Hear Ye, Hear Ye! Revenge of the Unrequited.

"Discrimination against religious minorities in Canada is grounded in Canada's history of colonialism."

"An obvious example is statutory holidays in Canada. [Where the Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter are officially recognized with 'days off' while non-Christians have to] request special accommodations to observe their holy days."

"In order to move forward toward sustainable change, all Canadians must first acknowledge Canada's history of religious intolerance."

"[A statutory holiday on December 25] may adversely affect non-Christians, some of whom may therefore need to seek out special accommodations to observe their own faith holy days."

Canadian Human Rights Commission: Discussion Paper on Religious Intolerance 

"Keep Christ in Christmas."

"For Christians around the world, this is a time to celebrate the life and teachings of Jesus Christ -- and his message of compassion, courage and empathy."

(Sikh) NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh

Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images

 

The uber-progressive Canadian Human Rights Commission has spoken, and ruled Canada to be a 'racist' country, more or less reflecting the position taken by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who has unleashed on Canadians 'woke' issues and ideologies such as obligatory DEI training, racial and gender diversity,  intersectionality, trans-inclusionary feminism, identitarian moralism, and more. All of which is just too precious, and being forced on the public, most of which is disinterested and quite happy with Canada as it is.

 

The paper published by the human rights group avers Canada's racism in its reflection of the country as a majority Christian country, yet Canadian law supports the free exercise of all religions and has done so since before Confederation, where in the 19th century most religious majority countries had no such minority-protective religious law. In very fact, non-Christian religions with freedom to worship have been established in Canada for the past century.

 

The Al-Rashid Mosque in Alberta was built in 1938 and financial support disproportionately was donated by the non-Muslims living in the area. In 1908 Vancouver, Canada's first Sikh temple was opened as an "inter-religious space where non-Sikhs also held executive positions", according to the Vancouver Heritage Foundation. As for the Jewish community; the oldest Jewish congregation in Canada dates to 1768 in Montreal.

On 11 April 1807, Ezekiel Hart, a Jew, was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada (Quebec) over three other candidates, obtaining 59 out of the 116 votes cast. Jewish settlement in Canada dates back over 300 years, and while up until the first third of the 20th Century antisemitism was rife, Jews found their place in the country, a country where they were able to enjoy a level of security totally absent throughout Europe. 

 

A tree is adorned with Christmas lights on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Photo by Tony Caldwell / Files /Postmedia Network

The Colonial Province of Canada in 1851 enacted the Freedom of Worship Act, protecting "free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference". The exception to Canada's record on religious tolerance was a movement meant to eradicate traditional Indigenous spiritualism in favour of Christianity, and to the present day, most Canadian First Nations, while staunchly Christian, also practise traditional spiritualism.

For the Canadian Human Rights Commission, Canada's is an "identity as a settler colonial state", in full expression of their progressive wokeism. Created in 1977 to enforce the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Commission exercises its mandate through the quasi-judicial Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, funded by the federal government to the tune of $32 million annually. It has adapted itself recently into the "anti-racism" doctrine that legal equality is ineffective since outcomes disproportionately affecting one group over another must reflect a product of "systemic racism".

All roads lead to the discussion paper which cites Christmas holidays, as a statutory form of "religious intolerance", constituting a "form of discrimination". This is a position supported as well by the Ontario Human Rights Commission which refers to Canada's statutory celebration of Christmas as an example of "systemic faithism". Both commissions have the power to enforce sanctions and exact penalties against employers it deems to have engaged in "discrimination".

Interestingly enough, a Leger poll from a year ago asked people with grew up as non-Christians in Canada, whether they felt it to be offensive when hearing the seasonal "Merry Christmas" greeting -- 92 percent of those questioned responded 'No'. In the same poll Canadians of all religions were asked whether Christmas and other 'religious' holidays should be struck from official statutory holidays and a mere six percent responded, 'yes'.

 

Health Report for Canada's Chief Public Health Officer

"Fundamental changes in our socioeconomic structures are needed to rebuild our relationships with each other and with our planet."

"Collectively, we have a deep appreciation for Indigenous Peoples' close and continuing relationship to the land and waters that we live upon and we are committed to a lifelong learning journey toward becoming good guests here."

"Canadian public health actions should focus on] decolonization, justice and equity [above all]."

"Health systems should be independently governed or at least arm's length from government structures to be free of fear of repercussions."

What We Heard: Perspectives on Climate Change and Public Health in Canada

Dr.Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health officer, Health Canada

Health Canada commissioned a report and what emerged was a paper written by three individuals, identifying as "white settlers", some 72 pages in length. It was commissioned for the purpose of studying and detailing "impacts of climate change on the health and well-being of people living in Canada". For their report the three authors surveyed thirty public health experts and academics for inclusion and perspective.

 

Warming climate does in fact have an impact on health in Canada; an example of which is an expanded range for disease-carrying mosquitoes increasing potentially the number of people who may be exposed to diseases normally associated with more tropical climates than Canada's; as example, malaria, dengue fever and West Nile virus. Despite which the report lists no condition or infectious illness that might pose a risk in Canada, with linkage to climate change.

The report features instead disparate opinions by Canadian public health professionals focusing on "less tangible determinants", equating with "legal, colonial and racist factors". Which led the report to include opinions and explanations and recommendations such as these:

• "If we don't address capitalism, if we don't address colonialism, racism, the patriarchy, etcetera, we're going to tread water for a long time until we eventually drown."
• "It's really about the foundations of our society, the capitalist system, the culture of extraction -- and we need to change that. How do we do that?"
• "[The concept of] liberty and individualism advances the individual over the collective; it says 'as long as I get what I want, bugger you', and it leads to a huge number of problems, and it undermines the collective process."

The views of 30 Canadian public health officials and academics considered to "have some understanding of the role of public health systems", were distilled in the report. Many of these individuals exist at top levels in the Canadian public health establishment and include three Canada Research chairs. All of the 30 representatives were asked in focus groups or one-on-one interviews: "What roles should the public health system play and why?"

Climate change and poor public health, the report concludes, are caused by many of the same issues: "White supremacy, capitalism, colonialism and racism". Yet another theme posited that public health officials should be more "courageous" to insist on policy typically considered outside their purview be included, which would encompass the promotion of "low meat" diets, designs of housing projects and advocating against extraction and use of fossil fuels.

