GayandRight

My name is Fred and I am a gay conservative living in Ottawa. This blog supports limited government, the right of the State of Israel to live in peace and security, and tries to expose the threat to us all from cultural relativism, post-modernism, and radical Islam. I am also the founder of the Free Thinking Film Society in Ottawa (www.freethinkingfilms.com)

Saturday, April 22, 2006

A Culture of Whiteness?????

This sort of story makes me crazy....
Queen's University, one of Canada's most academically elite schools, admits it has allowed a "culture of whiteness" to take root that fails to welcome visible minority students and professors.

And the university vows to be more aggressive in shedding its reputation as a tony enclave of white privilege, says vice-principal Patrick Deane.

Queen's is responding to a critical report prompted by the resignation of six non-white professors several years ago — as well as recent incidents of white students going out to pubs in controversial "blackface" makeup — that suggest the Kingston school has done little to try to reflect the diversity of Canada.

"One student accused us of attracting not the best and the brightest, but the richest and whitest — and that may be not far off," says Prof. Joy Mighty, chair of the university's equity committee, which has proposed sweeping changes to boost diversity at the picturesque campus on the banks of the St. Lawrence.

"Even in Kingston, some parents tell us they worry that sending their children to Queen's won't prepare them for the diversity of the world," said Mighty, a black professor who notes she has not experienced discrimination herself, but knows professors of colour who feel isolated on campus.
If you have the stomach, please read the whole article.

I went to Queen's myself - graduating in 1980 with an MBA. I was one of three jews in the class, and at the time, we thought Queen's was a WASPY institution. However, that didn't stop us from having a great time, graduating, and going on to be very successful.

The plain fact of the matter is that it is pure bigotry to talk of 'whiteness'. To lump Greeks, Russians, Poles, Ukranians, Jews, and others into a huge category called 'white' is just wrong. I don't self-identify as a 'white' - I am a Canadian who happens to be gay and jewish. The only thing Queens needs to focus on is to ensure that the best go there - and I am sure they are already doing just that.

Instead, here is what Queens plans to do:
So Deane said the university is considering a number of committee recommendations, from setting loose goals for recruiting more visible minority professors and students, to targeting scholarships and grants to students of colour and setting up a resource centre on campus for visible minorities.
So, the way to solve their so-called 'problem' is to move away from merit as a principle and use racing as a guiding criteria!

And, of course, the politically-correct won't stop there - they also want to change the content of courses:
Speaking at the final Engaging the World town hall, Dr. Mighty recommended that Queen’s create a vice-principal position responsible for equity with a mandate for building diversity into the life of the university – through its recruitment and admissions practices as well as its pedagogy.

9 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

My (non-coloured) niece (from the Prairies) just finished post-grad studies at Queen's - she wanted to go there, was hugely thrilled at being accepted, had an excellent experience, but she did say she found the elitism of many students there off-putting. Nothing about racists, just Ontario snobs.

2:40 PM  
Blogger OreamnosAmericanus said...

The logic of multiculturalism requires the self-erasure of whites. We are evil and deserve to disappear. Every other group is allowed and encourage to celebrate and expand itself, but the Dreaded Caucasian must commit suicide to show good faith. It's a crock, entirely.

5:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Quotas for skin colours has never worked out very well and is inherently racist.

Queens University should immediately close its doors for good.

The buildings can be sold, or preferably demolished in order to eliminate the stain of their racist ways.

Canadians should demand that the University administration and faculty act immediately, there is no time to waste!

6:02 PM  
Blogger Roy Eappen said...

I am a brown person. Several of my cousins went to Queens and loved it. White people really have to stop this guilt thing. This is really dumb

6:40 PM  
Blogger susansmith said...

Fred, it's too rich when you say that "I don't self-identify as a 'white' You don't have too, as you are white. With whiteness comes privileges.

10:03 PM  
Blogger Jarrett said...

"Nothing about racists, just Ontario snobs."

Absolutely. I did a tour there on a whirlwind tour of Kingston, and it was alright, but nothing I can't get on the other side of the country.

The funny bit, though, was when I was in the bookstore and someone I was with asked me if I wanted to buy something that said "Queen's" on it. I blurted out, "Why on earth would I want anything with Queen's on it?"

The store, full of waspy shits who couldn't believe that Queen's was anything other than 31 flavours of awesome, went silent.

It was really quite funny in retrospect.

Jan - what about when you're someone like me, who's "white" but looks (and might just be) Mongolian?

10:08 PM  
Blogger T.C. said...

With whiteness comes privileges? Thus spoke PC gibberish. If there are I'm having a hard time as no one is giving me a break in my business ventures. Golly gee, The Queen's Mafia has discovered it is too white! In 1954 it didn't matter much. But now? Hey, our kids need to be prepared for a culturally diverse world! We should have a curriculum. Once upon a time parents couldn't care less about the wop or chink. I was once told to learn Spanish. For what? Whom? Does that make me a racist? I barely can hang on to the three I've got. What a bunch of nonsense. I agree, grouping all nationalities into one heading under 'white' is inherently racist. I don't care but I went from being an 'undesireable' Italian during the height of the eugenics movement in Canada to 'white' in a span of 80 years. Is this progress? What more proof do we need that our institutions of higher learning are nothing but a cesspool and extension of political partisanship inhabited by intellectually depraved minds?

11:17 AM  
Blogger OreamnosAmericanus said...

JanFromBruceCounty's little mantra about whiteness and "privilege" crystallizes the crock that is the PC agenda.
Privilege is just a rhetorical trick to make people feel guilty about the fact that everyone, and I mean everyone, has a large and shifting set of advantages and disadvantages. How about my "abled" privilege? Should I feel bad because the world was not set up for the convenience of blind people? How about my "adult" privilege, where I get a lot more freedom than 4 year olds. Let's go on and on. The PC agenda is that no natural human arrangement is tolerable and only the rationalized and legalized life of state-controlled liberal morality is ok. As soon as someone uses this "privilege" word, I know what the game is and move on.

11:33 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Has there ever been any quantitative evidence that diversity in the classroom helps students "survive" in the real world? Have the U.S.'s affirmative action policies truly benefited students and faculty because they've brought diversity to the classroom? I have yet to find any hard scientific statistics that show that they have done so.

2:00 AM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home