Words that must never be spoken

Goes without saying, top 'o the list has got to go to the much-feared "N-word."

Look what happened to Wendy Mesley. She used to be a marquee name at the CBC. I had the misfortune of reading her weepy apologia in the Globe and Mail the other day. Seems a couple of highly-educated Black professionals were struck down with PTSD when they heard Mesley say you-know-what instead of "N-word" at a team meeting.

I guess I'll never have a political career, because if someone were to comb through my 6000+ posts, they'd discover oh, maybe a dozen or so actual N-words. Like Mesley, I never used the word with malice, but that doesn't matter anymore.

Also like Mesley, I don't consider myself a white supremacist, although today denial is largely considered a proof. The kind of Black people struck down by PTSD at the sound of the N-word strike me as the kind of people who wallow in the turgid pool of micro-aggressions.

Wonder what Alvin Ailey would have to say about micro-aggressions? Wonder how many of the recently woke even recognize that name?

According to the CBC, the "S-word" has joined the list of words that must never be spoken. 

Squaw.

An intrepid CBC reporter found a few Indigenous females who were totally crushed when some racist redneck referred to them with the S-word. The Indigenous cohort referenced in the story skewed heavily towards poets and community activists. 

The Indigenous women I know, a cohort skewed heavily to the gals who work at the gas station and the smoke shop, would just bust my nose and kick my ass if such idiocy ever slipped past my lips!

That strikes me as a far healthier response than a lifetime of PTSD. 

You can't always tell the winners from the losers when they're just kids

The topic of highschool destreaming is hot once again. The colleagues I left behind in the math department (good luck, suckers!) are coming to terms with that right now, as the province rolls out a new math curriculum designed to coincide with destreaming. That's where the students who actually get math were separated from the ones who didn't, and for the most part, didn't give a shit.

It has been evident for some time that certain ethnic/racial groups are over-represented in the stream of those who don't give a shit. This has repercussions down the road, because when you take the slow stream, most professional schools, be it engineering, business, law, or whatever, don't admit you.

So, you're stuck with a sociology degree from a second tier school, or, if you're lucky, you turned to something you were interested in and learned a useful trade or something. (btw, all the construction trades in Toronto are paying over $100k/ yr; how you making out with that soc degree?)

The social justice entrepreneurs have figured out that the only way to eliminate this glaring example of systemic racism is to teach the kids who like math in the same room with the kids who don't give a shit. 

And while that initiative is bound for certain failure, I do believe you can't really peg a kid when they're 12 or 13. I always figured my job as a teacher was to help the kids evolve, blossom, develop... not peg them!

In my 25 years I always taught the slow stream. Quite often the kids who didn't give a shit were extremely bright. They just weren't turned on by anything the school board was offering. I remember a goofy kid who took my welding class three or four times. Nice guy. Never finished a course. Never got a credit and couldn't care less. Had a keen interest in special effects and was trying to get a DJ career going. When he actually showed up and built out a project, I could see he had something going, but overall, I figured the folks who make the streaming call likely had him in the right place.

A few years later, I run into the guy. Hey, good to see ya, how you been?

He was just back from Europe, where he was travelling with the latest Madonna tour. With no highschool diploma, but a knack for tinkering with things, he got in with a special effects shop in Toronto. When they were hired for the Madonna tour, he was in on the ride.

It's time to call out Irish Supremacy

As has been abundantly proven recently, all that ails society can be traced back to white supremacy.

I'll let you in on another secret. At the core of white supremacy lies Irish Supremacy.

Think about it. What other white ethnic group is afforded its own ethnic pride day? I was discussing this with the Farm Manager earlier today. She is distraught that there is no Jewish equivalent of St. Patrick's Day. How can society condone a celebration of Irish identity, but ignore the Jews?

Anti-Semitism, anyone?

And why is there no celebration of German identity? Oh, you think that piss-up in October is good enough?

I think not!

No doubt the Italian, Greek, Ukrainian and sundry other ethnicities will soon be demanding their own national pride days too.

Pushing back against Irish privilege is the first step in the long march to toppling systemic racism.

POTUS Donny J gifts presidential pardon to Jack Johnson; could Leonard Peltier be next?

Everything old is news again!

Folks have been lobbying the Oval Office for well over half a century trying to get a presidential pardon for Jack Johnson, with no results. You'd think the first black president might have had a soft spot in his heart for the first black heavyweight champ, but apparently not.

But today Donny J done the deed!

Is this because Mr. Trump likes black folks more than Obama did?

Of course not!

It's because this particular black dude has a white A-list Hollywood star advocating for him. That's something Trump understands.

That's why I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Peltier's pardon. Ever since Marlon Brando went to his reward, Native Americans haven't had a white A-list Hollywood star in their corner.

Elsewhere in everything old is news again, I see where the Grassy Narrows mercury poisoning scandal is back from the grave. This was a major news story from the mid-seventies to the mid-eighties, when the government of the time negotiated a settlement between the owners of the offending paper mill and the First Nations people they were poisoning.

That was the end of that. For thirty years.

But now the story is back. Looks like just because the story disappeared, the mercury in the water didn't. We "solved" the problem by ignoring it. Can't imagine we'd ignore mercury in Toronto water that long. But Grassy Narrows?..


Systemic racism doesn't get more systemic than that!