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One of the nice things about writing an op-ed column for
this newspaper is that you get invited to speak on a lot of "media panels" at
academic conferences. I flatter myself to think people are genuinely interested
in what I have to say. But I suspect the main reason they want me is that I
provide the appearance of "balance": Even when a confab is wall-to-wall campus
lefties and CBC types, the words National Post on my podium placard signal
there's at least one right-wing maniac in the house.
Which is to say, I'm used to being the odd man out. But I've never felt quite
so odd as I did last week at "Combating Hatred," a day-long biennial anti-racism
conference hosted by the University of Toronto for the benefit of the city's
lawyers, judges, police officers, educators and government workers.
My panel ("The Media: Part of the problem or part of the solution") didn't
start till the late morning. But I showed up a few hours early to enjoy the free
breakfast and listen to the keynote speaker, a native activist and lawyer named
Donald Worme.
And I'm glad I did, because a large part of Worme's speech was dedicated to
the theme Why Jonathan Kay Is a Racist.
Shortly after taking the podium, Worme quoted at length from an article I'd
written on these pages last month titled "Off The Reservation," which argued
that our system of native reserves is inhumane, and should be overhauled for the
good of aboriginals themselves. He (falsely) claimed that I wanted natives to
"cease to exist as a people," that I was calling for the "destruction" of First
Nations and -- most outrageously -- that I was an advocate of "a form of 'final
solution."
And all this while I was 100 feet away, eating a blueberry muffin and
drinking a double-double.
After Worme finished comparing me to the Nazis, he went on to excoriate
Margaret Wente of The Globe and Mail, who wrote a column last month about abused
native children who are put at risk when politically correct government
officials refuse to place them with white families. Between the two hit jobs,
the over-arching theme for the day had been established: Challenging the
received pieties of identity politics renders you a presumptive racist.
In fact, Worme proved to be tame compared to some of the speakers that
followed. One anti-racism activist and diversity "consultant," for instance,
claimed (without evidence) that Canada's leaders "validate racism," and argued
that special Afro-centric schools should be set up for Toronto's blacks because
their culture is being systematically "denigrated" in multiracial public
schools. Then he made my jaw drop by quoting -- not once, but twice -- from the
work of African-American poet Amiri Baraka, an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist
who believes Jews were warned to stay away from the Twin Towers on 9/11.
Next came a Muslim activist who upped the ante by arguing that the state of
inter-group relations in Canada is even worse than in Pakistan, a country where
political dissidents get thrown in jail and Sunni suicide bombers explode
themselves in Shiite mosques. Hatred in Pakistan, she argued, at least has the
advantage of being overt. Here in Canada, on the other hand, it is subtle and
hidden -- which apparently makes it more invidious.
Then my panel began, and a middle-aged academic launched into a stream of
jargon-laden duckspeak about "white privilege," "racialized
spaces" and "existing paradigms of public discourse in the media." The larger
point, buried in there somewhere, seemed to be that hotheads like me shouldn't
be allowed to write the sort of thing that the Donald Wormes of the world find
offensive.
By the time my turn was up, I'd thrown out my rather tame prepared speech in
favour of a strenuous take-down of what I'd just heard. All of it, I said, was
proof that radical anti-racism had become not only a cult of censorship, but a
mental toxin as irrational and destructive as racism itself.
And since I was in the mood to make friends, I went further. I told the crowd
that conferences like these were actually hurting minority communities by giving
them a one-size-fits-all excuse to avoid confronting their problems. Talk about
gang culture, AWOL fathers, teen motherhood and shocking crime statistics in
black communities, and "diversity consultants" accuse you of racism. Connect the
dots between Canada's radicalized mosques and the terror threat, and you get
accused of Islamophobia. Write about the economic dysfunction and social
pathologies that fester on native reserves, and Donald Worme accuses you of
penning a new Mein Kampf.
During the Q&A, a school board official got up to tell me that I had no
right to comment on issues affecting black people because I wasn't black. And a
few other audience members added their own sneers at the angry National Post
freak who, for reasons known only to himself, was ruining their fun. But
otherwise, the discourse was relatively civil. Which is to say, no one else
compared me to Hitler.
In any case, I went home feeling more pity than anger. For all their claim to
progressive politics, there is something slightly old-fashioned and fusty about
the people who run these conferences. Many of them have been fighting the evil
of prejudice since the early days. And they have chalked up some spectacular
successes during that time: the Charter of Rights, human rights tribunals in
every province, hate speech laws, gay marriage, etc. Even more importantly, they
have managed to make race-hatred the ultimate taboo -- a subject that can get
you fired from any job or ostracized at any social gathering. But instead of
taking a bow and declaring victory, the anti-racism industry is still chugging,
seeking desperately to justify its existence by trumpeting ever more implausible
and exotic theories of discrimination.
As I sat at the dais, I did indeed feel quite "privileged" -- though not
because of my race. Rather, it was because I am an opinion journalist who can
write about these issues candidly. The jurists, NGO types, academics and public
servants staring back at me from the audience, on the other hand, enjoyed no
such freedom. Whatever their private views, they inhabit politically correct
professional milieus that require them to at least pretend to believe the
anti-racism orthodoxy being spouted at them.
Most perversely of all, many of these same folks pay for their indoctrination
out of their own pocket: At last week's conference, the list of donors and
sponsors read like a who's who of some of Toronto's best-known law firms and
financial services companies. As a farcical metaphor for the guilty attitude of
Canada's white elites, it's hard to imagine a more perfect vignette: a parade of
suits and ties slapping down thousands of dollars so activists can tell them how
racist they are. Nice work if you can get it.
jkay@nationalpost.com
Illustration:
• Graphic/Diagram: / (See hardcopy
for Illustration)
Idnumber: 200711200135
Edition: National
Story
Type: Column
Length: 1153 words
Keywords: RACISM; RACE RELATIONS; SUMMIT
CONFERENCES
Illustration Type: G
PRODUCTION FIELDS
NDATE: 20071120
NUPDATE: 20071120
DOB: 20071120
POSITION: 1
