Mugabe would approve of Canada’s policy
National Post — This should create some interesting conversation. Of interest to me is the new buzzterm coming out of Canada: “visible minority.” That will evolve into the political correct term for all darker-skinned people and marginalize those who are technically minorities (Polish? Irish? Russiian? Serb?) and categorize them as white Anglo-Saxons. I can see this catching on fast.
Managers in the Public Works department must hire only visible minorities, women, aboriginals and the disabled, except with written permission from their superiors, David Marshall, the deputy minister, ordered in an e-mail circulated yesterday.
related link:
Typical over-use of new term by nervous hand-wringers in Canada. This editorial, by the way, is the typical Canadian analysis of foreign news. They always apply it to themselves. If there is an earthquake someplace they talk about what would happen in Canada if the quake happened there. Same with floods. It’s always about them. It’s quite amusing, This editorial asks about what would happen if the Muslim/poor riots in France happened in Canada. Geez.
That term isn’t new by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve heard it for at least a decade.
But for goodness sakes…being accused of it all being about us from someone in the country with the most myopic news media in the world… You’ve definitely made my day, John!
The term “visible minority” and in French “Minorité visible” has been used in quite a while in Canada.
All this PC talk is turning into non-sence. And it is not a “Canadian only” problem. Just listening to US news and you will notice some terms are so manipulated…
John, I must disagree with what you say about our press. It’s true that we do compare a disaster or situation to the equivilent that might happen here. Personally, I think our press does that so we can have an idea of what the true victims are dealing with. On the other hand, the American press (which rarely covers anything that doesn’t have US implications to begin with) takes a different approach. They just talk about how it affects the US. Every time I watch American news coverage of a major disaster or international situation, they spend most of their time talking about how it will affect the US in terms of trade, economy and American lives potentially at risk in the area in question. In my opinion, it’s better to talk about the situation relative to how it would happen in your own country than to just simply talk about how it affects you directly, giving the impression that no one really cares.
To add to that last comment, if Hurricane Katrina had destroyed some area that wasn’t a major US trade partner or of some other major importance to the country, you think we would have heard more than a few sound bytes about it? I doubt it. Look at the massive typhoon that hit China and left hundreds of thousands homeless. No round the clock coverage on CNN, just a few blurbs here and there. “Bunch of people killed, none of them Americans so meh.”
I just googled ‘visible minority’ and found it commonly used on Canadian and UK pages. Perhaps it’s just a peculiarity of those who speak the English language.
Being from Canada, I have to concur with the other posters. The term has been in use since… well, as far back as I can recall anyhow.
The connection between “visible minorities” and the concern over the French riots is based on the similarity between Canada and France having minorities which don’t or won’t assimilate into the majority culture, often with the encouragement of government policies, at least in Canada-this is in contrast to the U.S. which seems to favour a “melting pot” approach.
Racism has gotten much more complicated now that it is no longer “black vs white.” The term “visible minority” is a way to address that although imperfect.
Maybe a more intellectually-honest system would be the one used by Wanda Sykes when she talks about racial profiling at airport security:
“There’s nothing random about it. You get to the gate and they’re standing there with their Sherwin-Williams paint chart. If your ass is darker than khaki, you’re getting searched.”
In Toronto, 43% of the population are a visible minority:
http://www.toronto.ca/toronto_facts/diversity.htm
…so it won’t be long before white people in that city are visible minorities. I bet the job requirement will change when that happens 🙂
I agree with earlier posters that “visible minority” has been used for a long time in Canada.
Oh my, An American saying that Canada only thinks about themselves – John, you are clearly losing your mind
I actually LOVE Canadian news…as it’s “old style”. No infotainment there. However, compared to American news…(which is rather weak)…which hardly tells anyone anything, and even then, it’s slanted and bias. In fact, I get all my rel news off the foreign newspapers, and the Economist, because if not for those sources, I would have no news at all.
However, I’ve lived on the Canadian border. I’ve been able to watch both the BC news and Seattle news, and compare the two. Canadian news does go a bit overboard on the “what if it happened here” department.
When there was a large quake in Los Angeles, the CBC Vancouver bureau did a huge two hour news special on “what would happen if there were a quake in Vancouver” and about 3 minutes on the quake in LA. Seriously. A few months later there WAS a riot in LA….and the CBC Vancouver did a news special on “riots in Canada”. The Canadian news is great for information, but the tendency to focus on trying to scare the locals with “if it happened here….you’d be screwed” seems a bit odd. But, then again, to view the BC version of Parlimentary process (you couldn’t possibly hear more cussing in a room full of pissed off Teamsters) and then the late night hours and hours of curling, with live action commentary…”oh the stone is quite warm”. And then there was that miserable COPS clone show “To Protect and Defend” which was a half hour of “are you drunk? Need a ride home?” and cops wigging out at reports of “mayhem”. ???
Although we share a continent…..the US and Canada are different, culturally.
If I had a dime for every time an American asked me if I knew Steve in Toronto! We even have a beer commercial on that one.
John, your view on Canada amounts to nothing more than an ignorant cheap shot. I’d put the average Canadian’s understanding of the world against the average American’s any day. (Kleese was right, when you host a “world championship” of anything, why don’t you invite other countries to participate?)
The technique our Press uses is supposed to create a sense of understanding or empathy for the plight of the victims. This goes beyond our interests as Canadians and moves to our interests as human beings. (This is why Rawanda was allowed to get out of hand – the crys of General Romeo Dallaire went unheard at the UN).
