Wednesday, October 08, 2014


Controversial media personality Ezra Levant speaks on Canadian campus

Controversial media personality Ezra Levant was at Ryerson Thursday to speak on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign and about life for pro-Israel students on campus.

Levant was invited by campus group Students Supporting Israel (SSI) and ended up speaking about much more than just the BDS — a campaign that the Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) voted on joining last April.

During the opening of Levant’s presentation, SSI president Hadas Hait read the RSU equity statement — which is required to be “read aloud during the opening address of all meetings and events,” according to the union’s policy manual. The statement says that, “hate speech rooted in, but not limited to, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, anti-Semitic” will not be tolerated, and ends by asking the speaker if they agree.

Levant replied, “no,” prompting laughs from the audience. He went on to describe the statement as an “Orwellian command.”

“I believe in the freedom of speech, I even believe in the right to be racist or anti-semitic,” Levant told The Eyeopener after his speech.

Levant told the audience that he believes the BDS movement is a fundamentally racist approach and goes against what a student union should stand for.

“I think it’s disconcerting that they would think that they have a mandate to engage in anti-semitism for some foreign policy theme,” he said. “The real purpose of a students’ union is to attend to the needs of the students, which is the pretext with which they extract their fees, which is a way of saying student taxes.”

Levant also offered the room anecdotes on attempts at neutrality in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

“It is not appropriate to say, ‘ Well, between the fire and the fireman, I want to be neutral. The police and the robbers both have guns. Can we split the difference?’” Levant said. “I think some politically correct folks would like to say ‘can we split the difference between good and evil in the Middle East?’”

Levant also congratulated attendees for coming to the event.

“Pro-Israel voices are often outnumbered by pro-Hamas, pro-terrorist voices — simply because of the changing demographics in Canada,” said Levant.

His speech was well received, with the exception of one student.

“I was shocked and disappointed when I saw the level of hate in that room,” said Mohamed Zidane, a Ryerson student. “I definitely support the RSU, and I’m proud to be part of the RSU.”

SOURCE






Solving the "Gap"

Every Friday, a friend of the PowerLine blog whose screen name is “Ammo Grrrll” gets to weigh in there with comments (Thoughts From The Ammo Line) on the passing scene.

This week, her entry seems well-tuned for this readership, so here’s the relevant excerpt:

The last private gig of my standup career before retirement was in front of teachers at their late August in-service before the start of school. I was the final speaker of the day. I had listened to many administrators and the Keynoter who was a Diversity Drone from the state. She seemed a nice, sincere person, even though she arrived forty minutes late for her speech, keeping hundreds of people waiting. There was probably a diversity emergency somewhere.

The main thrust of the entire day’s remarks had been that there was an achievement gap between the white students and the students of color as they are called today. (Thank God it’s not the bad old days when they were called “colored students.”) SOMETHING — the teachers, society, racism, poverty — was responsible for this gap! Definitely not the students themselves. Gap, gap, gap, gap, gap. They were FAR more concerned about the GAP than about everyone’s simply mastering the material, perhaps by — oh, I don’t know — studying harder. Or at all.

There is a certain delicious freedom in knowing the gig is your last. I entertained the crowd and then ended with: “I have an idea. Since it’s the GAP between the white and minority students that you find so upsetting, why don’t you just encourage the white students to do WORSE?”

There was a brief stunned silence and then the room burst into laughter and applause. Maybe there is some hope yet for our country.

SOURCE





Seattle Schools Dump Columbus Day For ‘Indigenous People’s Day’

Slowly but surely our politically correct, left-wing schools are tearing down and eliminating every western hero from history. The Founding Fathers and everyone from the Civil War (except Harriet Tubman) have already been erased. This time they’ve erased New World Founder Christopher Columbus and replaced his holiday with “indigenous people’s day.”

Of course, the left has been out to kill Christopher Columbus for decades, but now they are getting serious by celebrating only the indigenous peoples.

The Seattle School system has made a resolution:

The resolution, in part, said the board “recognizes the fact that Seattle is built upon the homelands and villages of the Indigenous Peoples of this region, without whom the building of the City would not have been possible.”

The resolution also says the board “has a responsibility to oppose the systematic racism towards Indigenous people in the United States, which perpetuates high rates of poverty and income inequality, exacerbating disproportionate health, education and social crises.”

It urges district staff to “include the teaching of the history, culture and government of the indigenous peoples of our state.”

SOURCE



No comments: