Stopping the Creeping Cancer under Wokeism
Henry Goulburn, PC, one of the British negotiators at the Treaty of Ghent in 1814 (which ended America’s illegal attempt to seize Canada), remarked:
I had no idea of the fixed determination which there is in the heart of every American to extirpate the Indians and appropriate their territory.
In the same treaty, America swears in Article Ten that it will use “best endeavours” to abolish slavery. If only it had. Dee Brown in his epoch-making book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee describes in detail the American government’s provocations, massacres, atrocities and lies towards the initially peaceful and gentle Native Peoples as the American people, and the American Federal government, systematically destroyed their way of life, their religion, and their culture. Worse, as we can see from the contemporary’s quotation above, this creeping cancer was recognized at the time. Clearly, if you are not in power and not in control, fairness is not only relative in meaning but also obvious in its absence.
The above post from the CMHR incorrectly claims human remains have been found, despite the fact that no such remains have yet been found.
Recently, the suicide of a well-respected and competent high school principal in Toronto (Richard Bilkszto) has generated controversy as he was, allegedly, bullied by Ms. Ojo-Thompson of the KOJO Institute and was unsupported by his employer, The Toronto District School Board. While lawsuits and inquiries do their work, let’s think about why I think there is a comparison to be made between these two horrible sets of circumstances.
History teaches us that Americans were greedy for land and encouraged a paranoia about Native Peoples. Clearly, Americans benefited from dividing tribes, the imposition of exclusionary policies, and the use of intimidation. They were clearly racists. Their treatment of Native Peoples got worse as time progressed. By the time Manifest Destiny reached California with the Gold Rush, the tribes were annihilated. When you combine these deliberate policies and laws with human nature, and the ease with which a mob mentality can be stoked, it is easy to see how a denial of due process and discussion allowed Native Peoples’ interests to be denied. There is a version of this happening now.
We know the mob mentality is easy to provoke and hard to control once started. We know it gets worse as the hate and intolerance gathers momentum going downhill. We are only now publicly accepting the extent to which our leaders over-reacted with unproven, and ultimately ineffective, lockdowns during the Pandemic. It is easy to see, and easy to see the damage done, by of the absurd excesses of Wokeism – such as Coca Cola’s denials of its “Be Less White” program, and the infamous promotion by Bud Lite of Dylan Mulvaney. These excesses reveal the dangers of wholehearted acceptances of the latest fad without analysis and exhibit a kind of knee-jerk rejections of due process, the sober second thoughts, or even the concept of the Golden Mean. It is very dangerous and certainly is why our independent judiciary attempts to remove itself from the mundane. And of course, at the very least, Bud Lite and Coca Cola’s incompetence can backfire on the whole attempt to reduce racism and prejudice by unnecessarily putting people’s backs up!
I visited the KOJO Institute’s website, and while a website is primarily a tool to generate consulting revenue, and some advertising licence is expected, I was struck by the prevalence of terms which are not defined. The problem with widely used, but undefined, terms is that they not only take a life of their own, but they their use can encourage a cloud of pejorative meanings. Such words include “equity”, “oppression”, and “colonialism.” If you use the word “murder”, it can be defined, defended, and measured in a court of law. But how do you defend yourself against an undefined allegation of “racism”? Mobs love undefined hate; they love bullying. The mob mentality only leads to excess. It is the intention of this website to use pejorative, undefined terms. KOJO wants you to accept what they say without specific examples, and it is the form of bullying that the mob mentality employs. But it is this failure to provide specific examples of systemic black racism, for example, that undermines their arguments of those very claims. Mere assertion is not proof.
In the KOJO Institute’s website there is discussion of “equity.” There is a great deal of discussion of anti-black racism. But there is not much discussion of the interests of other minorities – be they of colour, age, sex, impaired abilities, or with other characteristics. In a growingly diverse country like Canada, it is odd to concentrate on discussions on only one subset of the population. Almost 5 times the number of people in Canada are elderly rather than black. If we are promoting equity, why are some groups more equal than others? South Asian Canadians, at twice the population of Blacks, should be mentioned on the website promoting equity and the fairness of opportunity – but are not. But KOJO may claim that their mandate is SPECIFICALLY to suppress ‘white supremacist anti-black bigotry: perhaps they could not care less about Indians? That would mean, surely, that they are racists themselves. This brings us back to what does “equity” really mean?
