WHITBY FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1989, PAGE 7 PAGE SEVEN SOME STRAIGHT TALK ON DISCRIIMINATION ...the masculine form shall include the feminine, the singular shall include the plural and all references to white andhr black shall include white, black, yellow, red, green, etc. Discrimination.is reality - we may not like it, we include disclaimers like the above to pretend it isn't there, but it is and it always will be. As long as there are 'visible" minorities, people who look or act differently, there are others who will feel awkward or threatened - the result is shunning, separation and discrimination. Discrimination is the result of upbringing and, in the case of immigrants, the social environment of their home country. In recent months, white policemen in Toronto have "gunned down" two blacks. Are the police racist? In most third world countries, the police are the enemy. They are an integral part of the system that keeps the people poor and in their place. If you've got money you can bribe your way through the bureaucratic mazes but if you're not, emigration is your only hope. And when they arrive on our shores they bring more than the color of their skin - they bring a lot of cultural baggage that includes a suspicion of authority and especially police. Now, put a person like Lester Donaldson, who obviously carried a pretty heavy dose of that baggage, into a domestic situation in which the police are called and you have a confrontation. Introduce an axe into the situation and you have a violent confrontation, in this case death. But who discriminated against who? Would the situation have been different had a white man been wielding the axe? Donaldson's hatred towards the police was his own undoing - Donaldson was far more racist than Const. Deviney. Neither Donaldson's death nor Wade Lawson's at the whèel of a stolen car stand up under scrutiny as an act of dis- crimination. The police may be accused of being inept, unprepared, over-reactive or whatever but racist they're not. The black community cries "Racist!" because so many of them still carry their own "police are the bad guys" baggage. A lot more blacks are race conscious than the whites they accuse. Crying "racist" does not encourage good relations. Defining problems, though, is the easy part - finding solutions is a lot more difficult. The Toronto Police response is to hire more visible minorities - it won't work. Donaldson's cultural baggage was not a suspicion of white police, it was a suspicion of all police, and, in his home country those police were all "ethnic" police. So while the recruitment of more police from minorities is probably a good idea, it does not solve any of the problems that led to Donaldson's death. (Drug addicts and crooks are also suspicious of the police - I hope we don't feel compelled to start hiring them.) But discrimination is a lot more than black vs white or citizen vs the police. It's usually a lot more subtle. The law makes it illegal ...so it has to be subtle. So subtle that except in rare cases it's impossible to prove. A landlord is not obliged to rent to any particular person or to explain his choice of tenants. "Poor" people may be turned away because of perceived problems in collecting rent. If a person is untidy, upkeep might be a prime concern. Wild parties or drugs would be a concern with some young people. All of these might be interpreted as discrimination but all are valid reasons for choosing one person over another. To an employer, the ability to communicate easily and effectively in English may be essential but to an immigrant it may seem like discrimination. A handicapped person may feel fully capable of doing a job but an employer may feel that the handicap presents unnecessary risks. Hiring the right person for a job every time is a skill that every employer wishes he had. Weighing a myriad of pluses and minuses in one individual against a different set of pluses and minuses in another is hit and miss at best. Every employer develops his own methods but chewed fingernails and lack of eye contact are far more likely to blow an interview than the color of your skin. Does that mean that employers discriminate against timid neurotics? You bet they do! Sexual bias is an indigenous form of discrimination, but it too is based on cultural baggage - our own. The association of women with certain types of jobs and men with others is part of our upbringing and only time can eliminate the stereotype images. Laws designed to eliminate sexual discrimination have simply forced the problems underground. An employer can no longer ask a woman's marital status and so (if he can't get the information in any other way) he may well assume that she is married, pregnant and ber husband will be transferred to Whitehorse in two months. Career oriented women are placed in the awkward position of volunteering such sensitive information if they expect to get ahead. Free and open discussion bas to take place if we hope to reduce discrimination, but our .present laws stifle such communication. If people can't discuss tbe cultural baggage they carry around with them, there is little hope of lightening the load. TMS ISAYOUNG OFFENDERIWHO SAS E WE CAN'T Yo(R ISNAME OR SJ[OW HIS FACE ALL WE CAN TELL YOU IS TFIAT WE SET hIM . .- JFREE! s GUESTS AT ONTARIO LADIES' COLLEGE CONVERSAZIONE, FEBRUARY, 1907 The social event of the year was the conversazione at the Ontario Ladies' College (now Trafalgar Castle School). Guests would come by train from Toronto to promenade through the halls of the college with the students. Dancing was forbidden by the Methodist school in Edwardian times. Whitby ArhivS pho 10 YEARS AGO from the Wednesday, January 31, 1979 edition of the WHITBY FREE PRESS • Objections to the Oshawa Fair's move to Whitby have been resolved. It plans to open on a site on Garrard Road this summer. • A new steam plant for the Dr. J. O. Ruddy General Hospital may be completed in March. • A bus service from north Whitby to the Iroquois Park swimming pool is proposed by the town's recreation department. • Whitby lawyer Nigel Schilling has been appointed to the Board of Governors of Durhan College. 25 YEARS AGO from the Thursday, January 30, 1964 edition of the WHITBY WEEKLY NEWS • Fred Ing was honored for his work for the Whitby Minor Hockey Association, on Minor Hockey Night, Jan. 25. • Liquor by the glass will be available in Whitby by April lst. The Royal and Spruce Villa Hotels are building cocktail bars. • Dutch Elm Disease has caused the removal of four of Whitby's largest trees from the grounds of the municipal building. • The Henry Street High School Drama Club will present "Russia Inside Out," a play written by the students, on Feb. 7 and 8. 75 YEARS AGO from the Thursday, January 29, 1914 edition of the WHITBY GAZETTE AND CHRONICLE • The Town Council has been presented with a proposal for a ferry service between Whitby and Olcott, New York. • Oshawa men are cutting ice from the bay at Port Perry because sewage makes the ice at Oshawa Harbor unfit for use in iceboxes. • The new passenger train for the Canadian Pacific Railway on Brock Street North is nearng completion. • Fred McBrien has opened a restaurant in the Whitby Arena, where hot drinks and lunches are served on every skating night.