Meanwhile at a University in Ontario, Canada...

[Tiny]

http://torontosun.com/news/local-ne...ers-aim-to-shame-straight-white-christian-men

WARMINGTON: UOIT campus posters aim to shame straight, white, Christian men?
Joe WarmingtonMore from Joe Warmington


Published:March 3, 2018

Updated:March 4, 2018 8:31 AM EST

• NEWS
  WARMINGTON: UOIT campus posters aim to shame straight, white, Christian men?

Privilege posters pinned up around the UOIT campus in Oshawa on Friday, March 2, 2018.Jack Boland/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network

OSHAWA — Matthew Wigmore feels privileged to be attending the prestigious University of Ontario Institute of Technology.

He just isn’t so sure it’s white privilege.

Or man privilege. Or that he’s English speaking or Christian privilege either.

“I just enjoy going to this university and getting a high quality education,” said the 24-year-old political science student, who hopes to move on to law school and one day work with sports contracts. “This is an amazing school.”

That said, Wigmore was amazed by posters he saw on the walls of the Simcoe St. campus last week.

“Shocked” might be the better word.

A headline on one side of the poster reads: “Becoming aware of privilege should not be viewed as a burden or source of guilt but rather an opportunity to learn and be responsible so that we may work toward a more just and inclusive world.”

On the other side, under a subheading, “Privilege: Unearned access to social power based on membership in a dominant social group,” there is a checklist.

Matthew Wigmore, a political science student at the UOIT in Oshawa, was a bit dismayed by the privilege posters that are pinned up around the university on Friday, March 2, 2018.

The eight boxes include:

– able-bodied/physically and mentally

– access to education

– christian

– cisgender

– heterosexual

– male

– native English speaker

– Canadian citizen at birth

– white

You read it right. This is no hoax, folks. This poster was on the walls of the campus that is shared by Durham College on Simcoe St. It even has the UOIT banner on the bottom with the kicker saying, “Student Engagement and Equity.”

So much for Dr. Martin Luther King’s edict to judge a person not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.

File photo of students walking outside the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and Durham campuses in Oshawa, Ont.

Wigmore couldn’t believe his eyes and was among the many who notified the Toronto Sun about the poster.

“I would have to check off each one since I fit each category,” he said. “Is it trying to say I am in this university because of all of these things? Or am I from Oshawa and I worked hard to get here?”

It’s crazy any student of any background could be asked such a question or be shamed for their skin colour or sexual preference. If the poster replaced any of the areas addressed with say Muslim or homosexual, Arabic speaking or black or brown, there would be people rightfully calling it inciting hate and calling for hate crime charges.

The UOIT has not returned a call for comment, but many students and alumni are upset about the posters.

“How could something like this be permitted?” asks Erika Humm. “It’s very offensive.”

Privilege posters pinned up around the UOIT campus in Oshawa on Friday, March 2, 2018. (Jack Boland/Toronto Sun)

Although he agrees with Humm’s position, Wigmore is not going to lay a complaint or worry about it for too long.

However, he does admit if the standard for such things were applied the same way they are for other races, religions and cultures, “these posters would be considered racist for sure.”

Wigmore is not racist and does not know anyone at the university or college who is racist.

In fact, when photographer Jack Boland and I found the poster, it was right behind three students — two of whom were black and the other appearing to have brown skin. All three rejected the notion being presented in the poster.

“It’s not right,” said one young man. “I don’t feel any racism around here.”

The two women he was with agreed — saying the poster is “ridiculous.”

They’re right. So are Matthew and Erika.

Yet the posters were there — with the school’s seal on them too.

Wigmore said if the idea is to make him feel guilt for the colour of the skin he was born in, he won’t be playing. If someone wants him to apologize for being raised Roman Catholic, that’s not going to happen either.

“I am not ashamed of who I am,” he said, adding his schoolmates are also not ashamed at being from whatever race or background they are from.

“Race or any of these issues are not an issue here,” he said. “There is a lot of diversity here and a lot of harmony. It’s not a problem here.”

In fact, in three of his classes, Wigmore is “a minority,” but he said his fellow students actually don’t look at race when interacting or keep count.

Instead, they are proud Canadians and, he said, feel privileged to be.

 

[Badger67]

Whoever puts those up should be removed from their degree and the faculty that approved it should be reprimanded.

 

[Bloody Pulp]

Soory.

 

[RerouteToRemain]

 

[Unknown Pleasures]

Meh, don't think this is a big deal.

I think where the poster is fucked up is it says it is "Unearned access to social power...." etc.

I really dislike the phrasing that anybody who checks those boxes didn't earn their position / status etc. Too many people study wayyy too hard, and do way to much good work to say their success is simply because they check those boxes.

And some of the people that check those boxes could have had tremendous other obstacles - like born into poverty, or have abusive parents etc.

I think the better approach would be to just get it into people's minds that on the whole, certain segments of society tend to have more obstacles than other. I suppose that doesn't have enough bite though.

 

[Tiny]

Meh, don't think this is a big deal.

I think where the poster is fucked up is it says it is "Unearned access to social power...." etc.

I really dislike the phrasing that anybody who checks those boxes didn't earn their position / status etc. Too many people study wayyy to hard, and do way to much good work to say their success is simply because they check those boxes.

And some of the people that check those boxes could have had tremendous other obstacles - like born into poverty, or have abusive parents etc.

I think the better approach would be to just get it into people's minds that on the whole, certain segments of society tend to have more obstacles than other. I suppose that doesn't have enough bite though.

