Piling on
The expression "piling on" is most apt in the case of the virulent campaign being waged by the masters of the "official reconstruction society associations". By that I mean that every group in existence, that incidentally obtain their employment from parsing all public utterances for offensive words and phrases - offensive to whom one asks, culls the society in which we live for the malignment of minorities.
Two cases come to mind, the infamous Gordon Gilchrist, and now Rob Ford, a Toronto councillor. Gilchrist wrote a letter expressing his views about immigration and immigrants worth as future Canadian citizens, and Rob Ford, when extolling the virtues of the Asian worker called them "Orientals". Both cases have raised the ire and collective wrath of the professional "minority police" for offenses against minorities. It is no coincidence that these two folk are facing people who would give no quarter to them even if they had their mouths sealed for ever. Their utterances are just an excuse to beat them over the head because of their right-wing political opinions.
But the underlying issue here is not that these miscreants said what they did but by doing so have done two things: exposed the "minority police" who lie in wait for silly people to say silly things and then amplify the comments for the purpose of aggrandizing themselves, and have confused and angered the "white folks" who now wonder just can be said in public without being censured for it.
Free speech is neither free or speech! Not free because if one expresses views contrary to the arbitrariness of "modern society" one is condemned for it. And, not speech because nobody has taught the mainstream what to say. As someone said to me this morning - "I, can't say oriental anymore?"
This debate will turn into racial warfare before it gets better, such a pity because none of the people involved are racists, a little confused by the forces of change coming upon then a little too fast perhaps, but conflict just the same!
Two cases come to mind, the infamous Gordon Gilchrist, and now Rob Ford, a Toronto councillor. Gilchrist wrote a letter expressing his views about immigration and immigrants worth as future Canadian citizens, and Rob Ford, when extolling the virtues of the Asian worker called them "Orientals". Both cases have raised the ire and collective wrath of the professional "minority police" for offenses against minorities. It is no coincidence that these two folk are facing people who would give no quarter to them even if they had their mouths sealed for ever. Their utterances are just an excuse to beat them over the head because of their right-wing political opinions.
But the underlying issue here is not that these miscreants said what they did but by doing so have done two things: exposed the "minority police" who lie in wait for silly people to say silly things and then amplify the comments for the purpose of aggrandizing themselves, and have confused and angered the "white folks" who now wonder just can be said in public without being censured for it.
Free speech is neither free or speech! Not free because if one expresses views contrary to the arbitrariness of "modern society" one is condemned for it. And, not speech because nobody has taught the mainstream what to say. As someone said to me this morning - "I, can't say oriental anymore?"
This debate will turn into racial warfare before it gets better, such a pity because none of the people involved are racists, a little confused by the forces of change coming upon then a little too fast perhaps, but conflict just the same!
7 comments:
What is needed here is education, lots of it. For Mr. Gilchrist, for his misguided supporters, and for you too, Ben. I am very disappointed in your failure to understand what this is about.
What the dominant group never seems to get is how hurtful their assumptions and statements can be.
It's typical of the dominant group to not even see that their words have an effect on others - they are so blind in their assumptions they cannot put themselves into the other's shoes and get a sense of how they feel.
They may not know they are wrong, and hurtful, but they are, and they need to understandy why.
Education to teach empathy for others, that would be a fine start.
What constitutes the "dominant group"?
And who are the "misguided supporters"?
Do you have the brains to seperate those who support Gilchrist's contentions as laid out in his letter from those who support Gilchrist's freedom of speech to write and publish his remarks regardless of how much some unelected bureaucrat thrashes about the floor waving their bruised souls?
"dominant group"
So Gilchrist is a member of a dominant group? Oh really? Well he is an immigrant himself. Yes, please provide some specifying detail so that the "dominant group" can be more easily identified.
Really? Mr Gilchrist represents such a dire threat to our society? His letter allegedly hurt the feelings of some people and even made a grown woman cry. The horror! The horror!