One respondent stated: "Practically speaking, a lot of public health people want to be making the connections, but they are literally not given the mandate or the permission to because it's not seen to be within their box." There is an admission in the report that public or official pushback to this manner of "speaking out" may result from health agencies, recommending these bodies be insulated against avenues of accountability.

One report respondent stated a belief that "Public health is under attack in some provinces ... and there's this climate change denial that we all know is being fuelled by the fossil fuel sector. So, my worry is that with public health that we won't actually be able to get out there and do what we need to do."

There was a near-unanimous pronouncement in the report that public health agencies should receive increased funding, even at the expense of the primary heath care system; if public health has more money to improve society and fight climate change, the rational goes, fewer people would be going to hospital. "Not only would the primary health-care system require less funding but staff would be less overwhelmed in their duties, especially as health issues related to climate change intensify", reads the report.

NOTICE: This is not a chapter of Lewis Carroll's "Through The Looking Glass".

The report concludes that climate change and poor public health are caused by many of the same things: “White supremacy, capitalism, colonialism, and racism.” Photo by Public Health Agency of Canada

Public Schools in Canada as Guardians of Anti-Colonialism White Privilege

"The census teams will work to actively highlight the nuances of how systems and structures of power create hierarchies that privilege some and oppress others."

"The Toronto District School Board remains committed to ensuring that all students are represented in the census, including those who previously may not have seen themselves reflected in the previous iterations of the survey."

"More information, including a new census release date will be shared once staff have the opportunity to review materials."

"Materials, including a Guiding Research Principles document, meant to provide context into how the census was developed, were posted without an internal review and approval. As a result, the TDSB is disappointed that we must pause the release of the census itself until the review process can be conducted."

"Our students must be able to voice their experiences and inform the development of school and system programs. It is regrettable that there will be delay in gathering this important information."

Toronto District School Board research guidelines

A 15-page census questionnaire to be distributed to those in grades four through six asks students their race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and whether their parents were born in Canada or completed university. Photo by Jack Boland/Postmedia/File

"[Census takers have openly expressed an aim to use the data to] dismantle all forms of colonial and settler colonial violence."

"Historically, data collection and evidence have been abused, misused and exploited in ways that harmed communities [official census guidelines].

"[This time they will be explicitly using census data to] disrupt all structures of oppression [and centre] Indigeneity and Black lives [in the school system]."

"There are multiple interlocking and intersectional oppressions present in our schools, but race becomes the axis on which multiple oppressions are engaged."

"[We plan not only to use the census data to] highlight structures of oppression and pain [but will work from] joy-centred frames [to create] alternative futures rooted in community joy and excellence."

Aakriti Kapoor, Stefanie De Jesus and Amie Presley, research co-ordinators, TDSB

Little do parents whose children have long since passed through public elementary and high schools unscathed by political correctness gone the way of the new sanctimonious progressive 'woke' syndrome, realize how dysfunctionally erratic and convulsed the education system has become with its eye on shielding children from the evils of racism, inequality, homophobia and White privilege. Children have become pawns in the agenda of fundamentalist 'wokers' determined to rout out any vestiges of intolerance against gender differences, ethnicity, colour, the disadvantaged and the addicted for they will not tolerate their presence.

Anyone who disagrees that transgenderism is real and requires sympathetic support and accelerated celebration, is clearly phobic and in all likelihood racist as well. The Canada that Canadians lived all their lives believing was a modern, non-judgemental, accepting, tolerant society committed to egalitarian values and fairness in an equal society that offers opportunities for all, irrespective of ethnicity, religion, heritage, political views has been an illusion. Canadians have prided themselves on their sense of social justice so it comes as a surprise to be informed that we're a racist society in the 21st century.

Canada's largest school board is now invested in dismantling oppression, equalizing the playing field for all, with the noted exception of White colonialists, courtesy of the woke -- and here naive Torontonians thought they'd already arrived at that juncture. The school board was on the cusp of launching an updated race-based student census; its goal -- to root out the "white supremacist" ad "colonialist" structure that has been the foundation of the Toronto school system. November was to be the start point of 247,000 students scheduled to complete a questionnaire.

Questions relating to race, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, the educational status of parents and their mental health were all included on the questionnaire. The TDSB released a statement, however informing that the survey would be delayed, giving the board an opportunity to review the guidelines posted online, then subsequently removed. "Identity-based" data has been collected by the TDSB previously through student censuses; the information used to identify select racial and ethnic groups having difficulty with curriculum.

For the first time, however, the census-takers themselves have expressed openly their intention to use collected data to "dismantle all forms of colonial and settler colonial violence". They produced a 40-page package the three census-takers drafted. Aakriti Kapoor, Stefanie De Jesus and Amie Presley are full-time research coordinators employed by the Toronto District School Board. "Research will work to create decolonial futures to reverse the harms created by ongoing realities of colonialism and systemic racism", they wrote.

Their explanatory note identified them as active adherents of "critical race theory", the belief that racism is an "ingrained aspect of society", that can be countered only by race-centric policy explicitly favouring "historically marginalized voices". The traditional Canadian belief in "colour-blind" and "multiculturalism" as a society-in-government policy they identified as a symbol of white supremacy. Racism, their glossary pointed out, is not "simple prejudice" and as such exists only when one group has "power"over another; racism, ipso facto -- against "privileged" groups is not possible.

Their document substitutes "Canada" and "Toronto" for the term "Land the Board is situated upon". Available publicly on the TDSB website originally, the link to the guidelines now declares the document not to be compliant with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disability Act.  Previous such censusus were comprised of optional questionnaires meant to be completed at home. Any student in Grade Four or above for this census was to be handed optional class assignment materials. To be distributed to students in Grades Four through Six, a 15-page document queries students on race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and whether their parents were born in Canada, or had completed university.

Standard questions were complete with those asking whether students "like" school or "feel accepted" by classmates. Questions whether teachers are using their preferred pronouns included a checklist of places where students feel "Unsafe", such as "prayer spaces", "single gender washrooms", "all-gender washrooms" and "school events", were also included in the checklist. 

