Studies In Intolerance

The Canadian Federation of Students' Final Report of the Task Force on Campus Racism has revealed that, in actual fact, there is nothing too wrong on university campuses throughout the country other than the fact that some people who consider themselves injured parties for one reason or another will always resort to evoking sympathy because of their minority status.

It is an undisputed reality that individuals who represent majority groups also find it difficult to 'fit in', to find their place in the campus social world. And, though members of the majority, also seem to think they too are unfairly harassed, unfairly marked, unfairly overlooked, and unfairly closed out of the cliques they would dearly like to be part of.

What recourse do they have to remediation of their outsider status, real or imagined? Guess they'll just have to do what people always have done throughout social history, those who never seem to find a comfortable place for themselves, those who suspect they are ill done by: get along anyway.

Of course if you receive complaints from visible minorities in a hyper-sensitive university setting where no school administration wants to be labelled insensitive to the needs of minorities or the under-privileged, social or otherwise, you do your damnedest to meet the perceived needs of the 'racialized' within the university setting.

The nomenclature "racialized" appears now to be preferentially politically correct, adopted by visible-minority groups on campus, though its interpretation appears problematical. They are particularly scornful of what they term Eurocentrism. In other words they can practise intolerance of those of European background whose majority status informs societal convention in North America, and decry its existence as being inimical to theirs.

The conclusion reached by the Canadian Federation of Students after hearings taking place on university campuses across Ontario, is that "white privilege" permeates. How could it be otherwise, in a sense, since the schools were set up originally to serve a kind of social monoculture, and the institutionalized place settings and even student events were traditionally designed for a white majority.

The conclusions reached by the study appear to be based solely on a super-sensitive 'gut-feeling' toward the supposed oppression of visible minorities, augmented greatly by individual hearsay. People falling into the category of the 'racialized' (who did this to them?) seem convinced their needs are overlooked, that they are marginalized, have lesser opportunities, are not respected for their differences, because of their differences.

One student went so far as to claim, viewing a sea of white faces around her that the atmosphere did not reflect "who I am as a person". Ontario's universities reflect as a mild and mannered microcosm of the larger society within which we live. Quickly, however, transforming to a society where a steadily growing presence of visible minorities will soon reflect a largely ethnic-diversity atmosphere.

If a student on campus feels aliened by "beer and pizza" parties because this does not reflect their cultural-social norms, who should be made to feel guilty about it? In any society, furthermore, no matter where it is located on the globe, minorities stand out as different, not necessarily inferior, and they must seek for ways and means to integrate into the larger society until they find comfort within it.

It takes thought and determination and a wish to succeed. It is not accomplished by shrieking racism at every turn, unless there is good and ample reason for that accusation, requiring remediation. Those students who testified at the many hearings did so because they felt they had a story to tell, a very personal aggrievement against the larger society. This does not result in a balanced, honestly realistic report.

The authors of the study claim their point in producing the results they did was to alert university administrations to the difficulties which may exist. And where racism is discovered to be present, to present 'anti-oppression' training. It sounds, in actuality, that ultra-left-wing students have captured the Federation and mean to sound an alarm that reality does not support.

It is, of course, this very same student body and their extreme sensitivities to justice and fairness and the underdog that radicalizes perceptions of those whom they presume represent oppressors, causing them to slander and behave oppressively themselves toward others, in their support of events like "Israeli Apartheid Week".

Oh, what a peculiar web we weave when first we practise to discriminate....