Open Letter to Premier Dalton McGuinty re: "Africentric Alternative Schools"

Dear Premier McGuinty:

Re: Toronto District School Board Vote on “Improving Success for Black Students”

As you know, a report (01-08-1217) was recently issued by the Toronto District School Board in anticipation of a Special Meeting that said Board will hold on January 29, 2008. It is expected that the Board will then vote on whether to accept the recommendations in the report. Among the recommendations is that the TDSB open an “Africentric Alternative School” encompassing grades Kindergarten through 12.

The report recommends, in part:

That a three-year pilot program be established in three existing schools beginning in September 2008, to implement a model for integrating the histories, cultures, experiences and contributions of people of African descent and other racialized groups into the curriculum, teaching methodologies, and social environment of the schools.

and that:

…the Director report to the Board in April 2008 on an action plan…based on proposals received from community stakeholders…

Attached as Appendix “A” to the Recommendation is a list of proposals that were received from community stakeholders at two meetings held in December 2007. They include:

• “Establish a committee of Black educators, parents, students, members of the community and the clergy to work with the Board to organize, implement, and administer Black-focused schools”;
• “Require equity targets for the School Improvement Plan”;
• “Teach all students about how race, class and gender impact their lives, and provide curriculum resources and teacher training to support this teaching”;
• “Invest substantially in literature, film, documents, and aids that depict legitimately the experiences of people with whom the diverse community of students can identify”;
• “Teach historic facts about wealth creation, entrepreneurship, science and academia of people of African descent in order to change current societal emphasis on Black role models in sports and entertainment”

In a nutshell, the community proposals include the idea that there should be schools advised and operated by “Blacks”; having “Africentric” curriculum, adornments, content and teaching methods; and giving students hope for success by demonstrating the success of some other “Black” people.

Some have criticized the recommendation on the ground that it constitutes or would promote segregation on the basis of “race”. I do not agree with the concept that humanity is divided into distinct “races”. However, I agree that the proposed schools would both constitute and promote segregation on the basis of genetic make-up, and I stand with those who condemn the proposals to segregate students on the basis of genetic make-up. The fact that no person would be barred from attending on the basis of “race”, and that no person would be required to attend, does not alter the fact that the proposals undoubtedly will lead to the creation of schools attended almost exclusively by people who consider themselves (or who are considered by their parents) to be “Black”. In other words, even if segregation is not the purpose of the recommendation, it most certainly would be an inevitable effect of the recommendation, were it adopted and implemented.

However, segregation, per se, is not the only problem with the recommendation. The most fundamental problem inherent in the recommendation is that it purports to aim at improving levels of success among “Blacks” by distinctly racist, irrational, anti-intellectual means.

The idea of some educators is that by providing examples of successful Black individuals in history, false beliefs that Blacks cannot accomplish such successes will be eliminated. However, such a methodology actually deepens racism by accepting, rather than rejecting, the notion that the success of an individual is tied to his phenotypical traits: hair colour, skin colour, eye colour, sex, etc.. When a teacher tells a student “You can do this, because another person having the same skin colour was able to do it”, he is implicitly telling the student that “However, you cannot do that other thing, because no other person having the same skin colour has ever done it”.

It gets worse than that, in fact. When a teacher tries to build self-esteem by saying “People of our ‘race’ have a history of being great and moral, why, just look at the great and good and successful Mr. Bloggs” the teacher is teaching the student that the student should evaluate his own character, ability, morals etc. with reference to the successes, greatness, or righteousness of another individual. The horrible, frightening, and disgusting implication of such teaching is that it also teaches children to evaluate their own character, ability, morals etc. with reference to the failures or evil of another individual.

If we are to eliminate racism, we must teach children not that their “race” has a history of success, but that – in a just world – a person’s race has nothing whatsoever to do with anyone’s success. One simply cannot teach children that genetic make-up is irrelevant by setting up a school that “focuses” on genetic make-up.