Clearly, not all parents are besotted with this search for information. Toronto lawyer Ian Cooper last week sent a letter to the board expressing "grave concerns" of parents with respect to the new census, commenting that the process could be in violation of a host of provincial laws, including the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Personal Health Information Protection Act.

"For many Canadians who have experienced persecution based on their personal characteristics and immigrated to Canada to escape that persecution -- the fact that their government is collecting a vast database that includes every child's race, gender, sexual orientation, mental health data, and other personal information is troubling."

Toronto lawyer Ian Cooper

Hospital Staff: Under Workplace Stress

"Staggering [the number of hospital health workers as well as non-nursing staff reporting escalating violence]."
"The rate of assault against clerical staff, against cleaners, against dietary aides would be in the neighbourhood of about 34 percent."
"They [the assailants] may be people with mental illness, people high on opiates, people distressed about the quality of their care, or distressed about the length of time they've waited -- and they take that aggression out on the health-care staff that they meet."
"You've got in Canadian society, unfortunately, a very high degree of tolerance for violence against women. So you've got this general societal attitude and it doesn't stop at the door of the hospital. It comes right in and it's compounded by the fact that if you assault someone in a hospital, you may not face charges."
Michael Hurley, president, Ontario Council of Hospital Unions

An organization that represents health care worker unions in Ontario argues there needs to be more accountability for violence perpetrated against health care providers. (Shutterstock/John Panella)

"I've been kicked, spat on, bitten, pushed and had verbal abuse. Violence is really a daily occurrence at the hospital."
"In my opinion as a nurse, I am there to nurse, to nurture, to help people get well. It's become an expectation that I become part of the goon squad [those hospital personnel tasked with the need to deal with unruly patients due to the lack of trained crisis teams], so to speak."
"For me and my colleagues, we don't want to do that. We've been hurt, we've been thrown to the floor. I had my head banged against the wall."
Linda Clayborne, retired, forensic psychiatric nurse

Emergency room and psychiatric nurses and workers involved in elder and in-home care are at an especially high risk.  Credit: COD Newsroom via flickr

"I've certainly not read anything like this. Has this changed socially accepted norms about what you can and cannot say to a health care professional?"
"Is this ... unmasking attitudes that have been there all along and now, in our polarized societies, people feel less constrained in expressing them? Probably."
"Why would patients allow their own irrational biases to get in the way of their health care? Clearly we need to learn more."
"Because of our sense of professionalism and our code of ethics, we're committed to letting that stuff roll off our backs, but meanwhile all your emotions are boiling inside, and you're thinking, 'Oh my God, what do I do now? What do I say? How do I behave?"                                                                                               Dr. Beth A. Lown, associate professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School

"Often we meet people at their lowest. Sometimes we can have primitive responses to stressful situations, and one of them can be targeting of the other when we're feeling cornered or vulnerable."
"It was like, 'Go back to where you came from; this is going to be our country again, you [expletive] raghead'. And things can be less insidious than that. Like 'Wow, your English is so good'. Yeah, not to be arrogant, but I went to grad school twice. But that's not the point. The conceptualization of me, as a bearded brown man, is of the other."
Dr. Nikhil Patel, psychiatry resident, Cambridge Health Alliance Massachusetts

The Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU)  has released a survey of about 2,000 health-care workers which concludes that nurses, personal support workers and other hospital staff have become targets of patients; emotional lack of civility in hospitals not only across the province of Ontario but throughout Canada. The survey reported that close to 70 percent of respondents report having experienced a minimum of one incident of physical violence in the year just pas.

On the other hand, 20 percent of those taking part in the survey described nine or more assaults against them in the past year perpetrated by patients. As for non-physical abuse, threatening gestures, intimidation, insults, 83 percent claimed to have been targeted with one incident and 35 percent reported at least nine. In the study group 42 percent of workers reported at least one incident of assault or sexual harassment, while six percent stated such assaults occurred to them nine times or more through the course of a year.

And it is not just nurses and other health-care employees, but also clerks. As an example, a mentally ill patient at a hospital in Smiths Falls took possession of a pair of blunt scissors from the desk of the admitting clerk and plunged the scissors into her neck. "Had she had a Plexiglas barrier completely around her, that couldn't have happened" stated OCHU president Michael Hurley. Budget constraints leave hospitals unable to commit to even minimal protective investments for their staff.

As well, the health-care sector is dominated by women, with 85 percent of the staff female, reflecting the fact that they are as vulnerable in a hospital setting as women can be in general society. Nurse Clayborne points out that in her experience incidents of violence began to manifest about the same time that staff cuts began taking place in an effort to reign in costs associated with maintaining hospitals, about 15 years ago, when the trained crisis teams who usually responded to such situations disappeared due to cost-cutting measures.

In the United States badly behaved patients have been cited as making life difficult for doctors as well, where racist, sexist and bigoted verbal patient attacks have become commonplace. Not only have African-American doctors been the subject of racial slurs, they're also asked to surrender care for white patients to white doctors. Cultural and racist stereotypes have complicated working arrangements for Asian-American physicians and for female doctors, sexually harassed by patients during physical exams.

WebMD and Medscape in collaboration with STAT conducted a wide-ranging survey of over 800 American doctors to discover that 59 percent report having had offensive remarks aimed at them in the past five years; a doctor's youthfulness, gender, race or ethnicity all represent fodder for discrimination. Of those affected, 47 percent reported having had a patient request another doctor look after them. Women physicians were more often bias victims than their male counterparts. Even the overweight had offensive remarks directed to them about their weight.

In the U.S., medical researchers have taken to studying unconscious biases from clinicians toward patients "But much less is known about patients' biases toward clinicians, and that is why the current study is important", pointed out Keith O'Brien, a social psychologist at Portland State University. Most physicians claimed their professional organizations provided no training, had no formal polices on how best to handle patient bias. Even colleagues failing to respond when witnessing harassment results in hurt feelings on the part of those who are discriminated against.

