Recently the Toronto Star had to write an “explanation” of why an article they’d written a couple of days prior came across as overtly inciting hatred against the unvaccinated.

Because, obviously, that’s not what they do.

Obviously.

The follow-up does use the word “sorry”, not because they actually did it but because the formatting of the headlines “sowed confusion”. Not only is this a flaccid half-apology but it’s also bullshit. In fact, they pull this sort of crap regularly, without reservation, and with no apologies.

For example, they give voice to hateful, racist, divisive rhetoric like that of Shree Paradkar who openly lambasts “(mostly) white covidiots” (then swiftly changes her tune when new evidence emerges), and reminds readers that it’s white people that are basically the original source of all evil everywhere.

Then there’s Royson James who not-so-subtly threatens white people with violence, looting, and destruction unless they take a knee to his own unbelievably twisted, racist, ignorant viewpoint.

And lest we forget Vinay Menon who supports screaming obsenity-laced rants against “covidiots” by people like Tom Cruise. “Good for YOU!”, concludes a giddy Mennon in his article.

No, the Toronto Star’s latest attempt to incite hatred, violence, and sow division wasn’t an accident, mistake, or a one-off. This is par for the course at the ignominious rag and has been for some time. They were simply seeing how far they could take it and this time around there were just too many complaints to ignore. You can be certain that they wouldn’t have issued an “explanation” if so many people weren’t “confused”.

Of course they’re not the only ones to do this but they’re among the most consistent and vocal. This toilet paper masquerading as news openly engages in hate speech and incitement to violence (which I thought was a crime here in Canada), and gets away with it every time.

Apparently it’s perfectly fine for some publications to promote hate and violence while those not toeing the line of state propaganda get shut down and criminally charged for “consistently dehumanizing” identifiable groups of people. Clearly white people and the unvaccinated don’t count.

You don’t have to agree with their statements to see that there’s a massive double standard here.

This little turd has been affixed to the University of Toronto’s St. George campus for well over 6 months now with no one so much as batting an eyelash. It’s still there now.

Compare this to the hysteria generated by the “It’s Okay to be White” posters:

They [one of the people who put up posters] wrote that “the reason that this agreeable poster has caused such a ruckus is the very reason why I think its an important message. It’s okay to be who I am.”

Althea Blackburn-Evans, Director of Media Relations at U of T, said that the messages on the posters “are part of campaigns around North America that are antithetical to the University’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, which are among our core values.”

In other words, it’s NOT okay to be white or accept yourself for who you are because “diversity, equity, and inclusion”. Put another way, it’s okay to hate, belittle, denigrate, and exclude, maybe even get a little violent or murderous, as long as your target has a certain skin colour (i.e. white).

This is “anti-racism”, “inclusivity” and “tolerance” circa 2020.

P.S. This is the URL that the QR code on the poster links to: https://www.staceyjenkinscasting.com/casting-call-new-host-ytv-the-zone/

P.P.S. Of course the role was eventually awarded to a non-caucasian because there are already too many white men on this show and anything other than awarding a role based on the colour of one’s skin would be irretrievably racist and discriminatory anyways. Obviously.

There’s a lot of news happening around the world and it’s simply not possible to cover it all. That’s understandable.

And even though some of that news is tragic, only a handful of it can possibly make the front page. I get it.

Every news outlet is (supposed to be) different and editorial decisions that include which stories to run will necessarily produce a bias. That’s fair.

Or at least it would be fair if there was even a hint of balance between the outlets. It would be fair if there was an occasionally alternative voice, if they weren’t all in lock-step, pushing forward a very obvious agenda.

Case in point: everyone remembers Treyvon Martin, the young black man whose name we’re all supposed to perennially keep on our lips, killed by a “racist white man” in Florida in on his grandmother’s front lawn after going out to buy some Skittles.

For a brief moment the media reluctantly wavered in their “racist white man” tirade when pictures of the killer began circulating. Turned out that, if anything, he was Hispanic or Latino. The story wouldn’t have been any better if Treyvon had been killed by a green Martian but the point I’m trying to make is how it was immediately spun into a “yet another racist white man kills an unarmed, innocent black child” narrative.

