claimed the government office that issues the cards is full of corruption, and as a result, the IDs are usually counterfeit. Having provided this ID at various bars, restaurants, and liquor stores numerous times without any mention of this so-called policy before, she was at a bit of a loss, and frankly, so were we. What was this guy talking about?"
Indeed. What was this guy talking about? It turns out that a little something called "research" could have told her all about it.
As it turns out, the concern over counterfeit Aboriginal status cards was far from anything simply invented by the bouncer in question. At the time that Smith was producing this tripe, the federal government was already undertaking a pilot program to create new, more secure, Aboriginal status cards because the old ones were prone to being faked. Had Smith bothered to do any research whatsoever, she would have learned that this had been considered an issue all the way back in 2000.
Certainly, nine years had passed between 2000 and 2009. The problem could have been solved in the interim, right? Hold your horses. It turns out that as recent to Smith's tirade as March 2009 Metis ID cards were also being eyeballed as easy to counterfeit.
Certainly, this could be an easy mistake to make -- if the opinion article you're writing is completely unresearched. As this one clearly was. No matter what anyone may choose to say about my work with the Gateway, "unresearched" is not one of them. (Although I did once have that accusation lobbed at me, by an individual ironically complaining about an article researched via the very same source that obnoxious individual recommended. Hilarity frequently abounds.)
And that pilot project the federal government was undertaking? It's about to roll out newer, more secure aboriginal ID cards. As per the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada website:
To be exceedingly fair to Smith -- far more fair than she chose to be to me -- this particular website page was published on February 7, 2013. That being said, it's a mere reiteration of information that was already available when she wrote that article. Here's a little more reiteration of that publicly-available information:
So the bouncer was right -- and Smith was wrong. A little bit of the requisite research necessary to be a journalist would have told her as much. Of course, the information derived from doing that research might have denied her that golden opportunity to get her butthurt on, so perhaps it's entirely unsurprising that she seemingly chose not to do any.
Will Smith find it in herself to go track down that bouncer and apologize to him? I severely doubt it. See, Smith still hasn't apologized to me. Gateway editor-in-chief Ryan Bromsgrove -- whose work I hold in high esteem -- was put in the unenviable position of having to do it for her. Smith herself, apparently after a discussion with the Gateway board of directors, did see fit to delete the slanderous tweets that precipitated this investigation of her clearly-lacking journalistic rigour.
That being said. I've heard nothing about any disciplinary action being taken against Smith. Unquestionably there should be some, and in any organization worthy of describing itself as "professional" -- as the Gateway Student Journalism Society does -- there certainly would be. Knowing the steady decline of the Gateway organization as I do, I fully expect that none was taken. Which is why I've had to take on the task of disciplining Madeline Smith myself.
I sincerely hope that the Gateway does take this as an opportunity to educate their paid staff on standards of professionalism. Then again, considering that this is a publication that was forced to pare back its publishing schedule from twice-a-week to once-a-week, seeming without so much as a moment of introspection into how the publication's declining quality has impacted its declining popularity, I'm not exactly holding my breath.
The one thrown my way yesterday by one Madeline Smith, Managing Editor of the University of Alberta Gateway -- the publication with which I plied by journalistic trade for four years -- was certainly one of the former.
In the midst of a pitiful meltdown by Tolbold Rollo (aka Blinky McFlopsweat, aka Troll-bold, aka @SettlerColonial), Ms Smith made the decision to interject herself. Unfortunately, she couldn't resist the urge to say something that was trumped-up at most, and made-up at least. Via her Twitter account:
What Smith says is entirely false. I can't pretend to have never had any disagreements with a Gateway opinion editor, but I can describe the most significant of them -- the ones which, to my eye, Smith seems to be referring -- as such:
In one case an editor informed me that my work wouldn't be printed unless I burned a day of my summer work schedule to travel all the way from Lloydminster, SK to Edmonton, AB to have a new headshot taken by Gateway photographers. When my offer to have a new headshot taken by a local photographer -- saving me the time and expense, including in foregone wages, of traveling to Edmonton -- was rebuffed, I told him to go pound sand.
I've never considered this to have been a legitimate issue, merely an excuse for that particular editor -- who will go unnamed -- to push out a writer that he didn't like. In light of my rebuked efforts to compromise with him, I feel this conclusion to be entirely justified.
In the latter case an editor -- who had described "perogies, not prorogue" signs as comic genius and wanted to print more articles about, of all things, bacon -- informed me that debate would not be tolerated in Gateway opinion meetings, as the younglings didn't appreciate their opinions being challenged. This was something of a new policy at Gateway opinion, and as I consider the combination of a bully pulpit with a shrinking violet to be specifically toxic, I also told her to go pound sand.
Banned twice? That's certainly not an even-handed description of the events in question. But I suppose that must be the fun thing about having a dispute with someone when you hold all the power -- afterward, you can tell it however you want it, regardless of however it really was.
In my subjective opinion, this kind of behaviour is the hallmark of a shitty person. I doubt that very many people would disagree. But Smith isn't just a shitty person. It turns out that she is, in my opinion, also a shitty journalist.
I'm not usually in the business of dredging up the past work of people who I don't know or have never even heard of. But as Smith decided to blindside me by blatantly making things up about my history, I felt it entirely fair to take a look at some of her past work. See what ostensibly got her elevated to the lofty office of the Gateway's Managing Editor.
The results were not particularly impressive. To whit, consider this opinion article from the November 2, 2009 issue of the Gateway in which she recounts an incidence of what she considers to be "pub racism" but really just makes it clear that she has a hate-on for pub bouncers:
"Recently, I made a trip downtown to a certain retro dance club with a few friends for a night of drinking and good old-fashioned debauchery. Like any university students after a long midterm week of sleepless nights, we were all ready to order a round (or three) of tequila shots and altogether forget about the pressures of the world of academia as we retire to a place you can stand for one night only.
Unfortunately for us, we were about to encounter one of the most notoriously loathed demons of city nightlife: the dance club bouncer. These lecherous beasts aren’t found at every bar, but meeting one usually leaves you feeling violated in one way or another. In this case, a member of our group was held up and harassed by one of these creatures, who refused to let her into the bar because he claimed her ID wasn’t legitimate. Despite the fact that she held perfectly valid Alberta government identification (bearing her photo, signature, and proof that she was indeed over the age of 18), he continued to insist that she couldn’t be allowed into the club. The problem? My friend’s ID is an Aboriginal status card.
The bouncer informed us that status cards weren’t accepted based on some mysterious bar policy, having experienced 'problems' with them in the past. He claimed the government office that issues the cards is full of corruption, and as a result, the IDs are usually counterfeit. Having provided this ID at various bars, restaurants, and liquor stores numerous times without any mention of this so-called policy before, she was at a bit of a loss, and frankly, so were we. What was this guy talking about?"
Indeed. What was this guy talking about? It turns out that a little something called "research" could have told her all about it.
As it turns out, the concern over counterfeit Aboriginal status cards was far from anything simply invented by the bouncer in question. At the time that Smith was producing this tripe, the federal government was already undertaking a pilot program to create new, more secure, Aboriginal status cards because the old ones were prone to being faked. Had Smith bothered to do any research whatsoever, she would have learned that this had been considered an issue all the way back in 2000.
Certainly, nine years had passed between 2000 and 2009. The problem could have been solved in the interim, right? Hold your horses. It turns out that as recent to Smith's tirade as March 2009 Metis ID cards were also being eyeballed as easy to counterfeit.
Certainly, this could be an easy mistake to make -- if the opinion article you're writing is completely unresearched. As this one clearly was. No matter what anyone may choose to say about my work with the Gateway, "unresearched" is not one of them. (Although I did once have that accusation lobbed at me, by an individual ironically complaining about an article researched via the very same source that obnoxious individual recommended. Hilarity frequently abounds.)
And that pilot project the federal government was undertaking? It's about to roll out newer, more secure aboriginal ID cards. As per the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada website:
To be exceedingly fair to Smith -- far more fair than she chose to be to me -- this particular website page was published on February 7, 2013. That being said, it's a mere reiteration of information that was already available when she wrote that article. Here's a little more reiteration of that publicly-available information:
So the bouncer was right -- and Smith was wrong. A little bit of the requisite research necessary to be a journalist would have told her as much. Of course, the information derived from doing that research might have denied her that golden opportunity to get her butthurt on, so perhaps it's entirely unsurprising that she seemingly chose not to do any.
Will Smith find it in herself to go track down that bouncer and apologize to him? I severely doubt it. See, Smith still hasn't apologized to me. Gateway editor-in-chief Ryan Bromsgrove -- whose work I hold in high esteem -- was put in the unenviable position of having to do it for her. Smith herself, apparently after a discussion with the Gateway board of directors, did see fit to delete the slanderous tweets that precipitated this investigation of her clearly-lacking journalistic rigour.
