Racism as a racket

Vincent J. Curtis

26 Sept 20

Evelyn Myrie is a Jamaican immigrant to Canada who began complaining about racism practically from the moment she arrived, over thirty years ago.  Apparently, it was never so bad that she decided to leave.  Withal, a permanent accusation of racism has been a dream of hers, and the first Anti-racism Resource Center was her brainchild.

Racism may not be prevalent in Hamilton, but claiming that it is can be personally lucrative.

The first Hamilton Anti-Racism Resource Centre initiative began in April, 2018, and mysteriously collapsed ten months later.  Internal dissention, confusion, and a lack of urgency could be contributing factors.  Obviously, the problem of racism in Hamilton was not then so great and pressing that the mission held the organization together.

After an interlude of eighteen months, the city is trying to resurrect the initiative.  Plainly, the problem of racism was not urgent in that period, and nothing can be pointed to that suggests racism has gotten significantly worse.  No matter.  The city is bound to hold that its citizenry is afflicted with racism, and is attempting again to create a bureaucratic answer to racism.

Enter Evelyn Myrie.  She has been complaining about racism in Hamilton for decades.  If anyone knows where it is, she does.  Council searched for a consultant to guide the centre’s reopening, and her firm, EMpower Strategy Group, seems to have been hired.  (There’s a lot of profit to be had in the non-profit sector!) Her firm and some panel will put forward a list of candidates for the board of the center.  It will only take three months.

This baby is going to have a governing model, a board of 12, and its expenses all covered by city taxpayers.  The purpose of the enterprise will be to cure Hamilton of its non-urgent problem of racism.

Nice work when you can get it.  I can imagine years spent by the initiative getting its arms around their problem, and then coming up with a list of abstract observations and impractical solutions impossible to implement.  Then more years spent monitoring “progress.”  All the while, that Hamilton has a problem with racism will be insinuated in the public discourse.  God help you if you deny it – that only proves that you’re a racist.  Doubt me?  Just read “White Fragility” by Robin Diangeld.

City taxpayers will be supporting an Anarchist-Nihilist project founded upon Marxist analysis of class divisions and identity politics.  Racism is a lucrative business for some people.  Racism can be exploited as a racket.

-30-