Hollywood in films, and industry in its advertising, are complicit in the promotion of new stereotypes that are politically correct. It is reasonable for corporations to pander to the latest fads and trends. If short skirts are in fashion this season, companies are not going to have actors wearing long skirts in their commercials. But it can also be morally wrong and hurtful to the innocent. Certainly, it was wrong for the last two hundred years how our Native Peoples were portrayed as one dimensional. But lately there have been well funded and media-encouraged hysterical stories over Native children potentially killed in the basements of Churches and schools. On May 27th, 2021, the leadership of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, the southern B.C. First Nation, announced that 215 unmarked and previously undocumented gravesites had been found using ground-penetrating radar at the site of the Kamloops Indian Residential School of what was once Canada’s largest residential school, bringing the deaths of Indigenous children at the schools into the national and international spotlight. Two years later we read announcements that no remains have yet been found. Even if they were subsequently to be found, we will not know how, when, or why they died. Conrad Black and others have repeatedly insisted, the “burials” were merely pure speculation in the absence of ANY evidence of the lurid details of the alleged mistreatment of ‘missing’ pupils. A sober second look at some of the claims would suggest that these are speculation at best; lies at their worst. This is another reason why the mob mentality is so dangerous. All old ladies living alone are bad; mediaeval Witch Trials are back.
Also, it has been suggested that another area of over-reactions about past injustices has been in the recent decisions on how to award government funded research contracts to industry and university. It has been claimed that such funding no longer primarily promotes research, but rather promotes the selection of government-approved groups of candidates before the proposed research contract can be even reviewed by scientists for its intrinsic worth. Are we really promoting research (or even equity!) or are we promoting a self-destructive cancer which will slowly erode the ideals upon which Canada, and the Western World, was built upon? What are the long-term consequences of denying merit?
That, unlike some other questions, has an easy answer. Of course, excellence must replace mediocrity. There is a public officials’ acquiescence in legal, academic, educational, political, and public sectors throughout Western society to promote a cultural subversion advocated by militant ‘progressive’ radicals. Why has this been so easy to achieve? Just as there was with the denial of the interests of our Native Peoples for two hundred years, there is massive public indifference or apathy. ’Twas ever thus. Look how long it has taken to end child labour – or child abuse, for that matter. Will our work ever stop?
Let’s face it. The history of the human race illustrates that we will never be perfect. Fairness will continue to be in short supply. But if you are promoting one group over another, there is not, by definition, equity, but rather exclusion, division and possibly, if aggression is used, intimidation. To misuse words saying you are promoting equity when you are not is the first mistake. The second mistake is to allow yourself to believe that such lies over the meaning of equity is actually reducing racism and oppression.
This Wokeism is lip service. Is the single mother trying to raise two children with an absent father, any better off now? No, we are not promoting “equity” for those children’s chances in life. Who do we really want to help, some consultants’ fat fees, or the suffering and disadvantaged minorities? Are we really dealing with fairness when we announce at every public event that the meeting is being held upon the land of hunters and gatherers who have long since died? What are we really doing to promote fairness for the disadvantaged? Ironically, we are rewarding one noisy minority with some of the spoils of the majority’s control – and effectively impoverishing the really needy, who continue to be ignored and neglected. The only people happy with this movement are those smug, rich, Canadian who prolong their wealth, position, and power by aping the latest fad, and those who are increasing their own wealth – all modern Pharisees.
As Dee Brown, a white man, said, we need to view the American westward sweep of Manifest Destiny from the Native Peoples’ viewing point – looking eastwards, peacefully, and gently, from their position of vulnerability. If that had been done a hundred years ago, the mob mentality of greed and destruction to our Native Peoples would have been lessened. In a similar fashion, today, we must avoid the mob mentality of an aggressive implementation of Wokeism. The more stoked and inflamed the mob mentality is, the worse damage it will do. It takes an appreciation of irony to be able to discuss and reason why knee-jerk reactions can only fail and backfire. Unfairness, in all of its manifestations, is deeply engrained in the human psyche; to be truly removed, it will take a long time. Let’s start now and cut the cancer out of racism thoroughly by removing the mob mentality excesses which are self-perpetuating and can feed on unsubstantiated claims of unfairness, discrimination, and bigotry.
In Massachusetts, it wasn’t until the Governor’s wife was accused of being a witch in 1693 that he declared an end to witch trials. At least he had leadership qualities to stand up to the mob mentality. Do our current leaders have such leadership qualities?
