LILLEY: Feds’ anti-racism training deals with political agendas, nothing else

“Myth #1 Reverse racism exists, BIPOC can be racists towards white people,” the section is titled.

“While assumptions and stereotypes about white people do exist, this is considered racial prejudice, not racism,” participants are informed. “Thus, racial prejudice can indeed be directed at white people (e.g. ‘white people can’t dance’) but is not considered racism because of the systemic relationship to power.”

This section raises a lot of questions for me.

Can poor white people who have no power be considered racist then? According to this course, racism is about the power structure and authority and there are plenty of poor white people, some of whom will be racist, but should we just refer to them as having “racial prejudice.”

Can people who aren’t white be racist towards each other?

Experience, including from my very multicultural upbringing, would tell me, yes but this course attempts to claim that all people of colour are united in a struggle for “liberation.”

It is in fact that very word, several other buzz phrases peppered throughout the document that tells me this “training” for all workers in the foreign service is nothing more than an attempt to instill a political ideology using race as the entry point.

It’s a little surprising that some of this got through the vetting process like the parts of the course that should embarrass Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The course clearly says that wearing blackface is an act of “overt white supremacy.”

As we know, Trudeau wore blackface more times than he can count.

Also listed in the document as overt white supremacy are the 1911 ban on Black immigration, the 1885 Chinese Immigration Act, and Residential Schools. We do have racism in Canada, both in our past and in our present, and we should be willing to confront it.

We weren’t pure in the past and we aren’t now.

That said, this training that federal civil servants are subject to does nothing to address the problems and is agenda driven.

Deal with real issues, drop the agendas, and cut short this training plan.