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Kathy Corrigan |
She believes that expressing approval or admiration for the parents of Asian students who excel will offend the community at large.
Corrigan obviously does not think that using praise as a form of positive reinforcement in order to motivate students to achieve and behave in positive ways, is a good thing.
In fact she thinks it is racist.
Political correctness gone mad, you say.
We could not agree more.
The kerfuffle blew up on Valentines Day when the Burnaby school board met to hear about the district’s advance placement program, which is currently one of the largest in the country.
School trustee, Richard Lee said he wanted to pass his congratulations on to the students named in the report, as well as to the families behind them.
"Judging by the last names" on the list of students being recognized, he particularly wanted to congratulate Asian families for providing a good example to all families.
Before making that comment, Lee first congratulated all the students for their success, and then congratulated the families behind them.
He also noted the fact that students have to do well "overall" before they can do well academically.
Corrigan, to gain political brownie points, pounced on the Asian felicitation, to say that she takes "offence to a particular ethnic group being pointed out in any way, positively or negatively."
"I don’t think that it is helpful for us to point out the success or lack of success of any one group in our district," she declared with a moral smugness.
Lee has no problem celebrating success.
Corrigan, on the other hand, finds praise distasteful.
We can only assume that Corrigan does not like to attend award ceremonies as giving a prize to someone for their excellence may hurt the feelings of the others who entered the competition.
And the next time Corrigan says "good job" to the staff at the Burnaby School Board let’s remind her that this may upset the folks at Vancouver and Richmond.
While Corrigan, the mayor’s wife has a problem with Lee’s praise of Asian students, she has no qualms about her Burnaby Citizens’ Association going to great lengths to congratulate the South Asian community after the last municipal election.
The Burnaby Citizens Association authorized taxpayer money to host two South Asian religious and cultural events last year before the civic election. These events showcased Coun. Sav Dhaliwal as the first Indo-Canadian councillor in Burnaby.
There was nary a peep from Corrigan then.
Corrigan has also been silent to the "Community Report" advertisement that ran recently in Burnaby by local MLA Raj Chouhan about Black History Month.
The MLA rightly points to the contributions of a minority group and states in part "perhaps no minority has contributed so much and at the same time been so little recognized in our province."
Corrigan’s diatribe against Lee was nothing but misplaced political opportunism.
She has to learn that praising all alike, is praising none.
The school trustee also needs to realize that maintaining double standards could lead to unwanted suspicions about her motives.