What arrogance that Mr Gilchrist dared to defend himself at the Kawartha School Board meeting, and as a result, the otherwise strong and brave member from the Community and Race Relations Committee, Andrea Fatona, broke down into tears, "I was crying in there as he continued to defend his racism."
It used to be that when I was on the verge of tears, I’d run to the washroom for a good cry, come out at bit later, refreshed and with my pompadour well groomed, ready to move on. However, we must realize that Ms Fatona’s maudlin breakdown, as Kevan Brownson of the Peterborough Coalition Against Poverty put it, is the reason why it is important to place the "needs of the most vulnerable members of the public at the centre."
After all, we seriously do not want Andrea Fatona to weep and wail again, and if the curtailment of freedom of speech will prevent the most thin-skinned, er, uh, the most vulnerable individuals from ever having to shed a tear again, then by golly, lets gag some dissident mouths and trim their tongues to politically correct mediocrity.
Ms Fatona called Gilchrist's statements an "outrage" and pleaded for the continuation of "our safe and tolerant community."
The Coalition Against Poverty weighed in by asserting that Mr Gilchrist's comments reflected a "deeply racist view." Wow! It’s worse than I thought. If Mr Gilchrist has a “deeply racist view” then I would be curious how the Coalition Against Poverty would characterize the writings of a Ku Klux Klanista. Perhaps they would say it is a doubly deep racist view. Oh doubleplusgood that we nipped that badthink in the bud.
Councillor Dean Pappas said that Mr Gilchrist's letter "could actually jeopardize the city's economic growth." adding that such letters "are very dangerous." I can hear the kindling now. I love the smell of political correctmess in the morning, it smells like . . . totalitarianism.
Mike Ma of the Peterborough Community and Race Relations Committee claimed that Mr Gilchrist's letter was "racist and ignorant” and has caused "serious damage" to the larger Peterborough and Kawartha community. Finally Mr Ma called on Mr Gilchrist to take “anti-oppression training”. And yes, a grief counsellor will always be on standby in the rare event that client decompression breaks into overwhelming remorse.
The press conference was taken right out of George Orwell’s 1984, specifically the scene of Two Minutes Hate.
People would assemble in an auditorium to express their hatred of Emmanuel (Gilchrist) Goldstein, the Enemy of the People. Orwell described him as a “renegade and backslider”, and “He was the primal traitor the earliest defiler of the Party’s purity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching.”
Orwell had Goldstein ranting in “an attack so exaggerated and perverse that a child should have been able to see through it, and yet just plausible enough to fill one with an alarmed feeling that other people, less level-headed than oneself, might be taken in by it. He was abusing BIG BROTHER”. Orwell noted that his rant was presented “in rapid polysyllabic speech which was a sort of parody of the habitual style of the orators of the Party, and even contained Newspeak words: more Newspeak words, indeed, than any Party member would normally use in real life.”
Thank God [or Allah, if I know what’s good for me] for the unelected bureaucraps and other groups in the pay of the government, they are the avante garde. “A day never passed when spies and saboteurs acting under his directions were not unmasked by the Thought Police.”
Finally, Orwell had this to say about Two Minutes Hate: “The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness.”
The first anonymous supports the censorious swarmings against Gilchrist because he hurt the feelings of some people.
I presume that the first anonymous must be pleased with the swift justice of the totalitarian govt of China.
Icelandic singer, Bjork, ended her evening concert by singing her popular, Declare Independence, then shouting, "Tibet, Tibet."
The Culture Ministry of the totalitarian govt issued a statement, declaring that Bjork had "hurt Chinese people's feelings."
It might interest those to know that the Press Conference a.k.a. Two Minutes Hate, at which Gordon Gilchrist was the target of hatred by the righteous, can be found on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=gordon+gilchrist&search_type=
If that url does not work, then put GORDON GILCHRIST into the search box.
Listen to Gordon Gilchrist explain his letters here:
http://www.cfrb.com/player/player?mediapath=&type=mp3&fi=files%2Fsrimedia%2FGILCHRIST%20Interview.mp3&nid=679772&
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