Yes.<\/p>\n
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog post advocating that newspapers should close their comments sections<\/a>. \u00a0In the days since then I have heard from many people agreeing with me, and no one has disagreed. \u00a0I have had a twitter conversation with a National Post reporter whose piece about the breaking of a copper<\/a> on the steps of the Victoria Legislature was – as is typical – hijacked by racist comments. \u00a0 \u00a0In that Twitter conversation, Tristin Hooper, the reporter stated that there is nothing he can do to influence this conversation and that “freedom can be an ugly, ugly thing sometimes<\/a>.”<\/p>\n Well no doubt. \u00a0But in pondering this situation more, I am left to conclude that newspapers are actually trafiicking in racism. \u00a0Take for example this really interesting Globe and Mail piece about the spiritual side of Idle No More.<\/a> This is a good discussion where people actually learned something in the conversation. \u00a0And then you get comments like this:<\/p>\n “What a load of crap. With the chiefs, elders and anyone directly related to them on the take the two spiritual sides of ‘idle no more’ are 1) Hand over more cash,2 \u00a0) and dont even think for a second we want to work at an 8 to 4 job. Oh, and add the mantra of Accounting? Accounting? Thats a white mans distraction. So.<\/p>\n The Globe and Mail has a polcy at the top of its comments page that reads:<\/p>\n Editor’s Note: Comments that appear on the site are not the opinion of The Globe and Mail, but only of the comment writer. Personal attacks, offensive language and unsubstantiated allegations are not allowed. For more information on our commenting policies, please see our \u00a0Community Guidelines<\/a> page, or read our full \u00a0Terms and Conditions<\/a>. If you see a typo or error on our site, \u00a0report it to us<\/a>. Please include a link to the story where you spotted the error.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The comment above contains two of these three violations and elsewhere in that same comment section Teresa Spence is referred to as “Thief Spence.” \u00a0The editor’s policy may be that these are technically violations, but they are allowed to stand. \u00a0To make matters worse, replies on the Globe and Mail website are collapsed in threads, making it impossible to address this information and have your objections seen. \u00a0Not much of a free market of ideas. A false comment gets more visibility than the reply that aims to correct it. \u00a0Want to create a set of misperceptions of First Nations?<\/a> Just write all manner of comments. \u00a0No one will read the replies.<\/p>\n So what is going on here? \u00a0The Globe and Mail does not enforce its own polices, or at least does it completely arbitrarily. \u00a0An interesting read on the spiritual side of Idle No More gets poisoned by racism, personal attacks and unsubstantiated allegations, and we just keep looking.<\/p>\n The editorial policy says that the opinions in the comments are not the opinions of the paper. \u00a0But by leaving comments sections like this open to this kind of abuse the Globe and Mail is sharing an opinion with you. \u00a0It is stating that “it is the opinion of this paper that comments like the ones below are not in violation of our policy and contribute to the conversation.”<\/p>\n
\nIf you dig back far enough you will find the simple hunter-gatherer approach to understanding the cosmos. Toss in the guilt ridden white mentality and the stone age vision of the world becomes an all encompassing stewards of the land ‘religion’. The only way this all flies is that modern society buys into the idea and pays for it.
\nSettle directly with everyone covered by the Indian Act bypassing the chiefs and elders completely. Give them their home and the land it sits on fee simple, a wad of cash and that is the end of it. It would be way cheaper then continuing this on for ever!”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n