"I remember being surprised and embarrassed and humiliated as a medical student when people would say these things ... When it happens to you as a trainee, you tend to think it's your fault on some level. I know that's weird. You think, 'Maybe it's because I'm not competent or maybe I am less smart than a different doctor. Or maybe I shouldn't be here?' There's a lot of shame in being the target of racism, and I think that's part of it."
Dr. Esther Choo, associate professor, Center for Policy and Research in Emergency Medicine, Oregon Health & Science University

• almost 75% of all workplace assaults between 2011 and 2013 happened in healthcare settings;
• 80% of emergency medical workers will experience violence during their careers;
• 78% of emergency department physicians nationwide report being the target of workplace violence in the past year;
• 100% of emergency department nurses report verbal assault and 82.1% report physical assault during the last year;
• 40% of psychiatrists report physical assault;
• the rate of workplace violence among psychiatric aides is 69 times higher than the national rate of workplace violence;
• 61% of home healthcare workers report violence annually; and
• family physicians are also at high risk, although limited data exist in the outpatient setting.                                   Workplace violence, review article review article New England Journal of Medicine

Referencing the Holocaust

"[They] had to witness helplessly as the Jews of that [Hungarian town in 1944] town were herded by  gendarmes into cattle cars and how the gendarmes threatened and drove off local citizens, including his [supporter of client Anita Krajnc] mother, who were trying to give them [Jews being transported to death camps] water." 
"The Nazi[s] forced Jews and gays and gypsy [sic] and those they saw as others into trains and trucks and carted them off to slaughter. Is it the same right that the Crown now argues that [the farmer] has, that it was legal?"
"There are many important parallels that we can draw from the two things. One is our inability to have emotional contagion, somehow. Why don't we feel the suffering of others? How do we close ourselves out to that, whether it be Jews being herded into a train or whether it be pigs?"
Gary Grill, lawyer appealing before an Ontario court

"Everyone knows that giving water to thirsty Jews on a cattle train is a small act of charity and what really should have happened is they should have been saved, you know, from being gassed and murdered. And what I did was a small act of charity to that pig who was slaughtered."
"I feel guilty. If I'm guilty of anything it's for not doing enough and I'm sure the people who didn't do enough for the Jews and for others, that's the guilt that they feel." 
Anita Krajnc, defendant charged with public mischief

Anita Krajnc gives pigs water near a slaughterhouse in Burlington, Ont. Krajnc is on trial charged with criminal mischief charge for her act. (Elli Garlin)

It grates on Jewish sensibilities to hear time over time, the Holocaust as an episode of the most barbaric, sordid episodes in human history, a near-total genocide, being named as an example of horrors befalling victims of far more trifling events. As though the casual evocation of the grim history of a totalitarian government bent on overturning the world order, adding a sideline of mass extermination could be compared with infinitely less far-reaching, but compellingly sad events.

As though such comparisons deliberately trivialize the annihilation of millions of innocent children, their mothers, fathers, grandparents -- leaving survivors traumatized in a lifetime of mourning -- while the stunned world that preferred to avert their eyes under the pretense that such barbarity represented an overactive imagination, did nothing in response to stop the carnage.

In this instance, comparing that dread time in history to the carting off of animals to a slaughterhouse, with no pity or concern for the conditions in which the animals were kept prior to slaughter.

But this woman, 49-year-old Anita Krajnc, responded in compassion to the plight of thirsty pigs and attempted to give them water to assuage their thirst. In so doing, earning the umbrage of the farmer who was carting the animals, leading to the criminal charge of mischief for daring to approach and proffer some relief to the animals.

Now on trial for her public offence, her lawyer has likened her reaction and the response it elicited to the incomparably desperate condition of human beings treated like cattle on their way to the slaughterhouses of the Third Reich.

A society, however, immune to feelings of compassion for the anguish and suffering of animals, reflects a society which is so hardened-off of emotional support for other animals, that it is hard to imagine it would react compassionately if it were other humans in their midst who were the subject of inhumane treatment, and seen to be suffering before their very eyes. As such, perhaps it is apt indeed to contrast and conflate the two events.

It is no small cruelty to maltreat animals, no less so than to do the same to human animals.

The German population is known to love animals and to care for them, on the other hand. Their general support for ensuring that life was tolerable for animals they viewed as requiring the care of humans did not, unfortunately extend during the Nazi era to those other animals living among them who were considered to be dispensable sub-humans in a general atmosphere of anti-Semitism, and contempt for Gays and for Roma.

The window dressing of animal care on the one hand, and the willingness to submit to the propaganda machine portraying Jews as expendable scum, a convincing argument in the mass psychosis of hatred.

Is this a case for a universal conscience, or an example of the magnitude of horror minimized by slighting the existential rights to conscionable support of all animals?

Fanciful Identity Politics

"I identify as black [and] take exception [to claims of deception]."
"I really don't see why they're in such a rush to whitewash some of the work I have done, who I am, how I have identified."
"I certainly don't stay out of the sun [explaining her darker complexion than at birth]. I also don't ... put on blackface as a performance. I have a huge issue with blackface."
"This is not some freak Birth of a Nation mockery blackface performance. This is a very real, connected level."
"[I never corrected that [being spoken of as 'transracial', 'biracial', 'a black woman'. It's more complex than being true or false in that particular instance."
Rachel Dolezai, 37, Spokane, Washington

Rachel Dolezai, White/Black

As delusional fixations go, this one was a dilly. It's possible that Rachel Dolezal's parents would have attempted to dissuade her from inventing her racial identity to reflect an inheritance that was never hers, and perhaps because they might have, or because she was so invested in her creative identity she strove to prevent them from doing just that, she parted company with them.

The child abandoning its parents, for invented parentage. It's a common enough scenario when that child is perhaps five years of age, but at the age of 37 highly unusual, taken to that degree and for that purpose. But then, perhaps the parents inadvertently confused the issue in the mind of a woman who was yet a child when they introduced into their family adoptees who were Black, while they were of Caucasian heritage with a tad of American Indian.

Black simply appealed to Rachel Dolezal. Nuanced black does appeal to many people who are not black. For whites, it connotes a life of leisure where one lazes in the sun and a golden tan results, signifying health and wealth and beauty. But that kind of superficial identification was obviously not what this woman sought. She sought to be noticed for her 'blackness' while not being black, so she gave nature a little help to display a genetic inheritance that had been denied her, of dark skin and dark, curly hair.