The brief moment was followed by renewed attempts attempts to paint George Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic“, as idiotic as that sounds. But if race is based on physical characteristics and ethnicity is based on culture and upbringing, as the increasingly absurd news kept promoting, then surely “Latino Catholic” would be far more accurate. Or since Catholicism is widely understood to have been founded in what is now Italy, maybe his ethnicity should be Italian? And since his mother is Peruvian and undoubtedly injected some of her culture into his upbringing, wouldn’t it have made sense to call him Hispanic? How about “Latino Hispanic-Italian”?

Come to think of it, it’s absurd to call someone a Latino Hispanic if they have Latino racial characteristics and Hispanic cultural roots, but this precisely the lengths that the media insist on to ensure that their narrative of a murderous “racist white Hispanic” (emphasis on “white”), is maintained.

And what kind of fucked up demarcation are we supposed to engage in to determine when someone has sufficiently “Latino” (or “Black”, or whatever), physical characteristics? Who gets to decide, and on what basis, who qualifies as predominantly black or Latino or white or Asian or Indigenous, and how is this not unbelievably racist and segregationist?

Yet this is precisely what the incoherent media demand, all so they can continue the narrative that yet another “racist white man” killed an unarmed, innocent black child.

And it was this completely false and ridiculously twisted narrative that spawned the Black Lives Movement which aims, ostensibly, to end “systemic” racism against black people, especially in the context of the police.

Except Zimmerman is neither white nor a cop. And the “stand your ground” laws that Zimmerman successfully used to get away with it aren’t mentioned at all by BLM.

But why should that matter when yet another “racist white man” kills an unarmed, innocent black boy?

Let’s contrast this against a very recent murder in North Carolina in which a 25-year-old black man walked up to a 5-year-old white boy playing in front of his house, put a gun up to his head, and literally executed him in front of his two young sisters.

The handful of US news outlets that bothered to report on this were careful to include “allegedly” in the headlines (was Zimmerman described as the “alleged” killer?), and made sure to remind their audience that the motive for the murder was unclear (flip the skin colours and it’s instantly “racism”, case closed).

Here in Toronto you won’t find a single mention of this story anywhere.

I searched CityNews, CBC News, Global News, the Toronto Star, National Post, Globe and Mail, and Toronto Sun, and although there’s an occasional article about racist (i.e. white) North Carolina cops being fired, apparently the news out of the same state of a little white boy being brutally murdered on his front lawn in front of his sisters by a black man simply isn’t worthy of even a mere mention. Is that because the victim is white or because the perpetrator is black? Maybe a little of both.

But none of this is new.

Everyone’s heard of Treyvon Martin and the immediate rage that followed his death but who’s even heard of Cannon Hinnant?

Everyone knows about George Floyd, maybe not so much about his less-than-angelic past, and who has any idea of who Timothy Coffman was? Where’s the outrage and protests for Corey West? What about Tony Timpa?

Everyone remembers Rodney King but who remembers Reginald Denny?

Due to sheer numbers, there are bound to be far more examples of these kinds of things happening to white people than to black people. The way these incidents are constantly ignored by the media, onlookers, and society in general, goes a long way in explaining why we simply don’t hear about them and why examples of such injustice, when black people are victims, flood every media channel out there.

I’m not suggesting that it’s acceptable when black people (or anyone!) are brutalized, what I’m asking is why similar incidents are nearly completely ignored when the much more numerous victims are white?

And who bothers to mention that in the US, white hate crime victims outnumber victims of anti-semitism, anti-Islamism, or anti-LGBTQ-ism, often by a large margin. The media go to great lengths to make it seem that the exact opposite is true. In fact, behind black people, white people are the second most likely group to be hated on of any racial, ethnic, gender, or sexual orientation group — as long as every individual is considered equally.

