The Toronto District School Board is presently seeking to increase the racial sensitivity of its no doubt predominantly White staff. One of the consulting firms so employed is the KOJO Institute founded by Kike Ojo-Thompson. Two “training” sessions conducted by her in 2021 led Richard Bilkszto, a former principal and 24 year veteran of the board, to take exception to several of her statements. He found it ridiculous, for example, that she should suggest Canada was in fact more racist than the U.S.. Submitted to excoriating criticism by Ojo-Thompson, Bilkszto, still employed part-time by the board, took a leave of absence. Publicly denounced as a “white supremacist,” devastated by the ruination of his reputation, he recently took his own life.
Subsequent to his confrontation with Ojo-Thompson, Bilkszto lodged a complaint with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board which ruled that her conduct had been “abusive, egregious and vexatious” and rose “to the level of workplace harassment and bullying.” It is no exaggeration, sadly, to point out that this is the way that many on the “compassionate” Left deal with most everyone who disagrees with them!
One of Ojo-Thompson’s scornful statements cited by Bilkszto in his complaint was as follows: “We are here to talk about anti-Black racism, but you in your whiteness think that you can tell me what’s really going on for Black people.” This is a sentiment endlessly repeated by Black activists. But its ultimate implication is that Whites can never comment on the ideas or conduct of people of color. It is a notion that makes rational political discourse between the races virtually impossible. It is a notion that eliminates Human Intelligence and Morality from consideration on the grounds that the color of their skin is the determining factor in the life of every Non-White in North America. That millions of intelligent, hard-working Blacks have managed to excel here in the West, of course exposes the idiotic inadequacy of this perspective. Bizarrely, when individuals such as the wonderful Candace Owens celebrate the efficacy of self-discipline and hard work, they are frequently denounced as sell-outs to their White oppressors. Such is the elimination of actual Human Achievement from the superficial ethos of the contemporary Left.
This past May, Bilkszto appeared on Steve Paikin’s TV show “The Agenda” where he criticized the Toronto School Board’s “progressive” policy of admitting students to various programs based on a lottery system rather than the merit of their achievements. The object of this stratagem is of course to redress the injustices of the past, to randomly give a helping hand to Black kids who may have grown up in highly challenging circumstances, circumstances ostensibly the result of their parent’s oppression in racist Canada. But do two Wrongs make a Right? The demographic most conspicuously effected by this lottery system are students of Oriental parentage who statistically achieve at a much higher rate than their Black contemporaries. If White Canadians are in fact the horrid racists despised by Ojo-Thompson, why did we not oppress those of Oriental extraction to the same extent that we apparently oppressed Blacks? Or is it possible the cultural values espoused by these various peoples are the chief architects of their destiny? Is it possible life is far more complex than the Left’s narrative of Oppression could ever admit? We have all heard of those “tiger moms” of Chinese extraction who insist on self-discipline and hard work from their offspring. Is it not grossly unjust that students who have excelled as a result of such efforts should be denied access to their educational program of choice on the basis of a lottery? Is the gospel preached by people like Ojo-Thompson not rooted in Black racial prejudice? Is her assertion that Canada is more racist than the U.S. not belied by the simple fact of the 19th C. “underground railroad ” through which thousands of Black Americans escaped to the freedom of the Great White North? Indeed is the lottery endorsed by the Toronto District School Board not just another Leftist assault on the Capitalist principle that merit and achievement are integrally related to the arc of our lives?
Always on the defensive for saying anything positive about Capitalism, I am perfectly willing to admit that the Freedoms engendered in that system can lead to abuses that must be closely monitored by governments. But at the same time the material incentives for Achievement offered by Capitalism are integral to the so-called privileged life style which Blacks, and indeed immigrants from all over the non-Western world, are so eager to share. The Toronto District School Board’s “lottery system” clearly prioritizes racial issues ahead of the just desserts of its various individual applicants. But is this not the very definition of Racism?
The Black “conservatives” whom I admire focus on Ideas and Values rather than skin color. Candace Owens was appalled that career criminal George Floyd was simplistically hailed as the “innocent” victim of a White racist cop. Having made it clear that Whites have no right to judge Black people, Ojo-Thompson no doubt sees Owens as a traitor to her race. But is it not perfectly clear to anyone of a rational perspective, that while poor Richard Bilkszto’s objections to Ojo-Thompson’s rants were a matter of simple common sense, she is the one who is in fact motivated by sheer racial bias? And how absurd is it that The Toronto District School Board is paying her to vent her rage?