Racist Crosswords and More
I read a True North headline, “CBC Says Crosswords are Racist.”
I could not bring myself to look up the article or to listen to what True North commentators had to say about it. It is another attack article. We have seen so many of these.
CBC, and I don’t say this lightly, has become a propaganda machine. CBC now touts the party line. We can anticipate what will come out of our Canadian Broadcasting Company and what will not. There are no longer balanced views presented.
As a consequence the CBC is no longer representative of Canadians.
I cannot tell whom it represents, and I truly wish I knew, but it is clear what it represents. It represents a twisted ideology that is recognizable in its many forms and is repulsive to most. The ratings of the CBC, along with most of legacy media, have plummeted but they are still convinced they are doing good.
Numerous alternate news sources have sprung up. Podcasters have higher numbers of views and more followers than government-funded mainstream media outlets. Let that sink in.
Politicians now shy away from news media and find they are getting further reach through independent outlets than the legacy media could give them. Sadly we are seeing parallel worlds springing up with increased polarization. The haters who have been tearing at the fabric of our society and who mostly control the mainstream narrative, are achieving nothing less than what I imagine to be their goal, to stir up further hatred.
“Manipulation is when they blame you for your reaction to their disrespect.”
This was an anonymous post on Facebook. It describes what we see. A better term may be “gaslighting.”
The witch-hunt for racists in the 21st century has proven to be far more damaging to our culture than the actual, evident racism in recent years. Racism has been receding for decades and for some reason it had to be resurrected to become front and centre in our consciousness. Rather than uniting a country around a common good, the greatest effort is being made to pit us against one another.
There is an effective parenting strategy in which you reward good behavior and ignore less desirable behavior. It tends to starve out the undesirable trait. I see so many parents, wherever I go, who are constantly railing on their children for the slightest “offense”, meting out extreme punishment for a small misdemeanour. This will create fearful, insecure and eventually angry, resentful and hateful children. Is this what we want?
Our avid and unrelenting attention to microscopic “microagressions”, regardless of intent, will only dishearten people further and cause some to despair. I, for one, feel distressed at what I see happening around me. I do not like innocent children being subjected to unnecessary and excessive discipline. Where is the love, the compassion, the concern? It should be coming from those who set themselves up as altruistic redeemers of civilization. But, no, they haven’t learned this essential component.
To not be racist is to not be racist against any group, or skin color, or social status.
In the name of addressing racism we are witnessing an actual more toxic form of racism. The racism I am talking about is the utter disgust and contempt for ordinary citizens without any grace or mercy.
By all appearances this is a concerted effort to stoke the flames of dissension.
Around the new “racism” is the constant need for acknowledgements, apologies and continuous debasement. The past is dredged up and placed on the innocent children. If there is not enough evil to be found then evil is fabricated. The trap of “racism” has been set and everywhere people fall, unknowingly, into its snare. The psychological “lynching” that assumes guilt sans trial, irrelevant of intent, is the most chilling aspect of the “neo-racism” evolving before our eyes.
Buț perhaps, just maybe, some common sense is returning to the world with the opening up of dialogue, once again, on Twitter. The motto for the “neo-racists” has been, don’t engage, just condemn and remove from the platform. That has worked in the past. It might not work so well, going forward. This past week Twitter added 1.6 Million daily active users, an all-time high. Interesting when we were told to expect a sharp drop.
For the first time the ones censoring are having a little taste of their own medicine. Elon Musk let go of excess staff, as any new CEO would, upon acquisition of a new company. The backlash was incredible as if he had done an evil thing. He didn’t call them racist. He didn’t taint their reputation or label them. Yes, he suspended a few accounts, and opened them again. He also opened Trump’s account and among his last few days of tweets we read his calls for peace and respect for law enforcement. Just this week a collage of Republicans and Democrats alike protesting election results was removed from YouTube. There is much still unresolved around what happened in the U.S. on January 6, including the sealing of access to video footage of the Capital on that day.
I saw a former Twitter staff member post, “Next time let me know I’m living in the good old days.” Those were good old days for those who curated Twitter and those who axed the accounts of thousands for holding “unacceptable views,” a phrase Prime Minister Trudeau uses to describe Canadians who don’t support him.
Melanie Philipps, in a recent article, described the behavior of this element of society as narcissistic and hypocritical and she’s not far from the truth in her observation. They are intent on spreading their infectious virus of intolerance. There is only one way to combat this. Listen to every side and be open to the possibility of learning.
Dialogue is what we need. I hope Twitter can deliver. Here is an example of dialogue around predictions of the U.S. midterm elections, written by Nate Silver, The Case for a Democratic Surprise on Election Night. It’s good to see people can still converse intelligently.
In the article, Silver mentions that most people don’t answer phone calls from unknown numbers and so surveys more and more tend to only represent the exceptions. That’s me. Some of us don’t read suspicious looking articles either, like that of the CBC. It’s a form of self-protection.
I have never been an avid fan of Crossword Puzzles simply because I am not fond of television. I don’t know enough about celebrities. I wouldn’t recognize Kim Kardashian in a line up. Do I think that Crossword Puzzles are racist, because they contain content about which I am not informed? I think the CBC article is more racist, without having read it.
With every assault my world becomes smaller and smaller. I watch fewer movies. I listen to less news. I avoid more articles. And I become more and more reluctant to contribute to the conversation. The world is still a nice place without these intrusions. What can we do to make it better?