A powerful yearning to be what she was not motivated the woman to discard her birth identity and take on another one, one that required defence and there is no greater defence than offence. Taking offensive action to derail the nasty rejection of a majority white community against a sinned-against black community would garner her the admiration and attention for fearless commitment that she obviously craved.

She would leave behind in faded memory her whiteness, embrace the Indian inheritance as a notable benefit for they too represent an oppressed people, so linking the Native American speck within her genetic strain with the black she so desired resulted in just the right combination; A Black-Indian woman; what a burden to carry in a society that struggles to recall that there is only one human race with variations within, and that in theory at the very least, all peoples are born equal, albeit not with equal opportunities granted them by fate.

Is this a troubled woman? Hate mail was evidence that she had a right to notify police that she was a victim of hate crime, except for the revelation that she was the sender and receiver, both. Only a dozen years earlier she had charged black Howard University with discrimination for viewing her unequal to their traditions, as a white woman. She married a black man, divorced the black man. She portrayed one of the adopted black children in her parents' family as her black son. She lied about her parentage to be accepted on the Spokane, Washington police board.

May 2000, Jackson Mississippi wedding reception; Rachel Dolezai and her parents, grandparents and adopted black Dolezai children -- Photo CNN

This is the pathetic machinations of a sad and troubled woman who discovered her purpose in life through an invented persona and parentage. She was obviously wedded to the idea of martyrdom with the cult of victimhood holding enormous appeal. She rejected white privilege for black suffering. She could lecture on the suffering of blacks and find acceptance and admiration in academia where colonialist oppression of the past lives on in today's universities as self-loathing leading to championing of perceived underdogs.

It might have been easier for this woman to pass as Jewish, given her physical birth attributes. Not a good idea, given the status of Israel as an 'apartheid' state oppressing Palestinians, the accepted and embraced cult linked to anti-Semitism in academia today. The Spokane, Washington branch of the NAACP, to their credit, stood by the woman, insisting that one needn't be born black to be effective in their organization, sharing a common goal. But then, there were those who disagreed, and she 'stepped down' from her role as president of the local NAACP.

Her position as a part-time African studies lecturer in African-American culture at Eastern Washington University is now lost to her. She is being investigated by the city's Ethics Commission respecting fabrications appearing on her application for appointment to Spokane's police oversight board. Her job as a free-lance newspaper columnist is forfeit. Time to reinvent herself.

"Today" show interview with Matt Lauer, June 16, 2015 -- CNN

No Illusions to Shatter

"Whether or not these remarks are private, they are now public, and they represent his views."
"I fully expect to get the support I need."
Adam Silver, NBA commissioner, U.S.A.

All those who believe their intimate lives are private, beware. If the National Security Agency doesn't get you, there's always the possibility that your mistress might. The NSA's mission statement is on an elevated plane of public service through intelligence gathering for the purpose of protecting American interests and by extension society at large.

"Given the nature of today's communications, the pervasive convergence we see in those communications, where everything is connected to everything, NSA has to ensure its compliance through a variety of mechanisms. We first work very hard to understand the nature of the telecommunications domain. We also work very hard to understand what our explicit authorities are in traversing that domain in the hunt for foreign intelligence. And finally, we, from the moment we design our systems, to employing those systems, to sorting through, sifting through what we might get from those systems, ensure that at every step of the process we worry not simply about what we've obtained, but whether we had the authority to obtain it and whether we've treated it in exactly the right way."

Your mistress, on the other hand, may resent it that your legal wife is suing her insultingly as an opportunistic gold digger skilled at extracting funds and valuables from "wealthy older men". And Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling is both wealthy and 'older', by about a half-century than his one-time paramour V. Stiviano.

Former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, right, and V. Stiviano, left, the woman who recorded his racist rants

What he saw in her was the allure of youth and beauty, complementing what she acknowledged in him; money, influence, power. Like the slave plantation owners of a century earlier who kept their favourite slaves as occasional bedmates, the bigoted man whose world-class sport team is reliant on the athletic skills of blacks, tolerates them as the vehicle he needs, and seeks out intimacy from a biracial black/Mexican.

Presumably, V. Stiviano, the darling of this world-class racist had an agenda in mind when she secretly taped a bedroom conversation. When intimacy takes place between an overweight, ill old man and a sprightly curvaceous young woman the result is not necessarily salacious, as this tape gives testament to, but rather a boring conversation that ensued to draw out the extent of his bigotry.

So what could possibly have been Donald Sterling's inamorata's purpose in recording evidence of his vibrant racism, and then broadcasting it through social media other than to shout out to the world what the man represented? And then watched complacently as the man who showered her with gifts of inestimably high value was crucified with a $2.5-million fine, public humiliation and a life-ban from his team and the NBA.

Revenge, it has been often said, is best served cold. And perhaps this was the incentive, having watched as the Los Angeles chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People hypocritically hailed the man for heroic public service recognition, the latest a lifetime achievement award, to man they well knew was a hateful bigot. It is no secret he has been repeatedly sued for racial discrimination.

Was it a kept woman's decision to end her alliance with a repugnant man whose virulent rants against blacks and Mexicans burdened her with guilt as a black-Mexican? To demonstrate that she decided, after all, to shed her sequined cloak of obsequious accommodation in selling herself for cold, hard cash? Giving the finger to the NAACP, that she could cynically commit to what they dared not.

"They want to know why the NAACP would give an award to someone with my track record", Mr. Sterling said several years back. After all, he did such wonderful things for the black community, giving minority children fee seats at Clippers games, taking out costly newspaper advertisements celebrating Black History Month, and all is forgiven. So what if he ejects minority tenants from his properties claiming they stink, they're smelly, lazy, and alcoholic.

"He also has, over the years we looked at, contributed to a lot of minority charities, including the NAACP", Leon Jenkins president of the Los Angeles chapter, said, justifying the organization's intention to award him with the latest lifetime achievement award. The NAACP handing out awards to a singular individual of huge wealth whose most notable achievement throughout his lifetime has been to build a reputation as a racist.

