Bruce Dowbiggin
That Old-Time Segregation. Good Enough Grandma. Good Enough For Me.
British universities are adding trigger warnings to Greek and Shakespearean tragedies to protect students from being triggered by tragedy.— The Telegraph
Those who remember the not-so-distant past will recall the epic struggle waged by the Left to end apartheid in South Africa. Focussed on the jailed leader Nelson Mandela, the movement gripped progressives in a righteous fervour to end the brutal segregationist regime of the white government.
Happily, the pressure exerted by governments around the world— including Canada’s— finally freed Mandela in 1990 and ended apartheid. The world celebrated. The Left took a victory lap with a Matt Damon movie about the integrated SA Rugby team winning the World Cup. Never more would the spectre of segregation blot the history of the Western democracies.
Not so fast. In this age of intellectual convenience the Left works fast. As we pointed out last week they have now convinced the former Allied nations that they actually lost WW II and the Cold War due to white supremacy and transphobia.
Here in Canada, under the guise of Critical Race Theory, they have resurrected apartheid nostalgia as a tool to achieve something-something-something. The federally funded National Arts Centre in Ottawa, a stone’s throw from the site of the Tuckers Convoy a year ago this month, was planning for two so-called Black-Out Nights where only blacks would be permitted into the plush pews for a little cultural uplift called “Is God Is”. Hints that “black-identifying” might get you in the door were quashed by staff who said it was “blacks only”.
The ban on whites, Asians and Indigenous theatre goers sprang from consultant research, no doubt at great cost, saying that the biggest barrier to theatre going is “it’s not for someone like me”. (Price of NAC tickets might also be a tiny impediment.) And so NAC management came up with Black Out Nights. “Honored that @CanadasNAC is standing by their commitment to a BLACK OUT performance of one of my favorite plays, ‘IS GOD IS,’” tweeted playwright Jeremy O’Harris who holds a masters degree from the slave ship known as Yale.
News of the NAC’s little secret spread outside the cognoscenti—despite the best efforts of the Media Party. Soon, the so-earnest-it’s-painful arts administrator who runs the NAC these days was skating backwards faster than Bobby Orr. Deciding it was not a BLM mountain to die on, Christopher Deacon declared that the NAC might have to “course-correct and refine” its virtue orgy. Too bad for a progressive organization that hired a Director of Equity and Inclusion, whose stunning advice was that the NAC should do more Equity and Inclusion.
Now, the entire event has been shelved, to the chagrin of the same publicly funded zealots who wanted Jordan Peterson banned from speaking in Ottawa. “Sometimes the most needed change encounters resistance,” quoth commissar Deacon. In finest apparatchik speak Deacon says they’ll persevere. “But we press on… it’s a journey to a better place”. In case you’re wondering Deacon is a white male liberal, but his black heart is in the right place. Which is good enough for the PMO.
(Sidebar: I worked as a PR flack at the NAC around the time of the first Quebec Referendum in 1980. Inclusion of francophones, not promotion of blacks, was the flavour of that Trudeau regime. So we had a dedicated well-paid employee whose job was to translate English into perfect Larousse French. Translating from French to English was my job, and anyone who’s heard my French will know how frightening a prospect that was for national unity. But no one cared.)
Lest one think this CRT outreach is limited to the NAC, look no further than Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille which— in my theatre days of the 70s-80s— was a plucky outfit long on class warfare and unwatchable plays. That continues into today where the star of a one-woman show on colonialism and such refused to let white theatre critics review her oeuvre ‘bug”.
Not to be outdone, Passe Muraille has its own Black Out Nights when even those willing to absorb the turgid agitprop onstage may not enter if they are un-black. Should someone wish to “self identify” as black they must undergo a gauntlet of staffers who will instruct them in the proper right-think. BTW: White staff, technicians and administrators will be allowed to participate and still cash Canada Council cheques.
