Politicians are often storming a castle of their imagination.
Once they get going with an idea, they become so focused on it that no reason or fact will stop them.
Too many elected officials at various levels of government play the part of the ignorant, uninformed villagers charging with pitchforks and torches toward the monster’s castle when there is no monster.
In this case, I am referring to the history of our first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, and two historical figures after whom many institutions and locations are named in Canada — Henry Dundas and Egerton Ryerson.
Toronto District School Board (TDSB) has confirmed it is going forward with the erasure of history concerning those three men, as have many communities in Canada.
TDSB officials claim they are doing God’s work in saving Black and Indigenous people in Canada from daily pain inflicted by the mere memory of those individuals, even when it is pointed out to them that they might have the history wrong.
This saving is often done by self-appointed liberal white saviours; people who see themselves as enlightened and vital in the affairs of minority groups.
I spoke with Lezlie Harper, founder of Niagara Bound Tours and the Black History Tour. She is Black and posted on the weekend, “I am so tired of Blacks in this country, many not born here, appropriating Black Canadian history and then putting an ugly narrative on it.”
Because I did not go along with the renaming of Yonge-Dundas Square in Toronto, I told Henry that I and 34,000 people who signed a petition against it were called racists by Councillor Shelley Carroll.
“Oh, listen,” Harper said, “I am Black and I get accused of all kinds of things. I worked at the Toronto board years ago, so I understand some of the dynamics that sadly still exist. I am a multi-generational Black Canadian who is very proud of my heritage and to always have it taken to the negative, particularly out of Toronto and the school board, drives me crazy.”
She said such people look for the racist narrative and stop there because “they have fulfilled their thesis.”
Politicians say they consulted the experts, but Harper says she has tried to speak to them as “a product of the history, but I have no say.”
She says, “I am what happened because of the history. This is hurting our children. Our Black children are told they are racialized and marginalized and white children are told they come from a disgusting culture and race and God help the mixed race kids.”
Liberal white people so condescend to minorities that Amanda Zavitz, an associate sociology professor at Western University, told a United Nations conference that she wished she was a Black woman so she could have “lived experiences of poverty and living in addiction and alcoholism.”
That is her view of the average Black person?
Thankfully, Zavitz stepped down as an NDP candidate for provincial office because bigoted statements have not prevented NDP candidates from seeking election in Ontario.
I can’t speak for others, but I wonder with Carroll and Zavitz, et al., if Black and Indigenous people feel a lot better knowing they are being looked after by The Great White Mother.