And though much has changed in the life of the two principals, with Donald Sterling no longer enjoying his celebrity seat at NBA games, and divested of his ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers, and Vanessa Stiviano is no longer his kept woman, she still carries the bags that cost a king's ransom, and drives the flame-red Ferrari that represent why she enjoyed being kept by the man she put in his place.

All in the details: She was seen carrying a multi-thousand dollar Hermes bag, Ferrari neatly parked.

Nobility and Grace

"It will not be long now before we, as South Africans, stand up to proclaim that the apartheid fountainhead of racism throughout the world is no more and that political power has passed into the hands of the whole people."
"Never should racism in our country, from whatever quarter, raise its ugly head again. All of us as South Africans, both blacks and white, must build a common sense of nationhood in which all ideas of vengeance and retribution are impermissible."
Nelson Mandela, 1990, Canadian House of Commons

We must have our heroes. And some of those proclaimed as heroes truly are such. Their presence in times of great national need and their actions and calls to action of their fellow citizens proclaim them national heroes. Some national heroes' exploits are so remarkable that their celebrity status and the awe and respect they inspire in ordinary people looking for role models cross national lines, and the figures of such huge repute become international idols.

Nelson Mandela, who died yesterday after a prolonged illness and weariness of life at age 95, was one of those ineluctable heroes, a man whose reputation went before him, a man revered for having retained a sense of moderation and reasonableness despite a 27-year incarceration of hard labour resulting from his political activities in resistance to the South African Apartheid regime. The regime eventually fell under the weight of its disrepute, and Nelson Mandela rose to heroic heights.

Nelson Mandela speaks to the press in Lusaka, Zambia, about a month after his release from prison Feb. 11, 1990. Op-ed contributor Kurt Shillinger writes of Mandela: 'Pressing his wardens for garden pots was one of his many smaller battles behind bars to compel the apartheid regime to acknowledge the dignity of its political prisoners. Yet he gladly graced his wardens’ tables with the vegetables he grew.'

Neal J. Menschel/The Christian Science Monitor/file

He was uniquely capable as a thinking intelligence to recognize that there are two sides to every story, and he wanted to hear the other story, he wanted to weigh it, consider it, and then continue to advance his agenda of anti-racist justness. And he prevailed. On the way bringing people to the cause, because it wasn't merely his cause, it represented a universal cause of the brotherhood of man.

He was a man of noble bearing, reflecting his noble birth. He thirsted for knowledge and he hungered for fair treatment. The deplorable institutionalization of racism through officially administered Apartheid rested on the theory that blacks were by nature inferior to whites. The Boers, an amalgam of people originally from France, Holland, Germany and Denmark, felt entitled to govern the hugely more numerous and native blacks of South Africa.

Their union of minority populations prevailed over the majority of indigenous people whose tribal antipathies ensured they were never unified adequately in opposition. As a young black lawyer educated in the British system Nelson Mandela helped to found the youth wing of the African National Congress. And when their civil disobedience tactics netted them a viciously violent response from government troops he helped to found a militant AFN group.

It was his activities in attempting to rouse people to a national civil war against oppression and racism which brought the country teetering to the brink of bloody divisional violence that had him convicted and sentenced to death. He was, instead, given a life sentence on Robbin Island, installed in a tiny cement cell, sent out daily to perform backbreaking manual labour, and there he stayed, for 27 years of his life.

Photo By Hans Deryk/The Canadian Press

He was utterly committed to freeing his people from the humiliating slavery of Apartheid; third-class people in their own country, brutally ruled by white colonialists. In the end, the white colonialists relented, peace was attained and a changeover to black majority rule resulted finally with Mr. Mandela at the helm, where black Africans, Indians and whites learned to live for a common purpose; the betterment of South Africa.

That might have been the joyous end, and it was for a while. Mr. Mandela was too old and infirm to run again for re-election and his vice-president, Thabo Mbeki was elected president of South Africa after Mr. Mandela stepped down and into retirement from politics. Promises made to poor black South Africans that their lot in life would be improved; housing provided, land for farming, poverty extinguished was easier to pronounce than to produce.

AIDs made horrible inroads in the country. South Africa, always a violent country, became even more lawlessly crime-ridden and violent. It is now known as the rape capital of the world. There, endemic poverty remains a blot on the government. Last year government soldiers shot to death dozens of striking miners, asking for better working conditions and better pay. Mr. Mbeki, as president, was a disaster for his ignorance about AIDs prevention.

His successor, Jacob Zuma, was elected because tribal Zulus insisted it was their turn to govern. Mr. Zuma has five wives, but that didn't stop him from raping a young woman who had HIV, and who trusted him as an 'uncle'. He had taken the precaution of showering immediately after the rape, to ensure he wouldn't be infected with HIV/AIDs. He was never held to account for the rape, but he was enthusiastically elected as head of the ANC and then President of South Africa.

He is now being investigated for having misappropriated millions in state funds to improve the housing dedicated to each of his five wives, and to his own tribal home, a palace away from the capital, where he insisted the millions he invested were for security purposes, which goes a long way to explaining why the place is now palatial by any standards.

When Mr. Mandela was still president, he had invited former Liberian ruler Charles Taylor, accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and of blood diamonds infamy to dinner where there were also present as guests Naomi Campbell and Mia Farrow. Graca Machel, Mr. Mandela's third wife, cautioned Ms. Campbell to have nothing to do with Mr. Taylor, as he was a nasty man; rather an understatement leading to the question: what was he doing there to begin with?

Another question might be why did Nelson Mandela not publicly, loudly, condemn Zimbabwe's tyrannical ruler Robert Mugabe for the dreadful damage he has done to the country, for beggaring it and inflicting poverty on his nation, forcing it to import food to feed the population when Zimbabwe was once an African breadbasket of plenty?

And then there is Mr. Mandela's loyalty to Palestinian strongman Yasser Arafat, and his commitment to Libya's tyrannical Moammar Ghaddafi whose links to terrorism was well enough known that Mr. Mandela himself sat on a commission relating to the Lockerby bombing. If there's an accounting ledger up in heaven and Saint Peter has any doubts, a smile from Nelson Mandela will put them to rest.

