This reads more like a full moon episode of the Twilight Zone rather than a School Board Mtg, but perhaps I am being overly generous in my appraisal. School Board Trustees frequently develop an unrealistic sense of their of their own self importance and become authoritarian despots in their dealings with members of the public. Russian Philosopher, Mikhail Bakunin captured it best when he said, "he who is given power will inevitably become an oppressor and exploiter of society". Intransigent people are next to impossible to deal with. They are driven by the fear of the opinions of others and are reluctant to leave the safety provided by the herd. Mark Twain put it humorously in another way when he said, "no amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot."
Wow. Kudos to you. We sure have regressed from the multicultural nation PET (yes, he had some good ideas) envisioned to one that is really segregated in thought, word, ideas, and action by race. it's discouraging and disappointing.
Thanks for the link to the Charlie Cheon video. I hadn't heard of this young man before today. Glad to see his video has more than 3.4 million views. (If you have yet to watch it, I might suggest turning the sound down and just reading the titling, because I found the audio was poorly sync'd).
I was just reading a comment thread on FB about reaction to Jully Black's changing the anthem ("Our home on native land"). One commenter -- a white woman -- agrees with others that it was just like land acknowledgements (in that it doesn't change anything), and is reluctant to celebrate it [Jully's wording change] "given the nature of the rest of the anthem." She finishes by saying, "And should I, a Settler, even have an opinion on this?" (This was a serious comment, NOT tongue-in-cheek.)
I presume the "correct" answer to this question is "Of course not! How dare we YTs have an opinion on our national anthem?!"
it will be a cold day in hell I accept the derogatory denomination of "settler." The health authority on Vancouver Island listed its three client bases (not sure why they can't just have clients, period) in this order: First Nation, Metis Charter and settler communities. SETTLER COMMUNITIES is now what 98 percent of the client base of the health authority is called. I emailed several times and I'm pretty sure my emails weren't the cause, but I now see the website has changed to instead of "settler community" say "English community," which is even more confounding. That leaves out Chinese, Japanese, Ugandan, Polish, French, et cetera, et cetera, and lumps everyone other than First Nation into one category. Huh.
They seem to have neglected to change the text on the "Your Region" page, where it still reads, "Select one of four areas on the map below or filter the Region list by First Nation, Métis Charter or settler community." The filter selection itself reads "English". As you say, it truly is confounding. Someone in the health authority is bending over backwards to try to cover their "bases" (or maybe their asses?) in a politically correct way, and they're just mucking it up. https://www.islandhealth.ca/your-region
When I emailed, the first time, I got more or less the response I expected, which was a canned bit of verbiage related to UNDRIP, which has been enshrined in legislation in BC. It's all about "reconciliation" and the "truth" and respecting indigenous rights. BC UNDRIP is going to be a disaster for the province financially and otherwise. Its effects are only just beginning to be felt from a jurisprudence perspective. But the government now toes the UNDRIP line. The Royal BC Museum, which recently ripped out two floors of exhibits in a cringy effort to "decolonize" now is engaging in public sessions in an effort to get a billion bucks to build a new museum, I imagine, and the first thing on the graphic that starts every session is adherence to UNDRIP principles It's called something else in BC legislation. BC something.
My Irish Canadian great grandparents would have resented the "English" label, to put it mildly. Science tells us Homo Sapiens are indigenous to southern Africa so everyone everywhere else is descended from settlers and colonizers. There too, since groups have moved around and conquered and enslaved and slaughtered each other, as humans have always done. Civilization and rule of law are very recent and fragile human (not "white" which is a fiction) accomplishments, and this current obsession with labels and racial categories threatens to revive the tribalism that is our species' greatest weakness. So misguided and dangerous.
This reads more like a full moon episode of the Twilight Zone rather than a School Board Mtg, but perhaps I am being overly generous in my appraisal. School Board Trustees frequently develop an unrealistic sense of their of their own self importance and become authoritarian despots in their dealings with members of the public. Russian Philosopher, Mikhail Bakunin captured it best when he said, "he who is given power will inevitably become an oppressor and exploiter of society". Intransigent people are next to impossible to deal with. They are driven by the fear of the opinions of others and are reluctant to leave the safety provided by the herd. Mark Twain put it humorously in another way when he said, "no amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot."
Wow. Kudos to you. We sure have regressed from the multicultural nation PET (yes, he had some good ideas) envisioned to one that is really segregated in thought, word, ideas, and action by race. it's discouraging and disappointing.
Thanks for the link to the Charlie Cheon video. I hadn't heard of this young man before today. Glad to see his video has more than 3.4 million views. (If you have yet to watch it, I might suggest turning the sound down and just reading the titling, because I found the audio was poorly sync'd).
I was just reading a comment thread on FB about reaction to Jully Black's changing the anthem ("Our home on native land"). One commenter -- a white woman -- agrees with others that it was just like land acknowledgements (in that it doesn't change anything), and is reluctant to celebrate it [Jully's wording change] "given the nature of the rest of the anthem." She finishes by saying, "And should I, a Settler, even have an opinion on this?" (This was a serious comment, NOT tongue-in-cheek.)
I presume the "correct" answer to this question is "Of course not! How dare we YTs have an opinion on our national anthem?!"
it will be a cold day in hell I accept the derogatory denomination of "settler." The health authority on Vancouver Island listed its three client bases (not sure why they can't just have clients, period) in this order: First Nation, Metis Charter and settler communities. SETTLER COMMUNITIES is now what 98 percent of the client base of the health authority is called. I emailed several times and I'm pretty sure my emails weren't the cause, but I now see the website has changed to instead of "settler community" say "English community," which is even more confounding. That leaves out Chinese, Japanese, Ugandan, Polish, French, et cetera, et cetera, and lumps everyone other than First Nation into one category. Huh.
They seem to have neglected to change the text on the "Your Region" page, where it still reads, "Select one of four areas on the map below or filter the Region list by First Nation, Métis Charter or settler community." The filter selection itself reads "English". As you say, it truly is confounding. Someone in the health authority is bending over backwards to try to cover their "bases" (or maybe their asses?) in a politically correct way, and they're just mucking it up. https://www.islandhealth.ca/your-region
When I emailed, the first time, I got more or less the response I expected, which was a canned bit of verbiage related to UNDRIP, which has been enshrined in legislation in BC. It's all about "reconciliation" and the "truth" and respecting indigenous rights. BC UNDRIP is going to be a disaster for the province financially and otherwise. Its effects are only just beginning to be felt from a jurisprudence perspective. But the government now toes the UNDRIP line. The Royal BC Museum, which recently ripped out two floors of exhibits in a cringy effort to "decolonize" now is engaging in public sessions in an effort to get a billion bucks to build a new museum, I imagine, and the first thing on the graphic that starts every session is adherence to UNDRIP principles It's called something else in BC legislation. BC something.
My Irish Canadian great grandparents would have resented the "English" label, to put it mildly. Science tells us Homo Sapiens are indigenous to southern Africa so everyone everywhere else is descended from settlers and colonizers. There too, since groups have moved around and conquered and enslaved and slaughtered each other, as humans have always done. Civilization and rule of law are very recent and fragile human (not "white" which is a fiction) accomplishments, and this current obsession with labels and racial categories threatens to revive the tribalism that is our species' greatest weakness. So misguided and dangerous.
Woke insanity must be opposed.