Hey Grievance Mongers... This is Your Time to Shine!

The Public Service Alliance of Canada (or PSAC for short) is a cancer at the heart of Canada's vast government bureaucracy. Now, to their list of offenses against the Canadian public -- which previously included endorsing separatist parties during federal elections -- we can add this:

They apparently want paid time off -- up to 10 days at a time -- to mourn "Aboriginal spirit friends."

What is an "aboriginal spirit friend," you may ask? Apparently it's "it refers to the loss of a spiritual leader in the community, such as an elder. We have negotiated bereavement leave in other agreements for such losses,” according to a PSAC spokesperson.

10 days seems a little much. Other than that, it's not entirely unreasonable... so long as the bereavement time for "aboriginal spirit friends" is only available to those who are actually aboriginal.

Otherwise, PSAC has just run afoul of something that far-left grievance mongers refer to as "cultural appropriation." It's what they accuse white people of whenever they observe a custom or even wear clothing from a culture deemed by such grievance-mongers go be "non-white." The very idea of it seems calculated to keep people of difference races or cultures separate, and is as such inherently racist, but they seem to cherish this "idea."

PSAC is entirely familiar with this "idea." It's been pushed one people at some of the events they've hosted.

I think this all begs a question: is PSAC members taking time off to mourn "aboriginal spirit friends" a form of cultural appropriation? If you take the new-age racist grievance-mongers who push this "idea" at their word, it is so long as those taking the time off are not aboriginal. But can non-aboriginal PSAC members be trusted not to attempt such an act?

Well, speaking purely anecdotally I've witnessed PSAC members on Twitter boasting about taking sick days when they are not sick. So obviously not all of them are nearly so unscrupulous as to not abuse any options available to get paid time off.

So far, I've yet to hear so much as even a single critical race theorist call out PSAC over the potential for this kind of abuse, or even demand that PSAC amend their proposal to prevent it. Odd, that, considering that this is their time to "shine."

Bitter Irony Leaves Bitter Ideologue Feeling, well... Bitter

There's a particular hatred the far-left in Canada holds for Rex Murphy. It's mostly because he occupies a position in the Canadian media -- a contributor for the CBC and host of Cross Country Checkup -- that suggests to them that he should be one of them. But he is unequivocally not one of them.

This becomes most evident whenever he takes aim at one of the far-left's sacred cattle. When he does so a single sentence uttered by Murphy can leave the far-left quivering in outrage.

Such was apparently the case when Murphy took aim at one of the far-left's most recent sacred cattle: the so-called "white privilege" theory. (It doesn't really measure up as a theory, but I've already been over that.) That provoked sputtering outrage from David Bernans of the Montreal Media Coop. In the course of his diatribe, Bernans manages to prove everything Murphy says about the promoters of "white privilege" "theory" to be absolutely correct.

To whit:

"Rex Murphy offers us this pearl of wisdom in his latest National Post column: 

'It is bitterly ironic that the anti-racist message has been reduced to this: You have all that you have only because you have white skin.'

No Rex. You have all that you have because of your truly unparalleled talents as an apologist for the wealthy and powerful. No person of any race or gender can suck up to powerful interests with as much self-righteousness and ostentatious erudition as you. You are a sycophant extraordinaire.

You have no qualms with knowingly misrepresenting the white privilege thesis in your hard-won column at the National Post. It's true Rex, you cannot explain every single advantage that every white person has only by reference to white privilege. Therefore, white privilege does not exist. Case closed. That must really put the National Post editorial board and other predominantly white institutions at ease."

This particular outburst left me with a new appreciation for much earlier in Murphy's column, when he wrote the following:

"For if there is one movement, that by its humourlessness, its obsessive mania and its blindness to its failings, chokes on its own goals, it is the so-called anti-racism movement."

Because he couldn't handle Murphy espousing on the many, many shortcomings of "white privilege" "theory" peddling "anti-racists" (each of these terms framed separately because they are all separately absurd) Bernans finishes his "rebuttal" with a racially-charged remark.

That shouldn't surprise anyone, though: it's what new-age racists like David Bernans do.

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.

My Open Letter to Olivia Cole

Hi, Olivia.

Allow me to begin this letter by doing something I suspect is unthinkable to you: I honestly don't give a rat's ass if you're white. That you would begin your "open letter to the three white students who filed a discrimination complaint against their black teacher" by mentioning that only doubles my contempt for you.

Does it stun you to hear that one white person can feel contempt for another? Well, you'd better get used to it.

In a sense, I almost feel sorry for you. You must really think that white people walk around all day wearing invisible knapsacks and high-fiving each other for being white. All the while, hiring all sorts of people solely because they're white. And apparently all the more ready to listen to your "white privilege" tripe because apparently we take things more seriously coming from other white people.

These assumptions about how other people think about race speaks volumes about how you think about race. Who the hell was ever taught that "white is always right?" Were you taught that? Really? Really?

Now, I know these are trying times for you. The push-back against your extreme and socially-corrosive ideology is growing. The more you and the people who share your ideas have attempted to tighten your oppressive fists around the minds of others, the more minds have slipped through your fingers. It's not going to go away any time soon.

Perhaps what stuns even more than your obvious lack of self-knowledge is the sheer extent of your condescension. You have the nerve to lecture these students about their lessons in what you believe the "true" history of the United States is without bothering to acquaint yourself with the fact that Shannon Gibney is supposed to be teaching an English course.

Or perhaps even your assertion that Gibney is trying to make them "better." "Better" than who? "Better" ...like you?

Here's the truly stunning thing. And seeing as how you've revealed that you take what you hear more seriously when it comes from a white person (right?), I'm sure you'll take it seriously indeed.

The people who stuffed your too-empty-by-half mind with this nonsense are oppressing you. And you've internalized your own oppression. And if that makes you feel good about yourself, then so be it. But the least you can do is stop demanding that other people submit to the same oppression to which you've submitted.

If you want to internalize your own oppression, that's fine. Stop demanding the rest of us do the same.

Asian Privilege: I'll Bet You Never Heard of THAT Before

White privilege exists. Or so critical race theorists and those in their thrall would have you believe.

To make you believe it, they're frequently keen to bombard you with half-cooked statistics combined with half-baked logic. Here's one that recently came to my attention: in schools operated by the Toronto and District School Board, black and aboriginal students are suspended most often.

That's bad.

But here's something from the Toronto Star's take on it that really stands out:

"Black students make up only about 12 per cent of high school students in the Toronto public board — about 32,000 — yet account for more than 31 per cent of all suspensions. White students account for some 29 per cent of suspensions, but make up nearly one-third of the entire student body."

So black students are statistically overrepresented in their share of suspensions. But at 31% of students, white students account for 29% of suspensions. There's a pretty good chance that two percent is within the study's margin of error. For all practical purposes, white students are neither overrepresented nor underrepresented in suspensions.

The only way this is possible is if some other racial/ethnic group is underrepresented among student suspensions. And as it turns out, one is: Asian students.

The comparison in suspensions between white and black students is the kind of thing that critical race theorists frequently point to in order to prop up their claims that white privilege exists. But if privilege accounts for the rates of suspension, it would seem that it isn't white students who are privileged at all, but rather Asian students.

Of course, you never hear about "Asian privilege". (At the risk of uttering a racial slur, would "yellow privilege" be a more appropriate term?) As a racial minority, critical race theorists hold that Asians cannot be privileged, their own standard of evidence to the contrary.

Of course, there's a better reason why you don't hear about "Asian privilege." Because like "white privilege," it doesn't exist.