Editorials - Nov. 11, 2021

Still not getting it  

Last week, a white Toronto District School Board teacher was placed on home assignment while an investigation takes place into a blackface incident at a costume party for Halloween at the Parkdale Collegiate.
   

It leaves one to wonder how a teacher in a high school in an urban setting could be so out of touch with political correctness. Other instances of blackface have made international headlines, so everyone is pretty aware that donning blackface is controversial, to say the least. 
   

While the school was dealing with this teacher, another incident was reported from the week before of a staff member using the n-word with a group of students and is now under investigation. The word was used in reference to a song that the students were listening to and not directed at the students, but still, this is a school in one of the most diverse neighbourhoods in Canada. Are the teachers there living under a rock?
   

These teachers should be hyper-aware of their actions, especially in these times of revolution for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) communities. And just last month, the fans of the Atlanta Braves brought negative attention to the World Series when, despite pleas from Indigenous communities, fans still did the “tomahawk chop”. 
   

Even if something isn’t being done with malicious intent, if someone asks us to stop, shouldn’t we at least take the request into consideration? Especially when stopping comes at so little cost. It’s not hard to not wear dark makeup to a party, it’s not hard to not use a word, it’s not hard to not wave your arm in a distinct motion. – DS

Trading places

Premier Doug Ford is again parting ways with advice from the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, choosing not to mandate vaccinations for the province’s healthcare workers. The Ontario Hospital Association and many other groups have been actively calling for mandatory vaccination for months and many hospital organizations have already taken matters into their own hands, mandating the jab.
   

Ford says it’s possible the province could lose “tens of thousands” of healthcare workers if his government imposed a mandate. This concern was also behind Quebec’s decision to walk back mandatory vaccination for healthcare workers. British Columbia, however, is sticking to its guns on mandatory vaccination. Just under 3,100 healthcare workers, or two per cent of the province’s healthcare workers, remain unvaccinated. For the New York Police Department, however, these concerns turned out to be much ado about nothing. After concerns that over 10,000 officers would turn in their badges if forced to take the shot, just 34 officers were put on unpaid leave for refusing to be vaccinated (under one per cent of the entire force).
   

Meanwhile, as the vaccination patchwork persists in Canada, the United States government is moving ahead with mandatory vaccines in several areas, including federal workers, the military and companies with over 100 employees, meaning the vast majority of American workers will be covered under President Joe Biden’s mandate.
   

Biden is being clear about vaccination and putting his money where his mouth is for many Americans, while Ford refuses to even mandate the jab for those who’ve sworn to keep the rest of us safe. – SL 

An unsafe environment 

The Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) will extend its moratorium on Facebook comments to protect readers from abuse and harassment, showing how toxic social media has become.
   

Facebook, which started out as a way for academics to connect with and communicate with each other, has become a place that the CBC doesn’t feel is safe to allow discourse to continue, instead funnelling readers to its website where the news organization can exercise some control over the types of comments that are made. Specifically, the move was made to protect story subjects, people commenting and journalists who were targeted and harassed, according to Brodie Fenlon, CBC’s editor-in-chief and executive director of the daily news for CBC News.
   

While there is certainly a degree of concern in this move and in the censorship that it may represent, the larger concern here is that Facebook, a social media giant, represents a universal forum that hasn’t existed before and, like all nice things, a percentage of its users have decided to ruin it for everyone else. “To be clear, we aren’t interested in curtailing genuine criticism of our journalism, which we welcome…,” Fenlon said. “We’re talking about trying to stop, in the online places where we have some control at least, the vile abuse, personal harassment and misinformation that’s so damaging to public discourse.”
   

The Citizen connects with many of our readers through social media and, while there have been instances of toxicity and misleading information shared, the members of the editorial department haven’t yet had to go to the lengths the CBC has, though it should be noted we won’t hesitate to do so. We will make sure information is accurate and people are protected, so keep it clean and courteous. – JDS