this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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[–] phario@lemmy.ca 46 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

God. I don’t even know what to say.

The article reads so strange…like describing a cult.

His stellar career took on a sour note after he was bullied in a diversity, equity and inclusion training session for Toronto District School Board (TDSB) administrators in 2021, according to a lawsuit Bilkszto filed in court. His sin, in the eyes of facilitators at the KOJO Institute, was his questioning of their claim that Canada was a more racist place than the United States. Canada wasn’t perfect, he said, but it still offers a lot of good. For the rest of the training session, and throughout a follow-up training session the week after, facilitators repeatedly referred to Bilkszto’s comments as examples of white supremacy.

[–] heartlessevil@lemmy.one 2 points 1 year ago

That's because what you're reading is from a cult. What unbiased piece of journalism would say someone was bullied into a DEI class? It really says everything about the case and yeah if you believe that you should blow your brains out or whatever this loser did.

[–] SilentStorms@lemmy.ca 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

His sin, in the eyes of facilitators at the KOJO Institute, was his questioning of their claim that Canada was a more racist place than the United States.

I would like to see a less biased story about this. It's sad what happened to this man, and I'm not even saying he did anything wrong, but I don't buy that the above quote is all that happened.

[–] Labtec6@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 year ago

KOJO absolutely does believe Canada is more racist than the US because it suits them. No evidence behind it though.

[–] Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 8 points 1 year ago

Sickening.

The guy was a class act, voiced his opinion, and then got fucking HAMMERED by his board.

Completely awful

[–] Guns4Gnus@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hard to feel bad about someone more interested in whataboutism than they are understanding other people problems.

[–] HikingVet@lemmy.sdf.org 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

How is that a whataboutism?

How is questioning the validity of a statement not trying to understand other people's problems?

Not that I trust NatPo, but there isn't any other info (that I have seen) that points to this man being a white supremacist.

[–] PugJesus@kbin.social 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/former-principal-who-sued-tdsb-over-alleged-bullying-during-anti-racism-training-dies-by-suicide/article_4b9f98a9-7394-5517-909b-c69eb581aec9.html

The conflict arose after Ojo-Thompson is alleged to have suggested that Canada was more racist than the U.S., in part because Canada has “never reckoned with its anti-Black history” in the way the U.S. has.

Bilkszto, who previously taught high school in Buffalo, N.Y., disagreed with the statement. He said it would be “an incredible disservice to our learners” to suggest the U.S. is a more just society than Canada.

Bilkszto’s lawsuit alleges Ojo-Thompson reacted “with vitriol.”

“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?” she said, according to Bilkszto’s lawsuit.

Bilkszto claims he tried to de-escalate the situation, admitting there was anti-Black racism in Canada but argued that the evidence suggests “we are a far more just society” than the U.S.

At this point, according to Bilkszto’s lawsuit, another KOJO facilitator intervened, saying what Bilkszto was bringing up was not relevant.

The facilitator allegedly said if Bilkszto wanted to be “an apologist” for Canada or the U.S. the session was “not the forum for that.”

Another session was held a week later. At the beginning of the session, according to Bilkszto’s lawsuit, Ojo-Thompson referred to what happened the previous week and described it as a “real-life” example of resistance in support of white supremacy.

Bilkszto claims in his lawsuit that the statement, among others, implicitly referred to him as a racist and white supremacist.

The Star had begun reporting on the lawsuit prior to Bilkszto’s death.

In a July 7 statement, the KOJO Institute said it disputes many of the allegations in Bilkszto’s lawsuit against the TDSB, “including the descriptions of interactions with KOJO Institute staff which paint an inaccurate and incomplete picture” of what happened in the sessions.

They said it would be “inappropriate” to comment further since the matter was before the courts.

YMMV on whether it was whataboutism or not, but regardless, it was pretty clearly not malicious, and it's a shame that the distress over the incident led him to suicide considering his positive record in the schooling system.

[–] PugJesus@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

My personal reading of the very limited information is that this was a clash of personalities and priorities rather than malice on either side. The principal probably came in expecting that a DEI seminar would be about methods to make students from minority backgrounds feel more included; the speaker presumably felt that the point of the session was to develop the tools examine one's own biases and reduce the implicit prejudices of our society and ourselves.

Thus, when the conversation turned to personal and societal biases, the principal felt unexpectedly attacked (as those who appreciate their societies often feel in such unexpected conversations) and became defensive. The speaker, on the other hand, probably took the defensiveness, without any context to ground it in, as some chud playing dumbass games and playing argumentative in a session they were forced to be in, and reacted with understandable hostility. The other facilitator seemed to recognize this to some degree by pointing out that the point wasn't to play apologist for one country or the other.

[–] Guns4Gnus@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you are more interested in arguing that we aren't as bad as the States, than learning about your potential aggressions, you only care about your own feelings.

I shouldn't have to tell you that making sensitivity training into massaging your ego is a shitty look for a lib

[–] HikingVet@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 year ago

Fucking what?

[–] Guns4Gnus@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

Sounds more like he chose the easy way out after being confronted with their biases.

It's amazing how everyone takes the opinion columns like gospel.

Explains why people think that BLM burned down half the states.