Each of us has two parents. Each of them has two. So we have four grandparents, eight great grandparents, sixteen great great grandparents, and so on. So we’d only have to go back ten generations to meet our thousand ancestors… Read More ›
slavery
HOW TO MAINTAIN ONE’S MORAL INNOCENCE NOW THAT SILENCE IS VIOLENCE
We wouldn’t have to go back too many generations to realise that every one of us is the product of rape. That every one of us is the product of incest. That every one of us is both the descendant… Read More ›
OF HUMAN BONDAGE
Picking cotton in leg-irons is very slow work. So instead – and with very few exceptions – slaves are held in their servitude not by leg-irons but by there being nowhere else to go, and there being no access to… Read More ›
THE REPARATIONS ARGUMENT
When receiving an award, be it for this or for that, it’s now considered churlish not to acknowledge that, “We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.” Only at one’s peril should this be confused with “We… Read More ›
INDIGENIZATION
George Orwell wrote in Animal Farm that “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” He could’ve written as readily that we’re all victims, but some of us are more victims than others. Your ancestors were… Read More ›
INTER-GENERATIONAL JUSTICE
Dr. Doolittle can talk with all the animals. I can only talk with my dog. Still, I can testify – because she’s assured me of this – that she doesn’t think of me as belonging to a different species. She… Read More ›
INDIGENOUS STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE
The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has argued that a university can task itself to seeking the truth, or to promoting social justice, but not both. Why? Because the truth is sometimes incompatible with the promotion of social justice. A university… Read More ›
SLAVERY
Because I’m now two-thirds of a century old I’m allowed to be a curmudgeon. I don’t say things like, “Why can’t they mow their lawn?!”, but I do ask, “Why can’t my students write in proper English sentences?!” But what… Read More ›