Children need to be taught what they should value in themselves and in others: a knowledge of scientifically-discovered facts of nature; the indispensable necessity of strictly logical thought for the purpose of obtaining knowledge; the virtues of honesty, productiveness, integrity, justice, independence, pride and rationality in general; a society in which all relations with others must be consensual. These things are indispensable for the success of each child, regardless of his or her genetic make-up. It is these things that should be the focus of a child’s education if he is to succeed. However, just as role models actually entrench racist thinking, and unwarranted estimations of ones own ability or tendencies, a focus on “heritage” in education flies in the face of learning how to think as one must if one is to succeed in life.

The history of technology or political events – as just examples – around the world are histories that belong to all of humanity. When evaluating a technological development’s usefulness or uselessness, goodness or harmfulness, greatness or smallness, the genetic make-up (or country of origin) of the inventor is utterly irrelevant. Having a school that “focuses” on great African achievements – for the purpose of showing that Africans can or have made great inventions – tells students that the genetic make-up of an inventor (or his country of origin) is somehow relevant to whether the technology in question is an important one in human history.

Similarly, the history of the development of political theory is important to all students, regardless of their genetic make-up. Great advances in peace and freedom are great not because those who discovered them were Greek, or Roman, or African, or European, but because they are great advances.

Stated most generally: all children must learn how to evaluate things rationally. They must be taught to admire the good, and to condemn the evil or bad; to honestly judge and identify what is more valuable, and to distinguish it from what is less valuable according to a rational standard. Their success and their happiness depend on that skill. If students are taught that something is valuable simply because it is old, or traditional, or “part of our culture”, or “part of our heritage”, or “created by people of our race”, we have done a great disservice to them: we have taught them that the value of things is intrinsic, and has nothing to do with their own rational evaluation of them. If students are taught that “anything you desire is something that is a value”, we have, similarly, done them a disservice: students must learn that the value of something must be judged by the standard of what a human being needs to live and to be happy; they must learn that although one may desire the thrill of jumping out of a plane without a parachute, doing so is not virtuous because it will lead to ones own death rather than to sustained joy.

Premier, the scope of our school board’s authority is wholly determined by provincial law. You have made it clear, from the outset of your first term in office, that you want to be remembered as the “Education Premier”. To that end, Premier, I would beg you not to allow your legacy to be the Premier who washed his hands and took a nap while those under his power planted and nurtured the seeds of racism, career failure, and educational segregation.

I am asking you, in particular, to introduce legislation that will remove from all publicly funded educational organizations the authority to set up schools that – as I have described above – foster racism, career failure, and educational segregation. And, at the same time, I am asking that you take steps to cause our tax-funded schools to do a better job of explaining the utter irrelevance of race, and the irreplaceable roles of reality and reason in the pursuit of success.

Regards,
Paul McKeever

Leader, Freedom Party of Ontario

c.c. TDSB, K. Wynne, Ontario PC Party

An Aphorism: Human vs. Man

The capacity to reason makes you human, the decision to reason makes you man.

"If you want freedom…" Q&A: Passion no defence of freedom.

Some folks are apparently unhappy that I have criticized the logic and effectiveness of Ezra’s argument for freedom of speech.

The general thrust of some responses has been: “Look, the fact is that he’s exposing the Human Rights Commission, and defending himself from a bully when others would not do so. That makes him a hero. Who cares about egghead analyses of the foundations of freedom?! Shut up!!”.

And that is precisely my point. If you want freedom, the one thing you simply cannot shut up about is: a rational defence for freedom. The freedom to live a rational life cannot be achieved by whipping up a crowd into an anti-intellectual, anti-state passion. Such behaviour can only achieve the opposite: the glorification, and justification, of the anti-intellectual and the anti-rational.

None of this is an attack on Ezra. It is an attack on his arguments for freedom. If those arguments are not identified as flawed and ineffective for the purpose of achieving freedom, we will continue to rely upon them to the demise of freedom.

"If you want freedom…" Q&A: Ezra's battle against Islam and himself

Mark Hubbard wrote, in part:

Finally, Ezra Levant’s defense of free speech in the YouTube clip Sandi put up was inspirational: you’d have to go a long way to find a better advocate of free speech for your speaking engagement, who also has public exposure. So, what is your gripe with him?

