by Peter McGregor
Recently, someone sent my way one of the more thought-provoking news items I’ve seen in ages. It relates to a Canadian right-wing student group that’s just filed a “hate-speech” complaint with police in Ontario. It concerns an online op-ed from Canada’s national broadcaster, the CBC, which claimed, among other things, ‘all white people are racist.’ I’ve looked the complaint, and it’s not a troll-y send-up.
The Left, of course, love “hate-speech” laws, but given this is conservatives complaining about anti-Caucasian speech, surely it’ll tie them in knots.
As it will conservatives. Although a liberty-loving lot, they loath the CBC, just as much as English conservatives loath their own national broadcaster.
So what to make of this?
When Canada’s Supreme Court declared hate-speech laws constitutional back in the 1980s, in a case involving a high school teacher spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to students, it defined such speech as publicly promoting individuals to be “despised, scorned, denied respect and made subject to ill-treatment on the basis of group affiliation.” Since that decision, criminal charges have been laid against speakers of anti-black, anti-native and, for the first time last year, anti-female speech; but never against purveyors of anti-Caucasian speech. This is apparently what the new complaint’s going for.
Now personally, I’m a conservative (and a pale male one at that) and I hate “hate-speech” laws. They’re unduly vague and, as a result, can’t do what laws are supposed to do, which is guide the public’s activity. Conservatives generally know this well, but an uncomfortable question for both us and Brits does loom: as our countries and their political situation changes, should this sort of stuff be expected?
Take the distressing “anti-white supremacy”-rhetoric that seems to be multiplying unabated. The theory that there’s an overarching system controlled by white people for white people is routinely trotted out not just on university campuses and obscure blogs, but also on mainstream, far-reaching platforms—for Canadian examples, see here, here, and here. Even Canada’s openly globalist, self-flagellating prime minister has faced accusations of “white supremacy.”
Which leads me to the complaint at hand. Last year, the CBC saw fit to publish an op-ed from a native activist entitled ‘Dear white people;’ a beyond screedy diatribe, 90 percent of which was one long series of scathing attacks against white Canadians as white Canadians. Eerily, the piece made the kind of vilifying statements found traditionally in anti-Semitic propaganda; namely, that Canadian whites are surreptitiously controlling “the system”; that they use it to harm others; and that they’re money-driven, power-hungry and generally morally inferior.
Not nice reading, in other words.
Just as unsettling, perhaps, was the response: silence. While the piece received plenty of circulation, it got zero criticism from competing media outlets nor any apology from CBC executives.
Then there’s the article’s ‘all white people are racist’ section, which the present complaint seems to zero-in on. In the face of counter-arguments from Canadian whites who are pretty sure they harbor no animus against others, the piece confidently informs: “One is not exempt from racism because they are simply ‘a good person’… You have been socialized to be unconsciously invested in racism and there are many ways that you are willfully ignorant or racist… Let that sink in!”
Strong stuff.
Like the UK, there are few types of behaviour in Canadian society today more vilified than racism. As the complaint rightly states, it’s basically just a touch behind pedophilia on the country’s morality spectrum.
And likewise, it’s capable of eliciting serious fits of righteous rage in some and even deadly violence in others. Therefore, so says the complaint, this kind of group-accusation alone should be treated as being capable of inciting hatred and violence.
Now, I’m of the firm belief that having open debate and the opportunity to fight bad speech with better speech is the best antidote to harmful, race-based conspiracy theories; not criminal charges or legal threats. But today, such avenues are essentially nonexistent; whether it college campus platforms, establishment media outlets (the CBC as well as others) or, increasingly, social media.
Meanwhile, most attempts to counter anti-“pale, male” racism are themselves shouted down as racism—As the CBC piece states, for instance, to claim there is no oppressive white supremacist system is to ‘sanction it.’ And, in any case, “racism against white people does not exist.”
The present complaint against the CBC will surely end up in the police station’s recycle bin and most conservatives will likely say that’s a good thing. I do, at least. But with left-wing incitement growing apace and no way to counter it, don’t be surprised to see more of this stuff in future.
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One Response
I knew about that case. The sad thing that keeps happening is all white men forget the white women. I personally experiended racism at med school/ sabotaged, computers sabotaged bc when I went to washroom.classmates of other race and religion would stick their fobs in and steal my notes. I went through 3 computers a year. I had to carry my stuff with me to washroom then they’d steal my seat. My cameras were stolen, I was blamed for things thst j never did & when exonerated never apologized to. I was druggged assaulted breached out to our prime minister Harper’s office at the time but no help whatsoever. Came home complained to Carmichael no help at all. So does our government care about its citizens? Nope. As evidenced by hate speech allowed to happen here. I welcomed being home in Canada after that and proceeded to see doctors raping patients under abesthetixs by sane culture. Nothing. This world us screwed up until we stop allowing $$ to dictate our country values. Values should be protected not adjusted to the highest bidder.