That being said. I've heard nothing about any disciplinary action being taken against Smith. Unquestionably there should be some, and in any organization worthy of describing itself as "professional" -- as the Gateway Student Journalism Society does -- there certainly would be. Knowing the steady decline of the Gateway organization as I do, I fully expect that none was taken. Which is why I've had to take on the task of disciplining Madeline Smith myself.
I sincerely hope that the Gateway does take this as an opportunity to educate their paid staff on standards of professionalism. Then again, considering that this is a publication that was forced to pare back its publishing schedule from twice-a-week to once-a-week, seeming without so much as a moment of introspection into how the publication's declining quality has impacted its declining popularity, I'm not exactly holding my breath.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
More Forbidden Questions... With Rajendra Kale
Mere weeks after Conservative Party MP Stephen Woodworth called for a renewed public debate on abortion, another bombshell has landed that has made the subject impossible to ignore.
Writing in an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Dr Rajendra Kale has warned that abortion for the purpose of sex selection is happening in Canada. He suggests it may be prevalent among Asian immigrants to Canada. It's a common practice in India and China, where parents prefer having boys over having girls.
Of course, the question that Kale is asking are forbidden on more than one count. Not only is he asking questions about abortion -- forbidden by those most invested in Canada's lawless abortion status quo -- he's also asking hard questions about multiculturalism.
That's what the far-left considers a double no-no.
What's bound to infuriate the far-left most is that the kind of Charter arguments they favour -- using the equality provisions of the Charter to attempt to empower their agenda on a Constitutional basis -- against the abortion-related status quo.
“It really works against everything we believe in Canada in terms of equality. It works against our Charter [of Rights and Freedoms],” explains University of Toronto bioethicist Kerry Bowman. “At very least, it would be fair to ask why a couple wants to know the gender of their child ... because that in itself is not directly linked to the health or well-being of the child, except in rare cases of sex-linked diseases or disorders.”
To make matters even more concerning, UBC economist Kevin Milligan has identified, via analyzing census data, an unnaturally high prevalence of male births in areas with large South and East Asian immigrant populations. And those pattenns of male births? Yeah, they're consistent with those in areas in Asia where sex-selection abortion is practiced.
Of course this isn't supposed to be happening in Canada. We aren't supposed to discriminate against women or girls in Canada, regardless of whether that discrimination is taking place before or after birth.
Of course, there are those who are going to insist that it's those who are now raising questions about sex-selection abortion who are being discriminatory. I fully expect to be called racist over this -- it's the typical impotent response offered by those who have nothing else to say.
But they'll have a far more difficult time making that argument about Dr Rajendra Kale. He was born in Mumbai.
Writing in an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Dr Rajendra Kale has warned that abortion for the purpose of sex selection is happening in Canada. He suggests it may be prevalent among Asian immigrants to Canada. It's a common practice in India and China, where parents prefer having boys over having girls.
Of course, the question that Kale is asking are forbidden on more than one count. Not only is he asking questions about abortion -- forbidden by those most invested in Canada's lawless abortion status quo -- he's also asking hard questions about multiculturalism.
That's what the far-left considers a double no-no.
What's bound to infuriate the far-left most is that the kind of Charter arguments they favour -- using the equality provisions of the Charter to attempt to empower their agenda on a Constitutional basis -- against the abortion-related status quo.
“It really works against everything we believe in Canada in terms of equality. It works against our Charter [of Rights and Freedoms],” explains University of Toronto bioethicist Kerry Bowman. “At very least, it would be fair to ask why a couple wants to know the gender of their child ... because that in itself is not directly linked to the health or well-being of the child, except in rare cases of sex-linked diseases or disorders.”
To make matters even more concerning, UBC economist Kevin Milligan has identified, via analyzing census data, an unnaturally high prevalence of male births in areas with large South and East Asian immigrant populations. And those pattenns of male births? Yeah, they're consistent with those in areas in Asia where sex-selection abortion is practiced.
Of course this isn't supposed to be happening in Canada. We aren't supposed to discriminate against women or girls in Canada, regardless of whether that discrimination is taking place before or after birth.
Of course, there are those who are going to insist that it's those who are now raising questions about sex-selection abortion who are being discriminatory. I fully expect to be called racist over this -- it's the typical impotent response offered by those who have nothing else to say.
But they'll have a far more difficult time making that argument about Dr Rajendra Kale. He was born in Mumbai.
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