Make no mistake. This virtue wallow is occurring across the performing arts in Canada, and the Canada Council is the love pump that supports the entire regime of inclusivity and inconsequentiality. Which is to say if you want money from this source— or win awards dedicated to the Arts in Canada— you must parse the accepted grievance du jour for material suitable to the panels who opine on such.
Sample: “Tragedy is a genre obsessed with violence and suffering, often of a sexual or graphic kind, and so some of the content might be triggering for some students.”— The University of Aberdeen. Then you can write The Acceptable Death of a Exploitation Salesman or Cat On A Solar-Powered Roof.
Naturally, the Black Out movement has its equivalent in academia. My alma mater, the University of Toronto, now brags about a black convocation to celebrate the ultimate safe space. The organizers say, “On top of the regular demands that come with earning a university degree, Black students often deal with the added stress of microaggressions and a lack of representation in the classroom.”
Nothing says Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King more than retreating from the world. The organizers of U of T’s Black Convocation announced, without irony, that the theme of (the 2021) event preferred by safe-space fans is “resilience.”
The percentage of Canadians who fervently believe the safe-space mantra— sticks and stones will hurt my bones but words will destroy civilization— can safely be contained on one of those leaky scows that ply the St. Lawrence filled with Venezuelan oil. But the impact of this furious, concentrated rabble of class warriors is profound compared to their numbers (blacks are 3.5 percent of Canada’s population.)
Why? Because fear. Fear is the secret to the current dystopia— not resilience, as U of T would have it. Those in positions of authority, like General George McLennan in the Civil War, always overestimate the opposition, quaking in their boots that they’ll be exposed by a tsunami that exists mostly in grievance sites and academic swamps. Then they go on CBC Metro Morning to publicly bend a knee to this pressure.
In fact the numbers are massively exaggerated by feckless media slappies who think one loud voice translates as a movement as real as the Trucker Convoy. And who flatter themselves as change makers. Until someone calls the bluff on this hustle you can expect much more of this New/ Old Time Segregation.
Sign up today for Not The Public Broadcaster newsletters. Hot takes/ cool slants on sports and current affairs. Have the latest columns delivered to your mail box. Tell your friends to join, too. Always provocative, always independent. https://share.hsforms.com/16edbhhC3TTKg6jAaRyP7rActsj5
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” They can be powerful words to live by. Live-and-let-live has underpinned much of the Judeo/Christian tradition. It also informs many of the world’s other religions. For secular people the sentiment works just as well.
If you want to be loved and respected then you must extend love and respect in equal measures to those of whom you’re not all that fond. It is both a brake on hubris and an inspiration to our “better angels”. While that balance has been observed more in the breach than in the commission at times, live-and-let-live nonetheless still provides a path to mutual co-existence.
There was a time when that balance guided society. Or, as they like to say, the Good Old Days. Now, the needle monitoring live-and-let-live swings like a Hillary Clinton polygraph. If you’re with safe-space generation, no micro aggression is too small, no affront to LGBTQ-2 too slight to put off national calamity, no enemy too small to squash.
Woke causes replace empathy in the daily conversation. Why? Journalist Michael Shellenberger says apocalyptic behaviour “provides psychological comfort to secular Western people who have gradually abandoned traditional religions. For over a century, sociologists and psychologists have documented rising rates of depression and anxiety… Is it a coincidence that the people who said Western civilization was unsustainable are making it so?”
Not everyone has succumbed. How can you tell? In the spirit of comedian Jeff Foxworthy’s “You might be as redneck if…” here is your guide to discovering if you have become a Woke punchline.
If you’ve forgiven Japan and Germany for the atrocities they inflicted on the world in the 1940s but you can’t get past Sir John A. Macdonald putting the railway through the land of the Sioux, Blackfoot and Lakota… you might be a Woke punchline.
If you are concerned about world over-population but you’re nagging your kids about when they will make you grandparents… you might be a Woke punchline.