I like Ezra. I think he had fun with the Alberta Human Rights Commission. I think he enhanced his notoriety with that stunt. Good for him (and I mean that). However, I don’t think he has contributed, at all, to the prospects for a freer Alberta or Canada.

A condemnation of the Alberta Human Rights Commission should not treat as essential its procedures: that Canada’s human rights tribunals have more inclusive policies in respect of evidence is not the essential problem with them; nor is the essential issue something relating to who one can have as legal counsel etc. Procedure is not the issue. Substantive law is the issue. If a person can be charged and convicted for believing and saying that everything is physical and nothing is supernatural (or the corollary: that it is irrational to defend or obey the alleged whims of an alleged god), then the right to a choice of lawyers, or to protections against hearsay, or to other procedural matters is hardly the point: the problem is that a law makes the expression of such a belief illegal, and that peoples’ belief in the supernatural has resulted in such laws being made.

Ezra beefs that the Complainant is Islamic, and that the Complainant is a “fascist”, etc. But, like an Islamic person, every religious person (Christian, Jewish, etc) believes that obedience to the will of their god is the highest virtue, that belief in their god’s alleged commandments (as set out in holy books) constitutes knowledge, that there exists a supernatural realm, etc. Ezra blames the Imam for outrage over insults concerning Mohammed (insults that, according to the imam, are not permitted by the laws of Allah), but Ezra – taking care to say that he is Jewish (impliedly in a religious sense) – takes no exception to the idea that it is right to obey allegedly divine commandments. Where does a nod to the idea that obedience is a virtue leave Ezra if the Imam’s god allegedly commanded that no person allow the ridicule of Mohammed, and that man must create governments having and using the power to punish those who ridicule Mohammed?

The case against those who are putting Ezra through the ringer is rightly founded on the facts of reality, upon rationality, and upon rational self-interest. Those who – like Ezra – implicitly take the position that obedience to allegedly divine authority is a virtue can therefrom make no logical argument that it is wrong for men to govern in accordance with the commandments of Islam’s god.

If You Want Freedom, Advocate Reason

W wrote:

Ezra Levant would be a good draw as a guest speaker at [Freedom Party’s next] dinner.

I responded:So would a host of other “freedom” fighters, but I think it would be a mistake to invite them to be guest speakers. Ezra is not pro-reason, even if he is – in some morphing, caricaturish, opportunistic sense – in favour of freedom of this thing or that thing (but not of the other thing). At best, he is a traditionalist or sentimental conservative. At worst, he is a libertarian.

There can be no denying that if a political party wants large audiences at its guest-speaker-featured dinners, it needs to feature popular guest speakers (even if they are only transiently popular). If one wants quickly to have a bigger political party that is in favour of freedom of this or freedom of that (but not necessarily freedom of the other thing), one should invite people like Ezra to speak at ones dinners. However, if we want a political party that is in favour of a society in which rational conduct is not illegal (in some circles, this is called a “free” society), we should not be expecting large audiences in the short term, and we will not be promoting such a society by having Ezra Levants (or Stephen Harpers, or Ron Pauls, or [insert libertarian false hope du jour here] ) speak at our dinners.

Thinking rationally is extremely unpopular. We are faced with so many other opportunities to survive without thinking: we can work on an assembly line; we can eat, bathe, defecate, copulate and pray exactly at the times, and in the manner, and with the people, that our parents, or church, or politicians, or friends told us to; we can get intoxicated at all times except where it would cause us to lose our jobs or to be imprisoned; we can watch the news and pretend that we are thinking about the world around us (thereby alleviating whatever guilt we might have about living life unconsciously); we can refrain from ensuring that our children learn how to think rationally and instead offload the structuring of their minds to the government and its anti-reality, anti-reason, anti-moral, pro-collectivism schools; we can get promotions by taking credit for the work done by others and by blaming others for the discreditable work we do; we can blame our unhappiness on the government, or on immigrants, or on the lack of good TV programs, or on a god (i.e., on a god having imposed unhappiness upon us as a consequence of having violated his laws by putting cheese on our burgers, or by shopping on Sunday, or by failing to cover our bodies with clothing from head to toe), or on the failure of people to just “get together”, to “unify”, and to just “give peace a chance” (because we all know that “love is all you need”).