And even though they occupy the number one position for hate crime victims, black people are only slightly less likely to be hit by lightning (0.0002% = 1 ÷ 500,000), than they are to be the victim of a hate crime (0.0007% = 2,325 ÷ 328,200,000 total US population).

The overall numbers are minuscule no matter how you look at them, yet hate crimes against everyone except white people are regularly played up in the media. Why is that?

And to what lengths will the media go to defend, justify, and “explain” violence against a white person when they would balk at even the hint of a suggestion that a black person be criticized and analyzed in the same way?

When they claim that they want to “dismantle white supremacy”, are they advocating that everyone simply be left to their own devices or that it be replaced with the dominance of another group? Has anyone bothered to ask this question?

Don’t even get me started on the constantly evolving definition of what constitutes “white privilege” which now is supposed to mean how a white person’s life isn’t made more difficult because of the colour of their skin. I can write at length on this topic with plenty of personal, first-hand experiences of exactly how my life was made more difficult specifically, directly, and very openly because I’m white (and a man). I bet plenty of other white people have similar experiences to share, at least until it’s decided to shift the definition again.

Despite the daily avalanche of examples we see demonstrating something entirely different (I’m working my way through a detailed write-up about the OHRC’s latest road apple), we’re supposed to believe that black people are being “systematically targeted for demise” (according to BLM), and being oppressed by “white supremacy” and “white privilege” everywhere.

In the words of Jeanie Bueller, “dry that one out and you can fertilize the lawn.”

The word “racialized” has been popping up lately like early summer blooms in response to the ongoing protests by Black Lives Matter and similar groups. This is, of course, as it should be because racism and slavery and etc.

But not many people outside of those who sling language around for a living are aware of what the term “racialized” actually means.

So here’s the definition:

In sociology, racialization or ethnicization is the process of ascribing ethnic or racial identities to a relationship, social practice, or group that did not identify itself as such.

This is the definition that Wikipedia has but, as everyone knows, it’s not an entirely trustworthy source. Perhaps Merriam-Webster’s definition would be more accurate since they’ve demonstrated a sensitivity to the black person’s plight when they updated their definition of “racism” because one person complained:

the act or process of imbuing a person with a consciousness of race distinctions or of giving a racial character to something or making it serve racist ends

After pandering in the same way to white people for years now (I can’t be bothered to include links because there are just so many examples), it is of course right and correct that language be altered at the drop of a hat to match the demands of a single complainant because racism and slavery and etc.

But I digress.

Essentially, using the most woke and accurate definition, “racialized” groups such as black people never had an identity, may not even have realized that they were black, until the evil white man pointed the finger at them and told them they were different.

This could be interpreted as stating that the nasty Caucasian was directly responsible for creating what could be called “Black culture” today but, of course, such an interpretation would be wrong because racism and slavery and etc.

Mind you, people misuse language all the time and this is understandable since most of them are hardly professionals in the field. Even someone who regularly writes, albeit non-professionally, I too misuse words like “privilege”, believing it to mean something other than “white”. It’s been my privilege to help you? I don’t think so, racist!

So let’s see how the term “racialized” is used in its proper context by someone like Shree Paradkar, the Toronto Star’s Race & Gender Columnist:

They [politicians] also dismiss and contemporary manifestations of it [historical racism] — prioritizing colonial profit over Indigenous rights in their territories, immigration laws that sort and sift non-white humans for worthiness to enter Canada, placing impoverished and racialized people in the path of a pandemic. We don’t need a conspiracy; the system does it for us.

This is actually a wonderful example of how racialized people didn’t know that they were any different from white people, who also can’t be poor and face no barriers, until those same racist (i.e. white) assholes made them realize their own differences by systemically discriminating against them.

Moreover:

Colour blindness is privilege and erasure. It means you’re not discriminated against based on the colour of your skin.

There may at this point be some confusion in the reader’s mind about who is doing the “racializing” here — if whitey is “colour blind” you might be tempted to think that it’s parts of the community that’s doing it to themselves but you’d be wrong because racism and slavery and etc.

