Nowhere -- repeat: NOWHERE -- is political correctness more firmly entrenched than in the Great No-longer-white North. Everything has to be done by the book: The Little Red Book of Diversity and Sensitivity (Queen's Printer, 1/4/15). The latest sin the PC police are trying to stamp out is "cultural appropriation".
Not quite the same as "cultural insensitivity", it seems to mean being so keen on some other ethnic/religious group's culture that you take it for your own. Many examples were found on Hallowe'en. White parents were instructed, for example, that it was "inappropriate" to send their kids out trick-or-treating dressed as Indians. [Hey! "First Nations"! Ed.] And one of the newly-minted Liberal cabinet ministers was pilloried in the meeja for having donned a coolie hat and gone to a Hallowe'en party as a Chinese. She was obliged to take "offensive" photos off her FB page.
And now for today's news from the battle against cultural insensitivity. At the resolutely bilingual University of Ottawa/Université d'Ottawa, a free class in yoga which had been given for seven years at the university's Centre for Students with Disabilities was no longer offered this fall because some students and volunteers were "uncomfortable with the 'cultural issues' involved."
Yesterday, The lead instructor, Jen Scharf, told CBC News, "I guess it was this cultural appropriation issue because yoga originally comes from India. I told them, 'Why don't we just change the name of the course?' It's simple enough, just call it 'mindful stretching'.... We're not going through the finer points of scripture. We're talking about basic physical awareness and how to stretch so that you feel good.
"That went back and forth.... The higher-ups at the student federation got involved, finally we got an email routed through the student federation basically saying they couldn't get a French name and nobody wants to do it, so we're going to cancel it for now."
You couldn't make this stuff up, could you. Anyone who can come up with a suitable name en français is invited to send it to Walt at the usual address, for forwarding to the U of 0, as many Canadians call the ultra-PC institution of higher learning.
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