BATRA: Social justice warrior misses the boat on Humboldt
The best of humanity has been on display in my home province of Saskatchewan as our country continues to mourn and tries to make sense of that horrible bus crash that took so many innocent young lives.
The small, tight-knit community of Humboldt has been unwittingly thrust into the international spotlight, and has handled it with dignity and strength – a seemingly impossible task when 15 sons, who simply loved the iconic Canadian game of hockey — were taken from them in the blink of an eye.
I’m a member of a visible minority group and I know Saskatchewan.
I know towns like this, where people are decent.
Where everyone knows everyone else and people take care of one another, celebrating their successes and grieving their losses, together.
You would be hard-pressed to find a kid that grew up in the prairies who didn’t travel by bus, van or car from small town to small town, for a hockey, ringette or curling tournament. I did.
Everyone supports their local teams, no matter the caliber of play, and they do so with pride.
The depth of Humboldt’s loss has touched the hearts of people around the world.
A GoFundMe campaign has already raised over $7 million (and climbing) to support the victims’ families.
So it’s difficult to imagine someone finding this to be somehow dark and nefarious. Difficult, but not impossible.
A freelance writer, self-described activist and “happy socialist,” Nora Loreto, whose work has appeared in the
Globe and Mail and
Maclean’s, took to her Twitter account to lament: “I’m trying to not get cynical about what is a totally devastating tragedy, but the maleness, the youthfulness and the whiteness of the victims play a significant role.”
She goes on to suggest in subsequent tweets that her point was, “I want justice and more for so many other grieving parents and communities.”
What a sad and senseless way to draw attention to other legitimate causes.
Loreto, and many others on the extreme left, apparently feel they get a pass on saying vicious and hurtful things because they claim to represent oppressed minorities.
But all such race-baiting really does is to destroy their own credibility.
No one with a good heart is looking at this loss of life in Saskatchewan through the lens of race or gender because this loss goes beyond race, gender and politics.
When people are hit with adversity, others just want to help.
Do we check the races of nations before we send in Canada’s Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) to help?
Did anyone care about the colour of Haitians when Canadians stepped up to help in the wake of devastating hurricanes?
Of course not.
If you want to address institutionalized racism, fair enough, that’s a legitimate discussion.
But gratuitously smearing the members of the Humboldt Broncos hockey team to do it? That’s just appalling.
It must be exhausting to be so angry and aggrieved all of the time.
To say nothing of pathetic.
BATRA: Social justice warrior misses the boat on Humboldt | Toronto Sun