And really, having never experienced discrimination, how could white people be expected to understand the struggles of black people? That doesn’t mean that white people don’t complain about being the targets of racism but often can’t point to specific personal examples so, let’s be honest and call it for what it is: a bunch of bullshit.

In a recent article, the Toronto Star’s Royson James spells it out in no uncertain terms:

My chiropractor used up 20 per cent of our visit talking about racism. And I think, by the end, he understood that my reality as a Black person — Jamaica-born, Toronto-lived, American-schooled, Africa-disconnected — is so blessed and cursed by Western “privilege” as to render me asymptomatic.

I must work hard all the time to fully grasp the reality of the average Black person. Imagine, then, if you don’t even share the designated melanin content required to have built up a reservoir of common personal experiences.

Here Royson bravely admits that he lives the life of Western “privilege” (which is in quotations because, for obvious reasons, it can’t fully apply to him), and must “work hard” to understand what it’s like to be a black / racialized person living in our racist society.

He goes on to clarify this position by stating:

There are many kinds of Black people, including some who are not “Black” at all. They didn’t get the memo. Born into unusual privilege or endowed with special powers to see past obstacles has rendered them seemingly immune to the racism virus. They swim along, upstream, yes, but unfettered.

In other words, while many black people are never faced with, or are able to ignore the seemingly insurmountable obstacles placed in front of them, they do so without anything holding them back (unfettered / immune to racism), while simultaneously being held back (swimming upstream / obstacles). They didn’t get the memo that they too should be complaining about the oppression of people like them, except of course not like them because they’re not “‘Black’ at all”.

If this seems a little contradictory, Royson goes on to explain:

Even the ones [blacks] who don’t [know that white supremacy requires a denial of black humanity to thrive], understand it and compensate for it on subconscious levels. They compensate by overachieving, underachieving, denying the effects, not giving a damn, or becoming consumed with rage.

To paraphrase, even so-called “privileged” black people understand the mechanisms propping up white supremacy, even if they don’t know that they understand, and compensate for this unknowing comprehension by doing too much, or too little, or just enough, or caring too much, or not caring at all, or every shade of possibility in between. Basically anything and everything, which makes sense considering that black people are all unique individuals, unlike mushy, homogeneous white people who can all safely be lumped into the same category.

The important thing is that black people should always be perceiving themselves through the lens of white racism if they want to perceive the truth.

If this seems like an odd statement that’s probably because you’re incapable of getting it due to your lack of “designated melanin” or, if you do have the legally required amount of tanned skin, because you’re too privileged.

Royson laments the terrible situation that this puts black parents and their kids in:

Black parents must decide early which road to travel. Do you teach your kids that the world is a horrible place for most Black people? Or totally ignore it and just let the kids grow up in blissful ignorance? Be “Canadian” — don’t use an African-sounding name, integrate, no visits to the homeland?

Each decision carries with it a price. Many families bear scars from children still angry with immigrant parents for downplaying their African ancestry — even as parents scream, “I just want you to do better than me. And stay alive.”

The exclusive choice of terrifying your children by filling their heads with fear of whitey, or allowing them to live in “blissful ignorance” of their heritage, is a gut-wrenching one. On the one hand you risk creating a prejudicial stigma justified anxiety in your kids, on the other you risk their wrath because they would’ve liked to know more about where they come from. Such a stark choice … what’s a racialized parent to do?

And you have to frighten your kids if they’re black. Despite the fact that in the US about twice as many white people are consistently killed by cops as black people, children must be taught that because they’re black the exact opposite is true.

The narrative created by the preceding statistical “facts” must be discarded because only the rates of killing are relevant. In other words, if you’re black your chances of being killed, proportional to the size of your racial group, are higher than other groups. The actual number of people killed, however, is more or less irrelevant.

That is, unless you’re a white supremacist whose counter-argument requires a good bit of hateful, reality-bending, racist math. The shockingly bigoted theory goes like this:

Imagine you have two towns. In town A there are only four residents, two black people and two white people. One of those white people is, of course, a racist murderer. In town B there are a hundred people, fifty of whom are black and fifty white. Again, one of the white group is a racist murderer. Naturally.

