Sunday, March 21, 2010

CBC somewhat akin to "rancid cloud of wandering space gas": poll

Perhaps due to an insufficient number of hate crimes in the news, the CBC is now spilling ink over the public's perception of discrimination in Canada: 

Aboriginal Peoples, Muslims face discrimination most: poll

The headline makes it sound like this poll has revealed the fact that Aboriginals and Muslims are most often the victims of discrimination in our country, but the article states only that "One in three Canadians believe that Aboriginal Peoples and Muslims are the frequent targets of discrimination...." and "More than a tenth of Canadians surveyed said they thought Jews, Chinese and anglophones inside Quebec suffered from persistent discrimination...."
Instances of prejudice or racism surely do happen in Canada, as they do in any society made up of sinful human beings. But how is it in any way useful to report on how often randomly selected persons guess it is happening?  Not that a CBC- commissioned poll on how often unjust discrimination really does occur would be any more useful, or even possible. How could one tell the truthful respondents from the cranks who cry "Discrimination!" every time they don't get their own way? Maybe the discriminators will helpfully own up to their misdeeds in order to give us the most accurate picture.

In the sidebar of the article you will see a link that invites you to "Tell...your stories of acceptance or discrimination." Here's my story: I accept that the CBC practices no discrimination when it comes to determining what is news and what is useless effluence, but I still wish I didn't have to pay for it.

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