Subject: Campus Race-and-Sex Industry:Que Bono?

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1993 19:20:52 GMT

Yes, who profits from the establishment of the racisim and sexism industry on
your campus?  Ask how much in direct and indirect costs; ask about the
provision of government contracts to discover enclaves of gender harassment and
race harassment; ask how much money has been withdrawn from library services,
reductions in purchases of serials and books, to pay for these self-interested
bureaucracies.--

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From: [email-masked] (Rosemary Waigh)
Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1993 19:37:39 GMT

>reductions in purchases of serials and books, to pay for these self-interested

[email-masked], why do you keep posting these hostile postings about
people opposed to racism and sexism without giving a solid reason for your
discontent?

Do you deny that there is a problem with racism and sexism?

Ro
-- 
Rosemary Waigh             Undergraduate, Computer Science / Linguistics
[email-masked]   University of Toronto
"Five percent of the people in the world consume one-third of its resources...
and produce almost half the non-organic waste...those people are us." Adbusters

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From: [email-masked] ("Frank Ch. Eigler")
Date: 6 Apr 93 16:40:32 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] writes:
>Yes, who profits from the establishment of the racisim and sexism
>industry on your campus?  Ask how much in direct and indirect costs; ask
>about the provision of government contracts to discover enclaves of
>gender harassment and race harassment; ask how much money has been
>withdrawn from library services, reductions in purchases of serials and
>books, to pay for these self-interested bureaucracies.--

>Do you deny that there is a problem with racism and sexism?

Rosemary, ``singer''s complaint seems pretty clear to me.  He claims
that the money spent on funding groups dedicated to finding ever more
examples of racism and sexism would be better spent on the areas where
funding has been cut.

Do you deny that general underfunding is a worse problem than
rare sexism and racism?
-- 

-- Frank Ch. Eigler -- Comp Eng -- <[email-masked]> -- (I'm Brian!)

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From: [email-masked] (Rosemary Waigh)
Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 16:49:19 GMT

>examples of racism and sexism would be better spent on the areas where

How much money is actually spent on the alleged "racism and sexism industry"?
>Do you deny that general underfunding is a worse problem than

1.  Would cutting programmes to combat racism and sexism have any significant
    effect on underfunding?

2.  If disabled students are rare, does that mean we shouldn't spend money
    providing the services they need?  I don't think so.  Similarly, even
    if sexism/racism are rare, their victims should be provided with the
    services they need.
-- 
Rosemary Waigh             Undergraduate, Computer Science / Linguistics
[email-masked]   University of Toronto
"Five percent of the people in the world consume one-third of its resources...
and produce almost half the non-organic waste...those people are us." Adbusters

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From: [email-masked] ("Frank Ch. Eigler")
Date: 6 Apr 93 17:26:55 GMT

[email-masked] (Rosemary Waigh) writes:

> [...]

Excellent questions, and they should indeed be considered by those in
power when they distribute money.  I recall the Ontario NDP government
has spent several hundred million dollars on employment equity and other
such programs.  The question to be answered is: are these programs making
enough headway toward reducing real racism and sexism to justify such an
amount, or are they merely funding a beaurocratic machine that seeks
mainly to self-propagate?

>    if sexism/racism are rare, their victims should be provided with the

This is a skewed analogy.  The government (I hope) does not pay people
to help identify disabled people; such folks seek out the agencies for
support.  The government does pay people to help identify "victims of
racism or sexism".  The question is not *whether* to help real victims
("Yes, of course."), but rather is an expensive social
"victim-identification" machinery *necessary* to this end?
--

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From: [email-masked] (Melvin Klassen)
Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 18:28:33 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> "Ben" <[email-masked]> writes:
> Yes, who profits from the establishment of the racisim [sic] 
> and sexism industry on your campus?  

Ah, another one of those "when did you stop beating your spouse?" questions.

To try to answer either question would only add creditability to the question!

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From: [email-masked] (Rosemary Waigh)
Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 21:47:20 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] ("Frank Ch. Eigler") writes:
>such programs.
...
>"victim-identification" machinery *necessary* to this end?

I think before this discussion can go anywhere, the opponents of the racism
and sexism "industry" are going to have to clarify what specifically they
mean by it.  The original poster vaguely referred to a racism and sexism
industry *on campus*; Frank is now talking about the Ontario government's
employment equity programme, and "victim-identification machinery", whatever
that means.
-- 
Rosemary Waigh             Undergraduate, Computer Science / Linguistics
[email-masked]   University of Toronto
"Five percent of the people in the world consume one-third of its resources...
and produce almost half the non-organic waste...those people are us." Adbusters

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From: [email-masked] (Nigel Allen)
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1993 03:43:46 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] writes:
>your campus? 

It is better to spend money on prevention of racism and sexism 
than to have to pay damages to victims of those practices, and to
lose the donations and legacies of people offended by a university
which refuses to take adequate steps to end discrimination.
-- 
Nigel Allen, Toronto, Ontario, Canada    [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (RICK DILORENZO)
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1993 13:53:38 GMT

>Do you deny that there is a problem with racism and sexism?

[email-masked] ("Frank Ch. Eigler") writes"
>>Do you deny that general underfunding is a worse problem than

  Do you deny that general overfunding (creation of debt) is a worse
problem than general underfunding?

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From: [email-masked] (Andrew M. Dunn)
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 93 12:57:43 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] ("Frank Ch. Eigler") writes:
>>    providing the services they need?  ...
>
>support.  

It would be just like our government to go around and look for disabled
people. I'd be willing to bet that several government departments are
required to seek out statistics on our disabled members of society.

>The government does pay people to help identify "victims of

Well, if the inexpensive one (these people seeking out the agencies)
doesn't work, I guess it _is_ necessary.

Victims of racism and sexism are a lot harder to identify than
disabled persons.  They sometimes are not aware it happened to
them (most disabled persons, on the other hand, are quite aware of
their situation).

If you don't know you've been hard done by, why on earth would you
get up and "seek out the agencies for support"?

Andy
-- 
:-------------------------------------------------------------------------:
:  Andy Dunn           <[email-masked]> or <uunet!mongrel!amdunn>   :
:  "AT&T thinks Usenet is an Underground organization" - are we really?   :
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From: [email-masked] (Anthony Wallis)
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1993 11:11:52 GMT

Andrew M. Dunn :
> them ..

Victims of witchcraft are even harder to identify.  They also are
sometimes not aware that a hex has been put on them.

--
[email-masked] = Tony Wallis, York University, Toronto, Canada