And we believe, so easily and so eagerly, that it is possible to have our cake and eat it too; that we can have a free country led by god-fearin’ mystics, and by democratic committees of depressed moral subjectivists so long as we all just recognize – as an axiom, no less – that the government should not initiate coercive physical force. Why, as evidence, all we need do is look at how Ezra Levant, who dispenses with all of that philosophy nonsense, gives the Human Rights Commission a tongue-lashing. The bloggers pause their ripped version of “V for Vendetta” long enough to rejoice: “Boy, he showed them. The future’s bright for freedom. The government’s learning that the rights that god has given no government has the right to take away! The silent majority are waking up and demanding to be released from their shackles” (the shackles in which they put themselves so that government could do the thinking for them).

Society is a house. The roof is politics, the walls ethics, the foundation epistemology, and the building site metaphysics. Our house is teetering on the brink of a muddy, eroding cliff. Our foundation is splitting and tilting. The mortar is falling from the bricks. The roof is threatening to come down on all of our heads. The critical priorities are to move the house from the brink and to enter the basement, even if largely unseen by passers-by, so as to repair and level the foundation. The roof may be leaking, but replacing the shingles is not going to save us from our demise. And if, as renovators of society, we promote ourselves by featuring our roofers, we will eventually find ourselves trying to serve a dead market.

All of that said, I despise erasers that do not come with pencils. Having done some erasing, let me offer some penciling. Given the current attention being drawn to freedom of speech and human rights commissions in Canada, and given the amoral, oh-so-libertarian response to it all (and, implicitly, the threatened loss of a chance to focus attention on the metaphysical and epistemological nature of what ultimately draws Ezra Levants and Mark Steyns into legal proceedings), I think we could do no better than to have Peter Schwartz address our dinner audience.

The Golden Compass: Not Pro-Reason, (and not atheistic?)

On the basis of a “status” entry on my Facebook profile, a facebook friend (Natasha Blair) asked whether I didn’t like “The Golden Compass”. The book’s author, Philip Pullman, is a self-styled “atheist”. He reportedly made comments to the effect that the purpose of his book series “His Dark Materials” (of which The Golden Compass is the first book) is to turn children into atheists. Based primarily on such reports, religious communities (especially Catholics) have spoken out against going to the movie version that was released recently in theatres.

Having received other enquiries about my views on the book/movie, I thought I’d share here what I wrote on Natasha’s wall…with a few additions.

I watched “The Golden Compass” at the theatre the other day, and I’m almost finished the book. The movie is not perfectly faithful to the book, but it is pretty similar. In each case, the story is chock full of talking animals, flying witches, and grumbles about the church…but no grumbles about allegedly supernatural things, apparently. So far (and I’m only on the first of several books in the series), Pullman appears to be attempting to champion free inquiry, and to condemn the Catholic church as the enemy of free inquiry. However, his choice to use talking moths and bears, and magical flying witches, to make his point undermines his case against the church – and against religion and God – entirely. Preventing free inquiry is but a non-essential: it is but a side-effect of religion’s assault on the efficacy of man’s rational faculty. Reason, not “free enquiry”, is the intended victim not merely of “the church” but of all advocates of “the supernatural”.

By making his case with supernatural characters, Pullman cannot help but imply to children that supernatural beings might exist. If that inference can easily be made by children – and it can – then tirades about the church stifling “free inquiry” fail to imply anything more than a call for the church not to stifle free inquiry…a call for the separation of church and state. Such a call is not the same as – and will not be inferred to be the same as – a call to be rational, and to reject beliefs in “the supernatural”.

Putting aside essential arguments, one is certainly left asking: “Why on earth should I refrain from adopting a belief in a supernatural being called ‘god’, but entertain a belief in supernatural beings that take the form of talking bears and flying witches?”.

I had hoped that the series might serve children well by demonstrating the importance of not engaging in any form of dishonesty – with oneself or with others – about anything, including the facts of reality. Instead, the series appears little more than a pro-mysticism, anti-Catholic tirade…something resembling a battle to separate the Catholic Church from the governance of Britain. Yawn.