Now the racist murderers get to work. In town A the killer murders 1 black man. In town B, the murderer there kills 10 black men. Ten people dead is clearly worse than one person dead; seems cut and dry, says the hateful racist math guy — but not so fast!

If we consider the rates of killings, says ignorant whitey, the situation is flipped on its head. In town A where only 2 people were black, the murder rate is 50% (1 out of the 2 was killed), whereas in the town where 50 people were black the murder rate is 20% (10 out of 50 were killed).

Using this mathematical approach, says the fascist cracker, it appears that the 1 death in town A is much worse than the 10 deaths in town B since 50% is noticeably larger than 20%

In reality, argues the Klansman, the actual cost in individual humans lives is far greater in town B where the murder rate is only 20% but the use of murder rates masks, and in this example actually inverts, the reality of the tragedy. And just like this example, claims the hate-monger, the reality of individual human lives lost is the exact opposite of the current mainstream narrative.

By this insane logic, if the number of killings stayed the same but the population doubled, the murder rate would effectively be cut in half.

Except this can’t possibly be true because how could black people be so angry if this was the case? Argue your way out of that one, Hitler!

Anyway, Royson goes on to close his cutting exposition by relating a personal story of systemic racism:

“I remember being in the back seat of the car on what seemed like a regular day, then sirens rang out. In an instant, complete with change in demeanour, in a firm tone my dad said to me:

“Hey … look … LOOK AT ME. OK? … Pay attention. This is how you need to act when you get pulled over by the police. Turn off the radio. BOTH hands on the steering wheel at all times. Answer his questions, clearly and directly. With confidence, but not too much confidence as to not show him up. And whatever you do, no sudden movements.”

Can you imagine being pulled over by the police and having your father fly into a hysterical fit because he can immediately sense a murderous and racist interaction? I know I can’t, but that’s most likely because my white privilege means that I didn’t have fear of people of a certain skin colour constantly pounded into my psyche.

Or no, wait, actually it’s because fear of people of a certain skin colour has been pounded into my psyche than I’m terrified of black men. Yeah. So the same could never be said to apply to any non-white people because, of course, racism and slavery and etc.

Royson doesn’t relate the race of the police in question or how the encounter ended but judging by the tone of the article either he or his dad were brutalized and possibly murdered by the obviously racist white cop.

This narrative is advanced by a subsequent article that Royson wrote about a black personal support worker (PSW) who was given the runaround when he came down with Covid-19 and eventually died.

It’s important to understand here that receiving conflicting medical advice, having to cope with a lack of personal protective equipment, and not receiving adequate medical attention are predominantly black problems. In the words of the anguished family members, “now we see how they treat black people.”

The horrific story of Leonard Rodriques was highlighted by every major newspaper, mentioned in a speech by Premiere Doug Ford, and broadcast by G98.7 FM in Toronto, thus demonstrating the abhorrent treatment of a black man who “died in anonymity”, “lonely” and surrounded by family, known only as “personal support worker victim number 5”. Not like the other four PSWs, whoever they were.

Although there’s (still!) a lack of direct statistical evidence, it’s clear that statistically black people are disproportionately affected by Covid-19. This, my ignorant friend, is why white people congregating in a park is irresponsible while black people congregating for a protest isn’t. The number of lives lost to Covid is nothing compared to those taken by police violence. And comparing the two is bullshit anyway because statistics that don’t support the anti-black racism narrative are irrelevant when even a single black person feels fear or unease. Fact!

Royson draws the obvious conclusion that Leonard represents the targeted assassination of a black man which, by extension, hints at the veiled murderous intentions of the system against all black people everywhere:

He had a visceral fear that white people meant him no good, that if he went to the hospital he would not get proper care. He had seen enough movies and videos and news reports of the treatment of Black people in the U.S. during COVID and before.

…

“He was paranoid, yes,” admits Dorothy. But this is also his reality, in 2020 Toronto.

