Only if it shows!

I saw the presentation to city counsel by the Thunder Bay Committee against Racism and Discrimination and got a copy of the report .

Where are the experts?
     Conspicuous by it absence was any contribution to this report by a professional in the field of human behavior — unless you consider that philosophy would help.
    If the objective was to eliminate prejudice, surely someone on the committee should have been concerned with how prejudice starts. Or was this just a political exercise?
    With the knowledge that “We found the roots of the problem and know how to eliminate them,” the city could proceed. Instead, this report only dealt with the manifestations of racist problems and meaningless statistics.

Put a lid on it!
     Using more politically acceptable terms than these, the recommendations are, in short, that the Corporation needs to put a better lid on the community's prejudices and punish any citizens who “act out” their prejudices and racism. Nothing in the report deals with the roots of the problem let alone suggestions for eliminating them.

It states a need for education
    Perhaps the writers of the report need some education themselves. Given their approach on this report, if the same individuals did a report on developing healthy diets, they would likely “interview restaurant patrons to get advice on nutrition!”
     It should be noted that when pressed by one of the aldermen, the presenters were hard-put to come up with any ideas for measuring success.Their recommendations included “develop a plan of action with measurable success indicators” but they hadn't developed any suggestions to go with their report. (See Grandpa said . . .)
    After a lengthy pause, they finally came up with one. “In five years there would be fewer incidents of eggs being thrown at natives!” I think that the presenters got caught off guard. They didn't expect anyone to actually ask a simple question like, “What should happen if your recommendations work?”
     As the city considers these recommendations, it might also consider that, while it helped pay for the report, it didn't get its money's worth – or perhaps they were only paying lip service to the problem.
    Nothing has really changed in 100 years. With this current approach, nothing will change for another 100 years except, perhaps, the penalties for acts of racism against natives. Recent handling of “hair cutting” events in Thunder Bay indicate there is not much chance of that happening.
    How is your city dealing with prejudice and racism?
    Remember, there are all kinds of prejudices. It is not just a case of being prejudiced against race. Some of us suffer from prejudice because we live . . . without gods!  

To view list of all posting that deal with prejudice, hate and racism, click here

                                            Anton Kozlik
   

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        *Terms and            Definitions
My articles may contain words or phrases that may infer different meanings to different readers, or the reader may be unfamiliar with the term or its definition. I feel it is important to know what the writer meant when he used a word or term.

cognitive dissonance —
Filtering out information that conflicts with what one already believes, in an effort to ignore that information and reinforce one’s beliefs.

Editors note: I will be repeating the “cognitive dissonance” definition for quite a while since it is practiced by so many — known by so few!