Perhaps Pullman will turn his guns on irrational beliefs, such as the supernatural, later in the “His Dark Materials” series. On the basis of what I’ve read/seen so far, however, it seems rather unlikely. The field remains open for a pro-reason book for children.

Reason, faith, and tax-funding for education

Reprint

 

The non-sectarian presumption

 

The London Fog

(thelondonfog.blogspot.com)

 

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Freedom Party of Ontario leader Paul McKeever sends along this letter in response to the Izvestia editorial on that mythical beast, “non-sectarian” education:

I agree that it is a mistake for the government to use taxes to subsidize “faith-based” schools. However, it is self-defeating to base that opposition on the idea that a society that funds multiculturalism should protect funding for a “melting pot role” of public education.

Intentionally or unintentionally, all schools – public and private – have a major influence on a child’s beliefs about the nature of reality, about how it can be understood, and about morality. When a government funds or subsidizes a school with taxes, it eliminates any pretence of a separation of church and state. The state becomes a god of sorts. The schools it funds become its temples. The taxpayer becomes the state’s followers, compelled to pay for the temples and to accept, on faith, that the state is the origin of moral truth. All schools a government funds are “faith-based” in that sense.

In a day when tax-cutters are blamed for murders, our politicians – to avoid offending any voter – fund public schools in which moral relativism wages war against objective codes of right and wrong. At a time when the criminalization of blasphemy is considered seriously in some quarters, Mr. Tory would have the state fund mysticism in a war against the idea that man can understand the universe and use reason alone to distinguish right from wrong. The religious and the moral relativists must be free to teach their children their beliefs and philosophies, but not at the expense of those whose philosophy they seek to destroy. Instead of funding public or private schools with taxes, we must let every parent pay tuition directly to the school that their child attends, and only to that school. A separation of education and taxation is reason’s only hope.

Paul McKeever
Leader, Freedom Party of Ontario

Murder, and its Perpetuation

On August 29, 2005, the National Post ran a column written by Ontario Progressive Conservative party leader John Tory. In it, Mr. Tory continued not only to advocate measures that will not give us safer streets, but to side-step the cause of the violence.

Mr. Tory said he wants to “send a strong message to criminals that gun crimes mean serious jail time” and that “that’s why” he is urging tougher sentencing for “gun” crimes. Two things. First, consider that 50% of murders in gun-controlled Britain (which does not share a border with the USA) are committed with kitchen knives. Murder, not weapons, is the issue. Second, the murderers walking our streets are not deterred by longer sentences: they do not expect to live into their 30s. In fact, the “I’m livin’ hard and dying young” attitude is a huge part of their tough-guy image.

Mr. Tory suggested that if we “beef up” our border security, we can “make a difference”. Yet, according to a 2001 publication by MP Garry Breitkreuz, there are an estimated 7,000,000 to 11,000,000 firearms in Canada already. If it were even remotely possible that tougher border security would stop murderers from importing guns, the only difference we could rationally expect would be slower border crossings that will harm Ontario’s economy.

Mr. Tory called for better organized youth “programs” to “prevent crime”. This is a vague reference to the notion that recreation centres and basket ball courts for the poor prevent murder by keeping would-be murderers from getting bored. Boredom and poverty are not the causes of murder. Almost all human beings will be bored many times in their life: almost none of them will murder someone. To imply that poverty makes one a murderer is to slander and marginalize the poor, almost all of whom will never murder anyone.

The single problem that lies at the root of all of these murders is that the murderers among us view themselves as being beyond good and evil. As they see it, civil society is weak because it distinguishes between good and evil. Civil society is, for them, a sucker; a host to be occupied, intimidated and looted by armed, anti-moral macho men.

It might play well in the pages of the National Post, but those who cast these animals as the victims of a society that did not build them enough entertainment centres; those who share the murder’s twisted philosophy that guns, not people, commit murders; are excusing – even justifying – murder. The murderers of tomorrow hear those justifications loud and clear as they load their pistols and clear their minds of any vague ethical doubts about the acts they are about to commit.

To stop the murders, we must strictly enforce even minor laws so as to imprison murderers and would-be murderers alike. Period.

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