November 25, 2008, - 4:05 pm

Canadian PC Police Get More Insidious: Big Brother College Conversation Monitors

By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
If you’re Canadian, you might wanna think about going to school in the States . . . unless you want your conversation monitored and reported upon by the junior block captain.
Queen’s University (in Kingston, Ontario) prof Judith Irwin exposes and decries this latest Big Brother, Eh! development. Sounds like the Nazis or the Communists, or both:

bigbrotherhitler.jpg

As a Queen’s University faculty member, I was embarrassed to hear of Queen’s new “conversation cop” program, euphemistically called the “Intergroup Dialogue Program.” To hire students to co-ordinate and lead racial awareness seminars or make presentations on bias and prejudice may have some benefit. But to encourage them (that is, pay them) to intervene in private conversations between other individuals, is not only bumping up political correctness to new heights, but is liable to have an effect that is opposite to the goals of acceptance and respect that are desired. Queen’s students should not have to live within an atmosphere of surveillance. And they should not have to worry that their animated, perhaps slightly too loud or slightly too aggressive private conversations will be overheard by spies.

Yet another thing to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day: that we don’t have this here . . . yet.
**** UPDATE: Reader “c_f” differs with me on this:

I think this is going on here too — e.g. in the workplace there are diversity managers, etc., and there are, at least, informal diversity and PC monitors running around patrolling speech & actions in the workplace. Probably goes on to some extent on campuses, etc., also.

c_f, great point. You are right. It is, indeed, already here.






7 Responses

“Yet” … that’s the key word here! But as my Canadian friends would surely say:
Tanks for telling us a’boot what are going on up dare in Canada, eh! If I were up dare I’d tell’em ta “Take Off! eh”
Jimmy Lewis
SCS, Michigan
Blog: http://rougerevival.blogspot.com/

Jimmy on November 25, 2008 at 4:36 pm

More Canadian College political correctness gone wild.
Fundraiser canned on claims disease affects only whites
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081125/carleton_fundraiser_081125/20081125?hub=TopStories

KrazyKafir on November 25, 2008 at 5:54 pm

I imagine the helpful conversation directors will be told to go multiply themselves diversely.

BL@KBIRD on November 25, 2008 at 9:19 pm

I agree that the thought police have been around for quite a while. I remember getting in trouble AT WORK for something I was overheard saying in a restaurant – because it wasn’t PC and MIGHT have offended someone of a particular race/gender/sexual orientation IF such a person had also been eavesdropping on my conversation the way the PC police squad was.
This type of thing is HERE and it has been for quite a while. I was even told to discipline an employee because she liked to call herself a nickname that was offensive to black people only if used by a white person. If a black person called themselves that name, it would have been fine. But a black employee complained because a white person used the nickname. This junk is unbelievable!!!

DG in GA on November 26, 2008 at 12:50 am

What’s next, gulags?

interestinconundrum on November 26, 2008 at 10:10 am

I see Typepad is wonky here too

interestinconundrum on November 26, 2008 at 10:11 am

test

interestinconundrum on November 26, 2008 at 10:21 am

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