Friday, April 17, 2009

The Race For Victimhood

With the contruction of the The Canadian Museum for Human Rights underway, controversy has already begun. We should have seen this coming:
Helen Kennedy, executive director of Egale Canada, was worried gay and lesbian human rights would be ignored because the group was "totally omitted" from the museum's promotional materials.

(Helen Kennedy and Egale, you'll recall, were the ones who objected to Hockey Night in Canada airing the term "pansification" that Mike Milbury used to describe new anti-fighting initiatives. It was considered homophobic. Appallingly, HNIC caved in and Milbury is not allowed to use the word anymore. This gives you an idea of the kind of people we're dealing with.)

There were more groups lining up for victimhood as well.
"It needs to be inclusive and equitable. If it focuses disproportionate attention to some cases over other cases, then what it is actually teaching us is that there is a hierarchy of human suffering, and that some human suffering is more important than other cases of human suffering; and on that basis, the museum would not be teaching us anything about human rights, it would be teaching us about racism," Kafieh said.

It's the Oprahfication of our culture. It's a contest between groups for who is the biggest victim. The prize for victimhood is political capital.

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