Clearly the pamphlet had an agenda to target a specific group of people.

 

[Prokofievian]

UOIT is prestigious now?

 

[JosephDredd]

As a Trump supporter, I regularly view conversations about privilege as someone trying to saddle me with burden or guilt. Those posters are so unnecessary. Don't they know how stupid I am?

 

[Unknown Pleasures]

Clearly the pamphlet had an agenda to target a specific group of people.

Certainly.

 

[ryan3434]

Ugh.

This is why you Americans need to be more responsible and think about your actions! Lol

When you start stuff like this the rest of the world copies you x2 .
especially us Canuckleheads, we literally had a riot in Hamilton ON last night and they'll all were wearing ninja outfits with signs of 'we are the ungovernable"

 

[Unknown Pleasures]

UOIT is prestigious now?

LOL, that comment made me google... ranked 1149 in the world. 39th in Canada.

 

[SammyPops]

No issue wiht the poster. My issue is with the checlist.

Checklist shoudl read;
1) jew
2) 2nd generation immigrant raised by Tigermom

Fuck people. The day of the white man in Toronto is over. Go to any young professionals such as medical residents, articling lawyers, new MBAs on Baystreet (our Wallstreet) and its jews, brown and chinsese.

 

[Unknown Pleasures]

No issue wiht the poster. My issue is with the checlist.

Checklist shoudl read;
1) jew
2) 2nd generation immigrant raised by Tigermom

Fuck people. The day of the white man in Toronto is over. Go to any young professionals such as medical residents, articling lawyers, new MBAs on Baystreet (our Wallstreet) and its jews, brown and chinsese.

You raise some interesting points. First off, are jews considered visible minorities and diversity candidates in Canada?

Secondly, I believe the biggest form of privilege is to be born into wealth. I mean, the ability to passively earn an income more so than what others who go to school to study something, then put on their boots to go to work, is huge. Let's say you are born into $2 million dollars of wealth, and you get 5% income off it a year, that $100,000 a year. Way beyond what the average person who punches a clock makes.

Now, with the diversity initiatives, I really think the extremely privileged people are largely left untouched. I mean, wealthy son of a business man who grew up rich and went to private school isn't the target of these things. Dad picks up the phone, makes some phone calls, son has landed another good job lol.

It's just lower tier privileged people that are going to feel the pain of people throwing out meritocracy in favor of equality of outcome. And of course, really privileged people don't care about that, what they really want is an ever-expanding economy and cheap labor by getting as many people into the work force at the lowest wage possible.

 

[Islam Imamate]

Meh, don't think this is a big deal.

I think where the poster is fucked up is it says it is "Unearned access to social power...." etc.

I really dislike the phrasing that anybody who checks those boxes didn't earn their position / status etc. Too many people study wayyy too hard, and do way to much good work to say their success is simply because they check those boxes.

And some of the people that check those boxes could have had tremendous other obstacles - like born into poverty, or have abusive parents etc.

I think the better approach would be to just get it into people's minds that on the whole, certain segments of society tend to have more obstacles than other. I suppose that doesn't have enough bite though.

I mostly agree, especially about privilege derived from wealth being the most significant, but to be fair the posters explicitly say privilege is something not to feel guilty about and that what's unearned is social power based on membership to dominant groups. Having access to that social power doesn't mean everything will be easy.

A poor white and poor black person are both going to face serious challenges as a result of their poverty but the poor white person might have certain benefits from being white such as being more likely to be given the benefit of the doubt by strangers or employers and whatnot. It doesn't mean his life is easy because he's white, he's still facing poverty, but sometimes those tiny advantages build up over time and can lead to differences in outcomes down the line in the aggregate.

Really, these posters aren't that bad IMO. At my university I once saw a "Public Service Announcement, white people don't say " poster and that one strikes me as less productive.

 

[Jopious Extronimous]

It's a fucking poster on a college campus, and not even a good school.

This truly is the age of searching for outrage. "All these damn kids whining about how unfair it is and how hard it is, I'm gonna go look for them online so I can complain about them further...."

Who gives a shit? Don't believe in the message of the two posters? Don't repost them on a website viewed by hundreds of thousands. It doesn't matter if you're saying it's bad when you do it. It was a poster only people who'd walk by it would see, but now because of you, it's getting 1000x the publicity.

This is like all the fake twitter outrage. People take one tweet from one asshole, attribute it to an entire spectrum of people and end up giving the person a bigger voice than they ever would've had otherwise.

You're literally working against yourself if you disagree with this message.

 

[HereticBD]

Inb4 Liberals downplay and excuse this...


Whoops, too late.

 

[Badger67]

Ugh.

This is why you Americans need to be more responsible and think about your actions! Lol

When you start stuff like this the rest of the world copies you x2 .
especially us Canuckleheads, we literally had a riot in Hamilton ON last night and they'll all were wearing ninja outfits with signs of 'we are the ungovernable"

My friends car was trashed from that riot. Stupid ppl.

 

[Bald1]

Oshawa is an overwhelmingly blue collar town, and Ontarios armpit. Not a whole lot of privilege in the dirty 'Shwa unless your last name is McLaughlin or you don't need to use the 401 during your commute.

 

[jrams]

I think the better approach would be to just get it into people's minds that on the whole, certain segments of society tend to have more obstacles than other.

Who cares though?

 

[Unknown Pleasures]

Who cares though?

People who care to improve society.