Wednesday, November 26, 2008

From the Dept. of The Really Stupid

This from the CBC's website:
Carleton University [Ottawa] students have decided to pull out of a Canada-wide fundraiser that provides close to $1 million a year for cystic fibrosis research, given that the disease "has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men."
The Carleton University Students Association voted Monday night overwhelmingly in favour of choosing a new charity to support during its orientation week in September, in lieu of Shinerama, which raises money for the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
[...]
The student council motion stated that orientation week "strives to be inclusive" and "all orientees and volunteers should feel like their fundraising efforts will serve their diverse communities.
Let me get this straight. cystic fibrosis, a disease [!], is not "diverse" enough to be considered a worthy recipient of charity from the student council of Carlton University ("Canada's Capital University")?

I don't really know where to begin with this bit of stupidity. I suppose I could point out that the white, male sufferers of CF have mothers and sisters who might not share Carlton Student Council's views on the alleged non-inclusiveness of the disease. It might also be relevant to suggest that anything that benefits any sick person also benefits the community at large. That's what we're talking about, right? Community?

I'm wondering too if men might reconsider donating money to something like breast cancer research, or white people might decide to stop giving money to help those with sickle cell anemia. These are just examples that came into my head after thinking about this for about, oh, two seconds. Has Carlton Student Council thought any of this stuff through?

And then we have this (from the above-linked CBC article; emphases added):
The Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation called the student council's decision "crushing."
Nadine Imbleau Redman, spokeswoman for the foundation, said it's also not true that the disease affects only white people. The disease does affect mainly Caucasians, but that includes Europeans, Indians and people from the Middle East, she said.
Debbie Foster, whose six-year-old daughter Vicky has cystic fibrosis, said she thinks the decision is narrow-minded.
Narrow-minded indeed. And stupid.

5 comments:

  1. Aw, fuck, man! What the fuck? That is so fucking stupid. It seems every time you turn around, somebody's getting caught being plain fucking ignorant.

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  2. Glenn,
    It would be great if we could put this shit in a tank and run our cars off of it. There's certainly no shortage, in any direction one looks.

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  3. These are students, right? Supposedly educated, right? Hmm, someone better ask for their money back. This is just blatant pig ignorance and myopia of the worst kind.

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  4. Unbelievable. So now we have even racist disease. What will be next step? Are they going to ban white coloured clothes? And the worst thing is that when you point at them, they will say you are xenophobic racist.
    Hope they will grow up soon...
    Regards,
    Lorne

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  5. AV,
    Yes, they're students. I'm not sure about the "educated" part...

    Lorne,
    Thanks for dropping by and commenting. I'm a bit of a "leftie" myself, but stupid is stupid no matter where it's coming from.

    From what I've been reading since posting this it seems that Carlton U's council is backing down (or at least re-considering) its decision.

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