Anti-Semitism 'on the rise' say Europe's Jews

By Bethany Bell BBC News

Swastikas and slogans were daubed near a synagogue in Salzwedel, Germany

Many Jews in Europe say anti-Semitism is increasing, particularly on the internet, according to a survey by the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA). 

The survey of 5,847 Jewish people said 66% of those who responded considered anti-Semitism to be a problem.

Three out of four respondents, 76%, believed anti-Semitism had increased over the past five years.
The survey was carried out in 2012 in eight countries which are home to about 90% of the EU's Jewish population.

Respondents in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Sweden and the United Kingdom were asked to give "their opinions and perceptions on anti-Semitic trends and anti-Semitism as a problem in everyday".

They were also asked about their personal experiences and worries about their own safety and that of family members.

There was particular concern about anti-Semitism online. About three-quarters of respondents considered that to be a problem which is getting worse.

A British woman in her 50s, quoted in the survey, said she had "experienced more anti-Semitic comments" since going on Facebook "than I ever have done throughout my whole life".

She added: "This is very dispiriting. The speed at which hostile comments and misinformation can be passed around is frightening and leads to a sense of deep unease, which may not connect with the day-to-day reality of being Jewish in a diverse society."

The survey found 29% of those surveyed had considered emigrating because of concerns about safety, with particularly high figures recorded in Hungary (48%), France (46%) and Belgium (40%).
It found one in five respondents had personally experienced at least one anti-Semitic verbal insult and/or a physical attack in the year before the survey.

Perpetrators of the most serious incidents were described as "being perceived as someone with Muslim extremist views, 27%, left-wing political views, 22%, or with right-wing views, 19%".
Respondents said the most frequent comments made by non-Jewish people in the UK were: "Israelis behave 'like Nazis' towards the Palestinians" and "Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes" (both 35%).

In France 52% of the Jewish people surveyed described anti-Semitism as a "very big problem" in their country, in Hungary the figure was 49%, while in the UK it was much less - 11%.

The survey showed significant differences between Western and Eastern European countries.
In Latvia, only 8% said the Israeli-Arab conflict had had a large impact on how safe they felt, but the figure rose to 28% for Germany and was as high as 73% in France.

FRA Director Morten Kjaerum said this reflected differing histories, as well as recent patterns of immigration.

"I think that there is across Europe... a traditional form of anti-Semitism that goes back in history for a long time," he said.

"But then we also see a particular sort of anti-Semitism reported by the respondents, namely the anti-Semitism which comes out of the conflict in the Middle East. And this is where you have to be careful: when do you have a legitimate critique of whatever your position may be in terms of that particular conflict and when would it be an anti-Semitic statement?"

The FRA said EU countries should work "urgently" to find effective ways to combat online anti-Semitism. It called on public figures to condemn anti-Semitic statements.

The President of the European Jewish Congress, Moshe Kantor, welcomed the survey, but said "the fact that a quarter of Jews are not able to express their Jewishness because of fear should be a watershed moment for the continent of Europe and the European Union."

"The Jewish reality in Europe is of great concern and the authorities need to deal with incidents of hate and intolerance in a holistic manner, to really combat these manifestations before it is too late.
"We would like to see concrete steps being taken, including creating legislation to specifically deal with anti-Semitism and racism, bolstering law enforcement agencies and ensure a zero-tolerance approach to anti-Semitism, even, and perhaps specifically, when opinion-shapers and decision-makers engage in these forms of hate," he said.

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Open Season on Roma

The Roma have always had a difficult time of it. They have been described in 19th-Century novels as mysterious, brooding, skulking, dangerous, romantic, criminal, musical, artistic, clans inhabiting the backwoods and byways of Europe for centuries. Never trusted, always maligned and painted as outsiders within any civilized society.

Which, apart from the hostility and discrimination they faced perennially, likely suited them just fine, since they preferred to be left to their own devices.

Sometimes such devices did include petty criminal acts, swindling, taking possession of items that were not legally theirs. As outliers they likely felt entitled to express their resentment over the way in which they were treated. Particularly from those who had the power and the wealth and the means to make their lives miserable by violently taking steps to have their caravans removed from their extensive properties.

In latter-day Europe, the Roma remain persecuted. Their children are as miserably treated at the schools they are permitted to attend, as the adults are in the workplace where they are seldom permitted to earn a living. Their endemic poverty, the squalor in which they live, and the manner in which society views them, with contempt and foreboding at their presence, certainly doesn't further human understanding and acceptance on either side.

And now that a little blue-eyed blond child has been 'discovered' by social workers, living with a Roma family in France with whom the child appears to have no familial resemblance, Europe has become a free-for-all to track down those Roma now under suspicion largely unwarranted, for having abducted children not their own for nefarious purposes.

Claims: The couple with Maria, pictured in a police photo taken last Thursday at the time of their arrest. Officers grew suspicious about Maria because she bore no resemblance to the couple claiming to be her parents

Quite aside from the fact that the children are loved, have been seen to be well treated and nourished and cared for in a normal family setting, albeit an impoverished one. Children have been taken by 'well-meaning' child-welfare authorities from their family setting and from the Roma community in which they have lived all their lives, leaving them confused and tearful.

In some instances DNA tests have confirmed, as in Ireland, that the children are indeed related to those who claim to be their parents and who in any case, provided the requisite documentation as proof. In other instances, explanations that the children were handed over for care by their natural parents who were unable to care for them as a result of poverty and too many already in their brood, are being investigated.

In France, Greece, Ireland and Romania, perhaps it's time to just take a breath, and make a stop to the sensational claims and official abductions of children from their loving Roma homes.

Racially-Charged Politics in America

The oldest race-relations entity in the United States has gathered a petition with 450,000 signatures for the purpose of proving to the justice department that they must, as a result of popular outrage and demands, reopen a civil rights investigation against George Zimmerman, the neighbourhood watch individual who took his assumed duties very seriously indeed. He is partly Hispanic, and the teen-age Trayvon Martin with whom he had a violent encounter, was black.

Although it might make sense that two visible-minority groups, both of which have suffered injurious rights issues in their country might find common cause with one another in insisting on the values of equality being extended unconditionally to their individual ethnic groups, relations between the two are not always harmonious. But that's an aside. What black Americans, incensed that Mr. Zimmerman has been found not guilty of second-degree murder in the death of the youth contend, is that his racist attitude caused the death.

