02-21-2019, 09:02 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-21-2019, 09:05 PM by danbrotherston.)
(02-21-2019, 07:51 PM)jeffster Wrote:(02-21-2019, 01:53 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: This was a major epiphany for me. It took me a long time to realize that a lack of diversity is a major harm...even if you get good people, they won't have a lived experience of other folks. I do my best to empathize and to understand--which is more than many people do--but I still have never experienced life as say, a person questioning their sexuality, or a person who feels (rightly or wrongly) that the police are the enemy.
Yet, if you look at who was elected in this region, for example: MP's for Canada include 3 minorities (out of 5), including a female minority, and for MPP's in Ontario, we have 4 females (out of 5) including a minority. Fully 50% of our politicians are female and 40% are (visible) minorities.
As for issues of treatment, say for those that identify their sexuality differently than most, or those that fear the police (and usually rightly), these are serious issues that I am sure politicians can't change. When the CBC (with their Liberal slant) carry on with Don Cherry, you see that having friends in the right places (Ottawa) is meaningless. Habits are hard to change, and people still have a difficult time respecting one another. But that respect has to be mutual too -- and as long as it is not mutual, then we'll continue to have issues. Just my 2¢ worth (which when rounding, is worthless).
Our region is definitely very good when it comes to diverse representation, I was also very excited to have a gay premier, and when she was elected, her identity never really came up much, and I thought that was great.
I'm not sure why you say that politicians cannot change the institutional problems we have. It is perhaps the case that establishment politicians do not want too be bold, but certainly they have the power to enact changes, and if those changes are smart, they can be effective...if not immediate.
One of the best things that can be done to improve these things is improving education, and in terms of things like sexual identify and families you see the last liberal government making a push for positive changes, and it being torn apart by the current government..the lesson here for me is that is that not all are equally bad even among establishment politicians, some are moving forward however imperceptibly slowly, some are moving backwards.
But I really do believe that while I may support those initiatives, my lack of experience with that lived experience means I lack the qualifications to effectively evaluate them, and I'm happy to defer that judgement to those who do. This goes far beyond politics, and in fact, my moment of clarity came not from politics, but from the tech industry where I have the most experience--companies which are not diverse are very likely to miss the needs and wants of groups that are missing--especially in management, even when those companies have the best of intentions.