HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe trouble with the Toronto high-school black list - Globe & Mail - 07/03/2018 - Globe & Mail - 07/03/2018 - Globe & Mail - 07/03/20187/4/2018 The trouble with the Toronto high-school black list - The Globe and Mail
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The trouble with the Toronto high-school black list
MARCUS GEE),
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Being aware of racial issues and on guard against racism is one thing, being fixated
on race quite another. These days we seem to have drifted into an unhealthy
fixation.
Look at what just happened at Toronto's Etobicoke School of the Arts. ESA is a
marvelous place. The halls teem with creativity. My daughter goes there. Her sister
did, too. Its students often proceed to brilliant careers in dance, film, theatre,
photography or visual art.
But like many places these days, it has been affected by our current fixation. Last
year, the Toronto District School Board issued a report noting that the student body
at specialty schools such as ESA tends to be whiter and more prosperous than the
board average. Detecting bastions of entitlement, the authors of the report
recommended shutting down the schools in the name of equity. That was an awful
idea. Toronto's specialty schools are gems. Parents revolted and the school board
backed down. Specialty schools would stay. But a cloud continued to hang over ESA.
Its principal, Peggy Aitchison, wanted to do everything she could to make sure the
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Doan 1Bircaw n„ 11. 8, was airnoing the irnrniiirnoirirty students iid irnfirf6 d oirn the EtoNcolke Schooll of the Arts, so....
called 'bIl ck 1111st11....611« mainy oilheirs oirn the 1111st„ IAr. 1Birow n says Ibe fellt siiirn ll d out and sfigirmna-fazed fair the
collou..uir of Ihis s1l<6im„ desjp6te being a stira6glht A student.
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Another awful idea, so awful that only an educator steeped in years of equity -speak
could dream it up. Naturally, the students identified on the list were insulted. They
felt singled out and stigmatized. They said the list was drawn up solely on
appearance. One of them, Noah Brown, 18, pointed out that he was already a
straight -A student. The melanin in his skin had nothing to do with it.
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But in a way I feel sorry for the principal. She meant no harm. In her farewell letter
to the school community, she said that "At no time would I ever want to cause any
student any amount of pain, even inadvertently."
Ms. Aitchison is simply a product of her time.
She focused on the race of certain students because, in this era of identity politics,
that struck her as perfectly okay. At institutions such as the Toronto board, which
distinguished itself by banning the word "chief" from job titles to spare the feelings
of Indigenous people, the air is simply full of talk about white privilege and systemic
racism. The old ideal of colour blindness has gone right out the window. If you say
that individuals should be judged by the content of their character not the colour of
their skin, you simply don't get it.
Here is the paradox of today's Canada. Thanks to evolving attitudes and the critical
work of crusaders for racial justice, prejudice is less prevalent that it has ever been.
This country is approaching a moment that idealists have dreamed about for
centuries — the moment when who you are matters more than how you look, how
you pray or where you come from. Yet at this very moment, so full of promise, we
find ourselves positively obsessed with racial identity. Just last year, the government
of Ontario announced it would start gathering information on the ethnicity of
students — all to aid in their success, of course.
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That's the wrong way to address inequality. The best way to make sure that
students succeed isn't to group them by heritage and treat them differently, it is to
make sure that teachers treat every student who comes into their class equally no
matter what they look like.
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StU(Jents.,11'roronto School call for resignation of principal who compiled. list of
black students
Toronto scliool principal ilrider investigation for co.tyipilhigfist of black stridents
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