In America, a Black man can be targeted for wearing a mask, murdered while jogging or for driving a car. Or shot to death, daring to resist a citizen arrest.

The layers accumulate there and here. So, maybe Len was paranoid. But the most paranoid of posters does read: “Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they are not out to get you.”

Royson generously includes an aside about the dangers faced by PSWs in general but thankfully manages to steer the ship back to the deluge of anti-black racism.

My own privileged white bias is revealed here when I think of the numerous PSWs that have attended to Sarah over the years. They looked and self-identified primarily as Filipino or East Asian but clearly that wasn’t the case because racism and slavery and etc.

Thankfully, the incessant beating of the anti-black racism drum is not limited to just Royson James. Not by a long shot.

A story by Leanne Delap recounts the harrowing experiences of a black woman, Doctor Liza Egbogah, who endured unbearable racism while shopping for everyday things, shit we white people take for granted:

I was maybe 20 or 22 the first time I got a Chanel bag. I was obsessed with Chanel. We were in Florida and my dad said, ‘You’ve been talking about this Chanel for so long, let’s go buy you a bag.’ Now, I don’t think he understood what a Chanel bag was, but he was like, ‘OK, well, we’ll get it for you.’ When I would carry that bag, people would outright just ask me, ‘Is that fake?” There was just no way in their mind that a Black girl could have a real one. I had Chanel costume earrings, too, and people would assume those were fake as well.

My fellow white devils, can you imagine the sheer audacity of someone asking you if some luxury good you’ve recently purchased is real?! And even if that did happen (yeah, as if), how good would it feel if you could psychically access your accuser’s mind to preemptively judge the derisive thoughts they were thinking about you? Huh? Yeah, let that one percolate for a bit, racist.

If only this tale of awful anti-black hate ended there:

Fast-forward 10 years to 2010 and that’s when I said to myself, ‘Oh you know what, I’ve worked very hard, I’m going to treat myself to a (fancy designer) bag. I had been in practice for a few years by then and I was all excited. I thought that trip to Bloor Street would be a reflection of all my hard work. I expected champagne to be poured!

Spending $3,000 of your own hard-earned money on a bag is a huge deal. What did I get? No smile, a look like possibly I’m lost. No one wanted to help me. I wanted to walk out — this was supposed to be a celebratory experience, a treat to myself, and I felt like a suspect.

This egregious example is really a whole new level of evil. For starters, Liza’s expectations of champagne were unfulfilled. Didn’t they know that she was expecting it? Didn’t they know she was celebrating? Couldn’t they read her mind like she could read theirs? Outrageous!

I suppose it might be suggested that Liza’s expectations were set by the experiences of friends or family, maybe online reviews, but that doesn’t negate the fact that she had a horrible customer experience. And she’s black. Therefore racism and slavery and etc.

After all, it’s not like any white person has ever experienced dismissive, ignorant, or rude sales staff. No, never happens. Ever.

Donning her brave girl pants, Liza did what any person of colour would do when confronted with such burning hate:

… I stood my ground and I told them the bag I wanted. They swiped my card and put it in the bag. I knew they were supposed to put the special sticker on the bag, and finish it up with a flourish and a ribbon. It’s a small thing, but I wanted the full, normal treatment. I had to ask for the sales associate to put on the ribbon and the sticker.

I left feeling so deflated, after I had built up this big experience in my head.

No champagne! No sticker! No ribbon! WHERE THE FUCK DOES THIS RACIST SHIT END?!?!?!?!?

Sorry, it’s so easy to get carried away. It’s just that rich black people with a whole article dedicated to their experience in a national publication have, basically, no voice or recourse in the midst of this sort of shameful bigotry. As Liza sums up:

I want to show them they don’t deserve my money if they don’t treat me with respect. Ever since then, I’ve bought everything in Toronto online, so I don’t have to deal with uncomfortable experiences. I travel a lot, so I make my big purchases in New York or Miami, where I get great service. I guess in those places they are used to seeing more Black people with money. And yes, I finally got my champagne.

