An unbearable social stigma
Karl D. writes:
You have to read this. A woman writing for the St. Albert Gazette in Alberta, Canada is bemoaning the lack of multicultural diversity in her city of St. Albert. She moans about how the children of white St. Albert are “missing out.” She even brings up the lack of ethnic foods. This woman is so hopelessly naïve and clichéd I was having a hard time believing this was not a parody. Here is a snippet:
“Now in 2012, as shocking as it may sound, St. Albert children are missing out. Living in this city may bring them parks, recreation, the arts, events, safety and education, but it doesn’t bring them the practice of inclusion. They don’t see colour on the faces of their school friends. They seldom taste the flavour of foods from other countries. They don’t recognize the scent of sweetgrass, nor hold the hand of a child with different skin tone. They don’t hear the melody of different languages. Their senses have missed out on the joy of diversity.”
LA replies:
There is no reason at all to believe that the article is a parody. Under the reign of liberalism it is axiomatic that racial diversity is the indispensable condition of both moral goodness and cultural flowering; that a white person is not morally legitimate or humanly complete unless he has a nonwhite, preferably a black, symbolically attached to him at the hip; and that there is something dubious and questionable, some lingering whiff of guilt, hovering about any all-white group or institution. In short, whiteness, unmitigated by non-whiteness, is bad. Whiteness, in and of itself, has no right to exist. Therefore a sensitive liberal woman will naturally feel that there is something wrong in the very existence of her city, if it is all-white.
In another era, it was socially and morally unacceptable (say) to become pregnant out of wedlock. Today it is socially and morally unacceptable to live in a city that happens to be virtually all-white.
* * *
Here is the article:
Lack of diversity means our children are missing out
By Dee-Ann Schwanke
Saturday, Jul 21, 2012
Earlier this week I had an engaging conversation with the owner of a local business. He spoke about his previous employment as a tax auditor for the provincial government and the limitations he experienced as a visible minority. For 18 years he watched white people move up in seniority while he remained in his position without recognition or advancement. In 1993, he quietly left, and has since been serving the St. Albert community successfully for 19 years.
Canada is recognized as one of the most multicultural countries in the world, yet in our corner of the country, we’re rather pale. The 2006 census showed that Alberta consists of 14 per cent visible minorities. Edmonton is at 17 per cent, with some neighbourhoods nearing 33 per cent. St. Albert, however, is at four per cent.
Our isolation becomes apparent every time I visit the store or stroll the farmers’ market. I also see it when attending an event at one of St. Albert’s schools. As youth parade across the stage, the number of visible minorities is shockingly low. We are a remarkably homogeneous group—like a large batch of almond cookies.
When I was a young farm girl, I was secluded from people from different ethnic backgrounds. When I was 12, my family had the privilege of hosting a young man named Simon who had just moved from South Africa. His father was white, and his mother Filipino. In 1948, when the National Party officially enforced apartheid, his father had lost the right to own property and live with his family where he had always lived. Forced to move to an assigned area, he never saw his siblings again until the 1990s when his sister’s will requested that all her family be reunited at her funeral.
It was into this world that Simon had been born. He had seen the worst of segregation and discrimination in his young life, including witnessing children his age being gunned down in the schoolyard simply because they were the wrong colour. In his early 20s, he came to Canada and found a home on our farm, where we had never met a man of different colour.
My father is a principled man and took it upon himself to demonstrate true, meaningful fairness in every possible way. Simon became my brother. He shared equally in the chores around the farm, as well as the benefits and rewards. As time went on, he began to learn the Canadian perspective of equality, and his life was altered. He now lives in Devon with his wife and children, and calls us his Canadian family. His healing during that significant time of transition in his 20s did not come from reading about diversity in a book. Rather, he learned it from fixing fences in our fields and eating pyrogies in our kitchen.
Now in 2012, as shocking as it may sound, St. Albert children are missing out. Living in this city may bring them parks, recreation, the arts, events, safety and education, but it doesn’t bring them the practice of inclusion. They don’t see colour on the faces of their school friends. They seldom taste the flavour of foods from other countries. They don’t recognize the scent of sweetgrass, nor hold the hand of a child with different skin tone. They don’t hear the melody of different languages. Their senses have missed out on the joy of diversity.
I doubt that St. Albert will ever approach the provincial average for ethnic representation. I do hope, however, that we grow towards it. We are Canada. Our multiculturalism is watched and respected throughout the world. Every step St. Albert takes towards a multicultural community is an adventure into the world.
Dee-Ann’s and her husband’s children have visited 14 countries. Her daughter, a 2012 graduate of Paul Kane, is currently working in Ecuador.
- end of initial entry -
James N. writes:
When commenting on why New Hampshire (again) is rated as the best state to raise children (despite having points off for lack of diversity), be sure not to mention the fact that it is 94.6 percent white.
I’m sure it’s unrelated—as is the fact that Utah, Minnesota, and Vermont are also in the top six. Ssssh!
James P. writes:
Dee-Ann (what an idiotic name) wrote:
“When I was 12, my family had the privilege of hosting a young man named Simon who had just moved from South Africa. His father was white, and his mother Filipino. In 1948, when the National Party officially enforced apartheid, his father had lost the right to own property and live with his family where he had always lived.”
My father-in-law was born in Detroit in the 1940s. A good friend of mine was born in Camden, New Jersey in the late 1930s. Both of them have lost the ability to own property and live where their families had always lived, because “diversity” has turned their old neighborhoods into unlivable, broken-down, crime-ridden hell-holes that they cannot even visit without risking their lives.
In short, color me unsympathetic to Dee-Ann’s lament.
Aaron S. writes:
You said:
“There is no reason at all to believe that the article is a parody.”
Sadly, you are understating things. Not only is this obviously not a parody, I hear these kinds of things said quite frequently. This may be one aspect of liberalism in which at least parts of the heartland exceed the coast. Because we have less diversity, it seems people are more willing to display this utter stupidity—let’s call it “diversity envy.” I live with my Asian-born wife and two children in a wonderful, small community adjoining a mid-sized midwestern city. It is a beautiful place in its design and architecture, and roughly 95 percent white. In our community and the surrounding communities, I often hear otherwise-normal white people say things much like the ones said in the article you cite.
Never mind that there are more “diverse” parts of the city, where of course none of these people choose to live: the need for good schools, and that kind of thing get in the way, you know.
I try gently to call them out on their silliness and hypocrisy, but I remain gentle because in many cases I can’t be sure they aren’t just trying say what they regard as “nice” to a mixed-race family. My wife has a bit less patience, and will occasionally deliver unto them a brief harangue on the evils of diversity: “what is wrong with you people?” Much in the manner of your frequent Indian correspondents, she is continually impressed that a people could accept such obviously self-destructive notions.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 25, 2012 07:27 PM | Send