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Race Card: CBC-TV anchor insults visible minorities



CBC-TV's Evan Solomon explores the question: "Conrad Black can come back, what about Gary Freeman?" In the process, Mr. Solomon links the Gary Freeman case to the use of the so-called "race card".

Evan Solomon is a Canadian writer, magazine publisher and television journalist, who currently hosts the nightly series Power & Politics on CBC News Network.

On 1 May 2012 Mr. Solomon interviewed Gary Freeman about a controversy that was sparked by Tom Mulcair’s comments [video attached]. Mr. Mulcair who is the new leader of the NDP basically suggested that Conrad Black was being let back into Canada while Gary Freeman was not, can be understood by appreciating the apparent operation of institutionalized racism.

Both Mr. Freeman and Mr. Black “served their time” in the U.S. for ‘crimes‘. Mr. Freeman’s crime occurred during a general time of social upheaval in the United States during the late 1960’s Civil Rights Movement. So, what accounts for the substantive discrepancy of treatment between Mr. Black and Mr Freeman?

Indeed, Mr. Black had once referred to himself as a “Darwinian capitalist”. His financial empire was built without any regard to human rights and was based on an apparent ethos of “Darwinian capitalism”. Mr. Freeman’s political activities had been in the spirit of the advancement of human rights which got caught up in a broader context of rebellion. The police of the 1960’s which Mr. Freeman, and other blacks at the time faced were often photographed routinely beating-up peaceful protesters.

Evan Solomon claimed that Mr. Mulcair’s comments was “using the race card”. However, for many visible minorities who have experienced institutionalized racism in all its forms, arguably, the next worst things to having had those experiences, are abject denial of those verifiable patters of experiences by those who view themselves as speaking for the ‘authorities‘.

When that abject denial is then anointed by national journalists like Mr. Solomon, the result is the affirmation of a prevailing context of suffering that continues under a milieu of denial.

Arguably, the spirit of fair journalism, is to break down prejudice and to foster understanding across communities, and is not to prolong the spread of ignorant “populist” phrases like “the race card” construct which affirms the legitimacy of ignorance and the execution of alienation.

The first time I ever heard the term “race card” coincides with a Wikipedia entry. In the O. J. Simpson murder trial, where critics accused the defence of “playing the race card” in presenting Mark Fuhrman's racist past (e.g., his recorded use of the word "nigger" and his pattern of apparent tampering with murder evidence in prior cases) as a reason to draw his credibility as a witness into question.

When Mr. Solomon used the term “race card” while he was speaking with Mr. Freeman his demeanour became understandably defensive. You might wonder 'why'? Well, it is apparent that Mr. Solomon threw out the term race card in his show, with the same intent which so many other people, particularly in positions of power, use the term. “Race card” is a term that is used to somehow present verifiable and documented cases of institutionalized racism as a being a purely political ploy that is designed to mischievously make claims about an experience which does not exist. The equivalent of the term race card would be to accuse a lady who claimed that her boss was sexually harassing her as “playing the gender card” or if you cited the release of radiation toxins by TEPCO in Japan as being your desire to “play the environmental card”.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/324213

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