Now I can’t personally vouch for the sales service in New York or Miami, but it’s nice to see rich black people finally getting a flute of champagne and a bow on their purchases, just like the ubiquitously wonderful sales service all us Caucasians receive.

As soon as I have more than $10 per week to spend on my privileged white lifestyle of wantonly blowing cash on luxury goods like food (for two people and a cat), I have no doubt that I’ll be able to confirm this state of affairs.

I mean, I often seem to receive shitty customer service but obviously that can’t be the case, just like my experiences with poverty and history of being directly refused jobs, opportunities, and support because of the colour of my skin. All lies and exaggerations, incidentally, and irrelevant anyway because I’m white.

In fact, the unchecked threats of physical violence, racist insults, and police encounters I claim to have experienced on the streets of Toronto (all lies and exaggerations, of course), pale in comparison to someone like Liza — no champagne, no bow; there are no words for this sort of hate except maybe “No justice, no peace”.

It’s no wonder that literally every major newspaper, most large corporations, TV and radio stations, the Toronto police, and local / provincial / federal governments are all in lockstep with the anti-black racism movement. This is, quite obviously, systemic racism against black people and has been thus for decades, not the other way around as some deluded white supremacists might suggest. Obviously.

So it’s refreshing when writers with a national platform like Shree Paradkar call out white “Covidiots” for their callous disregard for public safety over the May Two-Four weekend while simultaneously pointing out that “Had that been a sea of Black and brown folks, we’d be having a very different conversation today”. With the mass protests against anti-black racism, we have been blessed with the opportunity to see that indeed the conversation is very different. Note, for example, how many examples one finds in the mainstream media criticizing the BLM protests for not practicing social distancing and endangering society at large; the variety is truly dizzying. Now try to find a single positive, supportive article; good luck!

Shree should also be praised for taking up the mantle of exposing toxic masculinity, another topic that would otherwise be relegated to a dusty corner because no one is talking about it. So original. So brave.

I’ve learned that because I’m a white middle-aged man I’m literally evil incarnate, full of destructive and uncontrollable rage and racism.

I’ve also learned that any uncomfortable encounter between a white person and a black person necessarily implies white supremacy, a burning desire for the black person to “Just work on the plantations, dammit.”

When a “Karen” (an umbrella — but definitely not racist — term for a vocal white woman), complains about a black person’s behaviour to the cops, it couldn’t possibly be because of the frustration of perceived disparity between how laws are enforced (unless those laws target black people, of course), it must be because she wishes she had slaves picking her cotton crop.

Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know this “Karen” but I don’t need to because she’s white. Therefore racist. Case closed.

As a lesson for all us white devils, Shree quotes a black University of Toronto professor:

First of all I’m not interested in you asking me how I’m doing, I’m interested in you telling me what you’re going to do about the impact of what I’m experiencing right now.

Got it? You might think that you had no hand in creating the problems that black people are experiencing but, in reality, you’re 100% culpable. Yeah, your skin colour makes you a vicious anti-black criminal, even if no one can point out any actual examples of this abhorrent behaviour by you personally. In fact, if you’re white and not constantly denigrating and belittling yourself for not supporting your continuing denigration and belittling, you’re a racist. You might also want to show your respect for a black man whose life was cut short when an officer kneeled on his neck by kneeling in the same way. It’s a very thoughtful gesture, especially if you’re white.

But have no doubt, if you’re a hateful, violent, oppressive man you’re also a heartless rapist (you want to rape even if you don’t have the balls to go through with it), and subsequently the source of all the world’s ills. If only someone was talking about this topic and not constantly preaching how amazing and righteous men are. Down with the patriarchy! #MeToo

Identify as heterosexual? Fuck you, you auto-celebrated, auto-protected and auto-privileged asshole.

