Jamie Sarkonak: Toronto principal bullied over false charge of racism dies from suicide
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jamie-sarkonak-toronto-principal-bullied-over-false-charge-of-racism-dies-from-suicideOpen linkView original on lemm.ee122
Comments38
God. I don’t even know what to say.
The article reads so strange…like describing a cult.
That’s because it is a cult. No one could seriously claim that Canada was more racist than America.
We certainly have issues. And our treatment of several marginalized groups leave a bad taste in one’s mouth, but more racist?
What's the value in even framing the situation as competitive? This man responded with a reasonable take for such a shit claim. This is another reminder for me to keep my mouth shut more often than not.
Yeah, certain areas of Canada may be more racist than certain areas of the US, and certainly racist in different ways towards different cultures, but it's pretty hard to compare to the deep south where in some places they'd happily bring back slavery if they had the opportunity to do so.
I'm trying to figure out what you mean by this. Is your experience that Alberta is a particularly racist province, more so than other provinces in Canada?
That's how I understand it, and from my experience it's accurate as well. Alberta is basically Kentucky or Alabama or something.
*edit but I don't think that it's worse than those places, definitely canada is not MORE racist, especially in general.
If you care to share, what has been your experience?
I have to say I am surprised by your top line assertion, but I'm open to change my mind if you have an argument you can substantiate here about the similarities between Alberta, and Kentucky or Alabama. I also don't think comparing different cultures is necessarily productive if our goal is to deal with the real world effects of racism. I think racism exists in Canada and it's something worth talking about and trying to address in our context.
@emeralddawn45 @voluble
Saskabush is lockstep with Alberta.
@emeralddawn45 @voluble Could you tell us more about your personal negative experiences in Alberta? How were these experiences racist?
Been there plenty of times, including earlier this year. I'd recommend visiting the Royal Tyrell Museum if you have the chance.
Any stark difference that you can see is projection. We're peas in a pod.
Similar yes. Different, also yes.
We simply don’t have the same ingrained prejudices that America has. Ours are different and I would argue less so. After all we don’t have politicians that would openly state that slavery benefitted black people.
Fuck, are white men not allowed to have opinions anymore?
Of course we are.
We're just not stupid enough to think our opinions will be unchallenged when they're idiotic and/or contrafactual and/or hate-fuelled.
That's equality, my friend. Your first taste of it apparently.
That's because what you're reading is from a cult. What unbiased piece of journalism would say someone was bullied into a DEI class? It really says everything about the case and yeah if you believe that you should blow your brains out or whatever this loser did.
Lol you're a terrible human being.
I would like to see a less biased story about this. It's sad what happened to this man, and I'm not even saying he did anything wrong, but I don't buy that the above quote is all that happened.
Went looking for sources and this is all I found on Ground…
https://ground.news/article/rip-richard-bilkszto-a-toronto-educator-who-stood-up-to-woke-bullyingand-paid-the-price
Not exactly the balance you were looking for…
Edit: here’s another, slightly more sane reporting:
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/former-principal-who-sued-tdsb-over-alleged-bullying-during-anti-racism-training-dies-by-suicide/article_4b9f98a9-7394-5517-909b-c69eb581aec9.html
KOJO absolutely does believe Canada is more racist than the US because it suits them. No evidence behind it though.
Wow. Just fucking wow. I really hope those administrators feel really proud of how much good they did. They were so inclusive in their equality training that they bullied a man to suicide. Fucking go them.
They are just going to hide and blame KOJO, even though they support what they say. Nothing will happen to either since he committed suicide. If they get sued, they will just pay and it will go away. Nothing will change.
Yeah, this is very disingenuous. He actually was a racist, and there is no established connection with his suicide. Many racists kill themselves often.
Did you know him personally?
Yeah...He sounds like such a racist.
Proof that he was racist?
This guy was absolutely right. If you don't believe me, spend some time in the Southern US, where slavery was once a hallowed institution, desegregation was fought against tooth and nail, and racism continues to be deeply engrained into the collective psyche.
Sickening.
The guy was a class act, voiced his opinion, and then got fucking HAMMERED by his board.
Completely awful
Sounds more like he chose the easy way out after being confronted with their biases.
It's amazing how everyone takes the opinion columns like gospel.
Explains why people think that BLM burned down half the states.
Hard to feel bad about someone more interested in whataboutism than they are understanding other people problems.
How is that a whataboutism?
How is questioning the validity of a statement not trying to understand other people's problems?
Not that I trust NatPo, but there isn't any other info (that I have seen) that points to this man being a white supremacist.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/former-principal-who-sued-tdsb-over-alleged-bullying-during-anti-racism-training-dies-by-suicide/article_4b9f98a9-7394-5517-909b-c69eb581aec9.html
YMMV on whether it was whataboutism or not, but regardless, it was pretty clearly not malicious, and it's a shame that the distress over the incident led him to suicide considering his positive record in the schooling system.
My personal reading of the very limited information is that this was a clash of personalities and priorities rather than malice on either side. The principal probably came in expecting that a DEI seminar would be about methods to make students from minority backgrounds feel more included; the speaker presumably felt that the point of the session was to develop the tools examine one's own biases and reduce the implicit prejudices of our society and ourselves.
Thus, when the conversation turned to personal and societal biases, the principal felt unexpectedly attacked (as those who appreciate their societies often feel in such unexpected conversations) and became defensive. The speaker, on the other hand, probably took the defensiveness, without any context to ground it in, as some chud playing dumbass games and playing argumentative in a session they were forced to be in, and reacted with understandable hostility. The other facilitator seemed to recognize this to some degree by pointing out that the point wasn't to play apologist for one country or the other.
If you are more interested in arguing that we aren't as bad as the States, than learning about your potential aggressions, you only care about your own feelings.
I shouldn't have to tell you that making sensitivity training into massaging your ego is a shitty look for a lib
Fucking what?
What a disgusting, trash-human fucking take.
Really glad most people don’t think like you or the world would be an even shittier place.