Comments on: Overly sensitive

By: Jerry Aulenbach, REALTOR®, BEd

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:47:21 +0000

It was, indeed, a bizzarre comment. He could have at least said “unembedded racism”, given the antidisestablishmentarianist overtones of many of the presentations (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

Let’s look at how this was organized: Michael Janz has the idea. He takes the risk and burden to plan it. He puts it on facebook and invites all of his friends (just checked on facebook, and his 1500+ friends are very diverse). Some of them talk about it and invite some of their friends, etc. Mostly white people come out. Big deal. By the way, Stella is an Asian female, and she had a good group show up for her presentation (and they didn’t even know that she brought treats).

I kind of doubt that the ethno-diversity of any event in Edmonton will have proportionately more visible minorities in attendance, just because of the census chart. If we wwanted to, we could target non-caucasian presenters, and they would likely bring out a crowd of their heritage. That would be cool, but diversity for the sake of not appearing to exclude anyone doesn’t really make sense. Nobody was excluded from this event.

-Jerry

http://IDEAFest.ZoomJer.com
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By: Denny

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:36:07 +0000

Using the Term People of Colour/POC is something I come across quite frequently in sociological writings, and from what I gather seems to at least be a popular substitute for “visible minorities” among present day sociologists.
You also hear the term used quite frequently by groups representing POC/Visible Minorities.

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By: einbischen

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:58:35 +0000

I am really sorry to have missed this. From what I have gathered from this post, it sounds like X is quite insecure with his own set of biases. I know it is cliche, but there is something to be said about ‘crying wolf’. He should be saving his strength for battling legitimate imbalance.

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By: Aditya

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:19:03 +0000

Research also shows that people are quite willing to go along with racism (in the sense that they won’t always speak out about it) even if they might express vehement disgust when questioned about racism. Other research also shows that we all have certain biases, including about our own ethnic groups!

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By: Chris LaBossiere

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 06:38:17 +0000

It’s too bad X wouldn’t continue fighting the good fight. I agree that although his original argument was off-base, his intent was probably supported by many. Cut and running will do little to bring his argument forward.

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