Since Dub’ys took over, Canada has become decidedly more European in my opinion.
I am not blind to Canada’s shortcomings either – we need waaaay better immigration laws!!! We need a quicker method to deport those lying “visible minorities” and others that threaten our peaceful co-existence with our neighbor and the rest of the world.
BTW, hiring should be like law: blind! Get the best people – period.
Cheers Drew. You made the point I was trying to make, but far more eloquantly than I could have. 🙂 I do agree that the immigration laws in this country need a massive overhaul and that whether hiring preference is given to a caucasian person or a minority, if you are basing your decision on anything but qualification, it’s racist in that respect. Society seems to be getting driven to the side that its only racist if the judgement is against anyone but caucasians. But like another poster said, racism is racism, period. And yeah, Americans have no right talking trash about our journalism with what passes for mainstream “journalism” down there.
John, I love your work and your curmugdeonly nature… but yeah, an American thinking that Canadian news is “always about them”? Did you ever watch Fox News? ABC? CNN?
And why the directive about visible minorities? Because too many “whites” have been hired, especially in Toronto, which is now one of if not the most multicultural city in the world. I do see a lot of “visible minorities” working “ghetto” jobs right now. More do need to get into better government work. It would be better for everyone.
Remember it was the french and Canadian press releases that screwed up the whole “Racism in New Orleans recovery” debacle in the media. Everyone that was white was “Finding” food
Not surprising to see more of the same in their respective countries.
Cheers mob.
At NO TIME did I say American news or media was any good. So what are all these complaints about?
I’m surprised someone didn;t link this old video:
http://spherule.com/media/video/switch_parody/switch_john.mov
“Remember it was the french and Canadian press releases that screwed up the whole “Racism in New Orleans recovery” debacle in the media. Everyone that was white was “Finding” food”
Oh, yoiu mean the French and Canadian publications like the ASSOCIATED PRESS? Sorry, try again.
“At NO TIME did I say American news or media was any good. So what are all these complaints about?”
Becuase the way you phrased it made it sound very much like you were taking a swipe at our media, as if to say the US’ media was substantially superior. If that wasn’t your message, my apologies and I’m glad we’re on the same page there. 🙂 However, I still think you have misunderstood the reasons behind why our media tends to take the perspective on international events that it does.
I’ve never seen that video before. But I like it. 🙂
John, I have read your columns for years and have agreed with you on many things but this article is outright offensive. First of all there is no “typical Canadian analysis of foreign news” as you put it. Shock news, fake news, hand wringing news etc as we know them are very much American creations and unfortunately our media has used more of these tactics over time although we are still nowhere near as bad. For real news I would go to the CBC or BBC and not the fake stuff you have like CNN and Fox. You say it’s always about us, what a crock, you live in the most self centered country in the world. I had always disagreed with responses to your articles that accused you of making outrageous claims to stir things up and now I can see they are probably right.
Rob
Each photo had a link of their source Parralax. But hey if I were you I’d pretend I was knowledgable too then shrug it off as quickly as I could to hide the fact that I chose to ignore it.
Cheers Ignorance.
Oh yeah and when you go to retort that because your pride commands you, click this
dvorak.org/blog/images/katrina/
Notice the AFP (Associated French Press) calling the whites “Finding” While the Canadian news picture two above it calls the blacks “looting”
Spin away. Or go over your point again about how its silly. That’s always amusing.
The National Post is not mainstream Canadian news. It is similar to Fox news. The big difference being that Fox supports its political leaders while the National Post’s political friends are in opposition.
Even though owned and managed by the Canadian government, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is still very independent and the best on this continent for fair and accurate news coverage.
John, I thought you, of all people, understood that Canadians are very loyal to their country. While they criticize it to no end, they do not enjoy non-Canadians criticizing them. Unlike Americans who are used to it by now.
In fairness though, Canada tries much harder to include everyone, in contrast to the US where there is so much exclusion.
“At NO TIME did I say American news or media was any good. So what are all these complaints about?”
Now you know what it’s like to live in Canada 🙂 Chasing your own tailpipe is a great way to avoid getting anything done. A lot of people also have a default anti-American attitude.
(I live in Canada, by the way).
Also, your assessment of what the “visible minority” term has done is correct. Although, “visible minority” is quite often used to talk solely about black people and aboriginals. Why? Because a lot of the other minorities (particularly Chinese) generally do quite well for themselves.
It’s laughable that an American would characterise Canadian news as being “always about them” — especially so, when Americans are among the most ignorant and self-absorbed people in the world as far as awareness of other countries and other cultures is concerned.
A glaring example was offered to Canadians when during a press conference, despite the fact that we share thousands of miles of border and are your biggest trading partner, your President couldn’t even recall the name of the Prime Minister of Canada!
Sadly, while this stupidity is reflected not only in America’s political leaders and in its press, it continues to be perpetuated by the American educational system.
For example, a National Geographic Society survey, taken during the lead-up to the US’s anti-Iraq war, revealed that the vast majority (more than 80%!) of American youth were unable to locate either Iraq or Afghanistan on a map.
Upon reviewing the results of that survey, John Fahey, president of the National Geographic Society noted that “more American young people can tell you where an island that the ‘Survivor’ TV series came from is located than can identify Afghanistan or Iraq. Ironically a TV show seems more real or at least more meaningful interesting or relevant than reality.”
C’mon John, you know better.
The ban has now been overturned.
http://tinyurl.com/7gqnt