If you’re so sensitive about killing animals for food that you go extreme vegan but then attend a Pro-Choice rally in a T-shirt bragging about how many abortions you’ve had…you might be a Woke punchline.
If you’re in favour of Trudeau’s aggressive immigration policy but then your kids say they can’t afford to buy a home in a large Canadian centre… you might be a Woke punchline.
If you try to convince friends at a dinner party that Trudeau’s Carbon Tax really does fight global warming but your monthly hydro bill triples… you might be a Woke punchline.
If you think Trudeau family friends are the best people to investigate him ignoring CSIS warnings about China but you think Pierre Polievre is a little too cozy with the international forces of Qanon… you might be a Woke punchline.
If you believe Doug Ford is trying to dismantle free healthcare but then act indignant with the boys at beer-league hockey that you can’t get your knee fixed for over two years… you might be a Woke punchline.
If you think Stephen Colbert is still funny, but think that Bill Maher is now sounding like a January 6 insurrectionist… you might be a Woke punchline.
If you think banning Muslim and Sikh symbols is racist but Quebec doing the same is their cultural right… you might be a Woke punchline.
If you think the B.C. government will cure drug addiction by giving addicts a cozy place to shoot up but you tell people at work that you can’t go downtown anymore for all the junkies blocking the Starbucks entrance… you might be a Woke punchline.
If you firmly believe the prime minister is trying to keep a lid on inflation but you protest that Galen Weston is gouging you on food prices… you might be a Woke punchline.
If you donate to Save The Children but then buy a $350 pair of running shoes made by children in Asian sweatshops… … you might be a Woke punchline.
If you think career criminal George Floyd is a martyr but Egerton Ryerson is a genocidal racist… you might be a Woke punchline.
If you think today’s academic standards aren’t what they once were but then you go to school to berate the teacher for not communicating the curriculum properly to your indulged child… you might be a Woke punchline.
If you get to the bottom of this column without recognizing yourself in any of these contradictions… you might be a Woke punchline.
Sign up today for Not The Public Broadcaster newsletters. Hot takes/ cool slants on sports and current affairs. Have the latest columns delivered to your mail box. Tell your friends to join, too. Always provocative, always independent. https://share.hsforms.com/16edbhhC3TTKg6jAaRyP7rActsj5
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
In the classic 1987 Seinfeld episode The Sponge, Kramer is harassed by AIDS Walk organizers for refusing to wear a ribbon as he walks in the event
VOLUNTEER: But you have to wear an AIDS ribbon.
KRAMER: I have to?
VOLUNTEER: Yes.
KRAMER: Yeah, see, that’s why I don’t want to.
VOLUNTEER: But everyone wears the ribbon. You must wear the ribbon!
KRAMER: You know what you are? You’re a ribbon bully (walks away).
Kramer supports AIDS research, but he doesn’t support meaningless symbols. So some aggressive AIDS walkers eventually track him down and beat him in an alley for not going along with the mob. Comedian and curmudgeon George Carlin summed up Kramer’s resistance: “Religion is like a pair of shoes…..Find one that fits for you, but don’t make me wear your shoes.” But these days you must wear the shoes of the cool kids or suffer the consequences.
Naturally, progressives pushing their myriad causes fail to see the irony— even as they laugh at the skit. Since when was it a cultural crime that 100 percent of people don’t agree on any position? You don’t demand everyone eat meat, worship God or write with your left hand. Why do we demand unanimity on Woke catechism? But white- guilt liberals now look for any excuse for indignation.
The last group you’d have expected to adopt the You Must Wear A Ribbon tactic is the NHL. But no, the league that forgot Don Cherry is once again forcing its sanctity on players who dare to say “No, thanks” to wearing LGBTQ+2 sweaters as part of inclusivity promotions. This time San Jose goalie James Reimer said his Christian religious beliefs preclude him from taking part in their costume drama.