It's far more likely that he viscerally reacted to the incident of seeing a young man he didn't recognize in his neighbourhood as being a punk, out for mischief, set on doing no good to anyone. It's how he characterized his initial response to the presence of Trayvon Martin who did him no injury, but simply was walking along in the gated community on his way from a convenience store to the house where his father was staying with his girlfriend.

Mr. Zimmerman's sense of entitled responsibility to his community included his volunteer badge and familiarity with local police, along with his possession of a registered firearm. He felt, although he was cautioned by the police with whom he came in contact that night, that it was his duty to follow the young man. His actions both alerted and alarmed Trayvon Martin who obviously feared that someone was behaving in a manner that directly threatened him with violence.

His reaction, described by Mr. Zimmerman as an attack on himself that caused him in turn to fear for his life, was predictable enough. Seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin took the initiative to protect himself from a perceived predator, and the older George Zimmerman, unable to match the physical prowess of the younger man, drew his firearm and killed the youth.

It was an accident that his own aggressive zeal to protect his community from a perceived threat caused.

Death by unfortunate misadventure. Trayvon Martin was not at fault for his own untimely death. George Zimmerman is, through the default of an fatal event occurring as a result of his own decision-making despite cautionary advice to desist. Accidents do happen, even those caused by stupidity, and this was a stupid accident by all accounts.

Trayvon Martin had only his fear and his hands to protect him; George Zimmerman had his fear and his gun. Clearly, no match.

The worst that could have happened to Mr. Zimmerman is that he would have come out of the exchange well beaten physically and perhaps mentally chastened. The worst that happened to Trayvon Martin is that because of an incident that no one might have imagined might be conceivable in a civilized society, his life was tragically forfeit.

What the NAACP might be advised to do at this juncture is to calm the heightened emotions of their followers and supporters by standing down from their position, and turning their long-overdue attention elsewhere. To the culture in the United States of America among black youth where petty crime, drug-dealing, ignorance of civility and defiance of authority is prevalent.

Where a stark division exists between and within the black community, of largely law-abiding citizens all too often victimized by their own fears and resentments fuelled legitimately enough by past issues of dreadful discriminatory practices and crimes. Where black-on-black crime, inclusive of murder and celebrated by rap 'music' has become the culture.

And where fear of black gangs is prevalent as a result in the larger society.

Does that not comprise an issue of far greater urgency that needs addressing than this sadly unfortunate affair? The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has just issued a study concerning homicides among youth in America, having dropped in the last 30 years among youth aged ten to 24.

That's the good news. The bad news is that there has been no drop in homicide rates among young black men.

"If we really want to reenergize the declines in youth homicide and try to knock it off where it is right now as the third leading cause of death for young people, we need to be more proactive and focus on primary prevention" of violence, suggested Corinne Ferdon, a behavioral scientist with the CDC's Division of Violence Prevention and an author of the report.

Symbolic Racism

The old Confederate flag is well enough known in the United States, where it originated and where, in the South, it represents the slavery order of black oppression and institutionalized misery imposed upon human beings viewed by the white population as vastly inferior to their white counterparts. Years ago there were campaigns to view that flag for what it represented, a blight upon modern society. And it was gradually withdrawn from sight, as it was finally universally agreed that it was a symbol of hate and servile human degradation.

Yet there is a Canadian couple, Christine and Cameron Bailey, who view the Confederate flag as an innocuous symbol of American redneck hillbilly tradition. Devoid of any racially demeaning characteristics whatever. And so they feel justified in insisting that the use of the Confederate flag in their  eating establishment simply adds to the aura they wish to convey. "Is it against the law? No. Then no one should be complaining. If you want it to come down, take me to court and make it against the law. But until that's the case, I'm not doing anything wrong", insists Cameron Bailey.

His southern-style barbecue restaurant, he insists, benefits hugely in public relations and style by the presence of the flag. Symbolizing what he claims to be Old South succulent barbecue traditions, and certainly not the enslavement and bigotry of a generation long past, of a history that still resonates in its debased treatment of human beings. The flag, used by the Ku Klux Klan at one time as a symbol of hate and a threat against American blacks, is now used by a Canadian restaurateur.

Gary Yokoyama / The Hamilton Spectator

Hillbilly Heaven restaurant in Hamilton serves pulled pork, ribs, sandwiches and a heapin' helping of attitude for those looking for a job at the eatery.

 

Perhaps he hasn't yet thought about the larger appeal of re-naming his restaurant the Bunker, and emblazoning a Swastika over the front door. But then he appears to be rather fond of the name he has chosen: Hillbilly Heaven. So perhaps he could link the two. And for greater notoriety advertise free drinks on Wednesdays for Jews and on Thursdays for blacks. Mr. Bailey appears to feel that anyone who is offended can go elsewhere; those who appreciate the name and the flag and the promise of good southern-style barbecue will be glad to frequent his restaurant.

"A Canadian appropriating this totally politically charged symbol from an American context and then using it up here, it's hard to understand because that flag's meaning is directly tied to the American history of race relations. What it could mean to a Canadian is beyond me. And that guy might think 'Yeah this is a symbol of the south and I'm trying to brand my restaurant in a particular way', but the region he's trying to invoke would not see that flag as its symbol. It's a symbol of a very particular subset within that region", explained James Carson, professor of history at Queen's University, originally from Asheville, North Carolina.

But it's not as though this is completely divorced from Canadian history. There was an underground railway being operated in Canada to help black slaves escape from the United States, find haven in Canada and establish themselves here as free citizens. Canada has a history of its own, and that history recognizes the flag and what it represents. Canada's black demographic knows very well what the Confederate flag symbolizes; their past oppressed condition in slavery.

If Mr. Bailey continues to insist that he has the right to do as he wishes inflaming public opinion and flaunting a symbol deeply offensive to many, perhaps he should also have his waiters dress in pointy-headed white costumes, and burn a cross in front of his restaurant for the full flavour of atmosphere he so much relishes. But on the other hand, he's likely chortling as it is about all the free publicity he's been getting on the news front.

Hamilton deserves better than this.