If you happen to be a privileged, middle-aged, cisnormative white man in today’s society, it’s literally everywhere that your hateful, misogynistic, homophobic existence is being promoted to the detriment of everyone else. Oh, you have a differing opinion? Got some information and “facts” that contradict the “status quo”? Well cry me a river and SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU BELLOWING, DOMINEERING ASSHOLE!! FUCK YOU FOR BEING BORN YOU!!! FUCK YOU FOR EXISTING!!!! FUCK EVERYONE WHO SHARES YOUR PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS!!!!!

Ugh, got carried away again. So easy when you’re confronted with the overbearing and derisive screams of a racist patriarchy (i.e. all white men everywhere).

Now imagine how a black person feels, because racism and slavery and etc.

Do people even know what the word racism means anymore? I’m not suggesting racism doesn’t exist, and I’ve experienced my fair share of bigotry (on the receiving end too), but the term has become so distorted that at times it’s almost meaningless.

From Taxi News:

[Addai] said racialization is defined in the Human Rights Code as, in addition to physical features, characteristics of people that are commonly racialized, including: accent or manner of speech, name, clothing and grooming, diet, beliefs and practices, leisure preferences, places of origin and citizenship.

“In one way or another, I would say that segments of this Code apply to everyone in this room,” he stated.

Point in case: consider the recent Star article about taxi licensing in Toronto. It begins with a rather miffed-looking Asafo Addai claiming that City Hall imposes a racist policy through two-tier licensing for cabbies. He’s so miffed, in fact, that he’s taking it before the Human Rights Tribunal, accusing the city of systemic discrimination against minorities and newcomers. The words racism and racialism are tossed around like so much wilted salad.

What’s got Asafo in a huff is the “Ambassador” license that the city issues to all new cabbies. These require the driver to solely own and operate their vehicle, unlike the older “standard” license that allows cars to be rented out and ownership to be transferred. Obviously this severely limits the driver’s ability to make extra income and, with the cost of buying existing standard plates running in the quarter-million range (yup, $250,000), it’s usually not an option.  Sure, I can understand why he’d be upset about this, and I’d definitely support changing it. And Asafo’s claim that this is, “inhibiting a group of people from ascending”, is absolutely correct if you ask me.

But what group of people? Is Asafo suggesting that only black folk drive cabs? Or just immigrants? Or people with argyle socks and dollar-store slacks? I can tell you with absolute certainty that that’s not true.

As a teenager I tried to join the police force but because of affirmative action, got the hand in the face, being told unapologetically it was because I was white. In hindsight it’s better I didn’t become a copper, and even though I didn’t like it, I ultimately understood the reasoning behind the hiring practices. But I know what it feels like to be denied something for no other reason than being a certain colour.

That’s really my whole issue with people bandying around the term “racism”. When individuals like Asafo play the race card, they’re actually doing a great disservice to real complaints of bigotry, injustice, and disparity. In fact, Asafo is the one making (or trying to make), a distinction based on race (or ethnicity, or income, or source of slacks, etc.); everyone else in the same boat as him are just people — white, black, and every other colour that can fit into the driver’s seat of a cab. Between Asafo and me, I’d say I came a lot closer to blatant systemic racism. (And I wouldn’t really call that racism.)

The other problem with Mr. Addai’s assertion is the fact that Toronto currently only issues one type of taxi licence, not two. The Ambassador program started in the late nineties specifically to address the problem of inequality — the other type of license was discontinued at that point (still exists, just not being issued). It doesn’t matter what colour your skin is, how much money you have, or even how nice your smile is, the Ambassador license is the only one you can get. No one’s picking on Asafo because of his race, his place of birth, his age, his weight, etc. — he’s getting the shaft just like all his cabbie brethren and sistren. Just because most of them happen to be immigrants doesn’t make it racism.

And saying that racialism is some random mix of attributes that varies from person to person — that’s just dumb.

By the way, did you know that Toronto has a monthly newspaper dedicated to the local taxi industry? Neither did I, until I found a copy in the disheveled racks at Metro Hall. That’s where I discovered that silly excerpt at the top of this post. It doesn’t seem like the most upbeat publication around town, but then again, being a cabbie doesn’t sound terribly glamorous either.