Needless to say the cascade of “homophobia” and “intolerance” cries from the AIDS walkers… er, the LGBTQ+2 media lobby… came down on Reimer’s head. His team and the league huffed and puffed about their virtue, but, thankfully, declined the calls for Reimer to be perp-walked to centre ice. Social media was another story, insisting he wear the ribbon.
Here’s what we wrote in January, the last time the NHL virtue soldiers jammed their holiness down other people’s throats over a Philadelphia Flyer who said, “Nyet”. “As Canada’s Justice Minister in the 1960s, Pierre Trudeau articulated the essence of liberal tolerance with his “government has no place in the bedrooms of the nation”. Sixty years later, PET’s son Justin would like to amend that to “the government has no place in the bedrooms of the nation— unless those people are saying nasty things about me.”
What once was a proud definition of liberty has transformed into a confidence game run for the Woke elite and its friends in the Media Party. Example this week: The Philadelphia Flyers— in keeping with their conversion to ESG colossus— staged a Gay Pride night. As part of the promotion they wore rainbow-coloured jerseys in warmup.
All except Ivan Provorov, who is Russian Orthodox. His religion is not slack-jawed with Progressive awe at same-sex marriage. So (while he wished no one ill), he refused to join the parade. Cue the Church ladies of the sporting press. “Adam Proteau: Ivan Provorov has the right to any opinion he chooses. And we have the right to have any opinion on Ivan Provorov that we choose. Like this: he’s a shameful human being whose homophobia is only going to get more shameful over the years.”
Fine. Then answer this: If an NHL team held a Christian night, and players were forced to wear jerseys with a crucifix, would you defend a player who opted out because of his conscience? Or would you go full Proteau and say he’s a “shameful human being whose religious intolerance is only going to get more shameful over the years”?
No one in the chattering class wants to take that on, of course. They don’t see that rights that work for them also must work for people they consider heretics… Meanwhile, the unwashed mass… responded with their wallets. Provorov jerseys sold out on the NHL Shop and Fanatic.”
But your elites want everyone to wear the ribbon. Or take a vaccine. Or wear a mask. Or, in the case of this December column, the NHL announcing it’s now a non-binary league. “… the NHL’s sudden conversion to trans orthodoxy is also highly instructive on how deep the tentacles of this ideology have attached themselves in ordinary culture. The NHL? Men-as-women playing against biological women? Until this radical chic agitprop thrust itself to the fore the last few years this was unthinkable for the NHL or its fans. Laughable. Fantastical.
But now you have a league HQ embedded in the heart of Manhattan— where the global media, business and arts community have already succumbed to the intimidation of cultural blackmail. The NHL’s sponsors, suppliers, broadcast partners and just plain neighbours have also taken the Trans Kool Aid. At some point the NHL’s surrender must have seemed inevitable— even for a league that asks its employees to never back down to bullies.
Seeing Bettman— who has epitomized stubborn resistance in his denial of the science of CTE brain trauma— crumble before the forces of approved speech is instructive to those who think this leaky scow can still be turned around quickly. Or that the forces of objective media might raise a whimper about being.”
Media so embedded in its own vanity it hurts. “Sticks and stones may hurt journalists’ bones but names are first-degree murder. So save a prayer for poor Mr. Bettman. He held out longer than some before accepting the white guilt hemlock. Having known his desire to be the longest-serving commissioner in history he’s probably now wishing he’d quit his job three seasons ago. Because he’ll never wash away his cisgender privilege now.”
It’s telling that the thought police have made organized religion an underdog. James Reimer wanted nothing more than to be left alone with his Christian beliefs. In 2023 that is enough to get you cancelled.
Sign up today for Not The Public Broadcaster newsletters. Hot takes/ cool slants on sports and current affairs. Have the latest columns delivered to your mail box. Tell your friends to join, too. Always provocative, always independent. https://share.hsforms.com/16edbhhC3TTKg6jAaRyP7rActsj5
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the fifth-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org. His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
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