CBC News - Montreal - Niqab gets 2nd Quebec student expelled

CBC News - Montreal - Niqab gets 2nd Quebec student expelled

We like the CBC, we do. We do not, however, like how comments on stories so frequently breakdown as follows:

1. Relevant comment.
2. Tangential comment.
3. Racist screed.
4. Racist screed and with added typos for fibre.
5. Ridiculous leftest counter claims.
6.+ More of the same.

This is an important, significant story for all modern liberal democracies. But there's a snag you see, it is not a simple thing, one minor on/off switch and the problem is solved or dissolved. There are really important issues (plural) here: religious freedom, secularism, women's right, individual choice and autonomy, provincial rights, states/federal rights... Not to mention that the law in question has merely been proposed. Why was this woman expelled? What will come of this?

Quote of the Week: Sex Geek [on Avatar of all things]

Generally speaking, when it comes to controversy, I don’t believe in the bizarrely prized activist strategies of a) removing yourself from the conversation (symbolic walk-outs, door slamming, etc.) – because then, the only people left having the conversation are the ones who don’t see what the problem is, or b) criticizing (or buying into other people’s criticism) of things without evaluating the evidence for yourself. I’m all for people having strong opinions, but strong uninformed opinions are just not cool, in my books. Plus, I think that as activists, we need to challenge ourselves to see, read, hear and experience things that make us uncomfortable so that we are forced to question and strengthen our opinions and strategies based on our own perceptions rather than those fed to us.

---- Sex Geek, "Keeping an Eye on the Mainstream."