hate

Thursday September 21, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday September 21, 2023

A Complex Blend of Inclusion and Intolerance

February 8, 2022

In the past, the “1 Million March 4 Children” gathered to protest queer-inclusive policies in schools. However, this event featured a confusing mix of activists, some aligned with intolerant ideologies. Questions arose about the true nature of this movement.

The 1 Million March 4 Children drew attention, with counter-protests emerging. Yet, the protests lacked clarity due to diverse participants, including Christian Nationalists, conservative Muslims, conspiracy theorists, and anti-education activists. This lack of cohesion raised concerns.

Under #1MillionMarch4Children, two main groups, Family ❤️ Freedom and Hands Off Our Kids, stood out. The former appeared more secular and inclusive, while the latter leaned religious and anti-queer. Both opposed queer-inclusive education in schools.

News: Hundreds of protesters, counterprotesters descend on HWDSB office  

May 4, 2023

Despite confusion, local organizations took safety measures and organized counter-protests. The discourse surrounding these protests mirrored transphobic narratives from the UK and the US, indicating an alarming trend of intolerance in Canada.

These protests were far from unified, highlighting the challenges in achieving inclusive education. Activists must collaborate with local organizations to protect LGBTQ2S+ rights and preserve inclusive education. Education remains a powerful tool for fostering acceptance; it must not be undermined.(AI)

 

Thursday May 4, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday May 4, 2023

Why Flying the Pride Flag Matters

January 17, 2012

Recently, a disturbing incident occurred outside a meeting of the York Catholic District School Board. Adults who claimed to be protecting Ontario’s children were actually endangering their well-being. Many of these adults, likely parents of school-aged children, showed up to the meeting to vehemently oppose the possibility of the board flying the rainbow flag in support of LGBTQ students in June. They even hurled insults at those who were in favour of flying the flag. 

News: Advocates, protestors clash at York Catholic school board meeting over flying Pride flag  

Although some of these adults claim that their objection was not specifically to the Pride flag but to what they believe it represents – the alleged corruption of children who are supposedly too young to learn about gender and sexuality – this notion is misguided. Everyone is capable of learning about gay, transgender, and non-binary people, just as they can learn about cisgender and heterosexual people. Queer people are not sexually explicit by their mere existence.

The belief that exposing children to queer people is harmful is nonsensical and is based on hateful, age-old myths about queer people as a corrupting influence on children. This belief is also derived from a particular brand of anti-LGBTQ politics typically associated with the United States. However, the events at the Catholic school board in York Region demonstrate that Canada is not immune to public displays of hateful rhetoric.

Pride celebrations are essential in schools to support marginalized kids who need it. Flying the Pride flag is not merely an act of virtue signalling; it is an official declaration of support for these kids. According to a recent survey conducted by the LGBTQ advocacy group EGALE, anti-queer discrimination is still prevalent in Canadian schools. For instance, 64% of all participants reported hearing homophobic comments daily or weekly at school. Moreover, 79% of transgender students who experienced physical harassment reported that teachers and staff were ineffective in addressing transphobic harassment. Lastly, over 30% of respondents who attend Catholic schools reported experiencing harassment based on their perceived sexual orientation.

October 30, 2018

We have made significant progress as a society regarding inclusion, but there is still much work to be done. It is critical that schools fly the Pride flag to signal to kids that even if their peers or parents reject them because of their identity, the school itself – and those at its helm – do not. Education Minister Stephen Lecce made it clear that he supports LGBTQ students, and we hope that York Region’s Catholic school board will follow suit. (AI)

 

Tuesday November 1, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday November 1, 2022

U.S. Headlines Expressing Anger, Fear, Disgust, and Sadness Increased Hugely Since 2000

About 42 percent of Americans now actively avoid news coverage, according to the Reuters Institute’s 2022 Digital News Report. That’s up from 38 percent in 2017. Nearly half of Americans who’ve turned away from the news say that they are doing so because it has a negative effect on their mood. As it happens, a new study in the journal PLoS One tracking the headlines in 47 publications popular in the United States reports that they have trended decidedly negative over the past two decades. 

Coincidence?

June 12, 2019

In their study, the team of New Zealand-based media researchers used a language model trained to categorize as positive or negative the sentiments of 23 million headlines between 2000 and 2019. In addition, the model was finetuned to identify Ekman’s six basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise), plus neutral, to label the headlines automatically. Using the 2019 Allsides Media Bias Chart, the publications were ideologically categorized as left, right, or center. For example, The New Yorker, the New York Times Opinion, and Mother Jones were identified as left; National Review, Fox News Opinion, and The New York Post as right; and A.P., Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal as center. (Reason was pegged as right-leaning.)

After turning their language model loose on the millions of headlines, the researchers found “an increase of sentiment negativity in headlines across written news media since the year 2000.”

June 5, 2012

Overall, the researchers find that the prevalence of headlines denoting anger since the year 2000 increased by 104 percent. The prevalence of headlines denoting fear rose 150 percent; disgust by 29 percent; and sadness by 54 percent. The joy emotional category had its up and downs, rising until 2010 and falling after that. Headlines denoting neutral emotion declined by 30 percent since the year 2000. Breaking these down by ideology, headlines from right-leaning news media have been, on average, consistently more negative than headlines from left-leaning outlets.

Why are negative headlines becoming more prevalent? “If it bleeds, it leads” is a hoary journalistic aphorism summarizing the well-known fact that dramatic, even gory, stories engage the attention of news consumers. In other words, journalists are supplying news consumers with what they want. Given the global reach of modern news media, there is always some attention-grabbing horror that occurred somewhere that can be highlighted between weather and sports on your local TV news.

November 4, 2020

Journalistic catering to people’s negativity bias ends up misleading a lot of their audiences into thinking that the state of the world is getting worse and worse. However, looking at long term trends, the opposite is the case. Yes, yes, there are wars in Ukraine, Ethiopia, and Yemen and, of course, a global pandemic during the past two years has killed around 6.5 million people so far. “For reasons I have never understood, people like to hear that the world is going to hell, and become huffy and scornful when some idiotic optimist intrudes on their pleasure,” wrote economist Deidre McCloskey. “Yet pessimism has consistently been a poor guide to the modern economic world.” (Continued: Reason) 

 

Wednesday September 21, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday September 21, 2022

The world is in ‘peril’, UN chief warns General Assembly

In an alarming assessment, the head of the United Nations warned world leaders Tuesday that nations are “gridlocked in colossal global dysfunction” and aren’t ready or willing to tackle the challenges that threaten humanity’s future – and the planet’s. “Our world is in peril – and paralyzed,” he said.

October 30, 2021

Speaking at the opening of the General Assembly’s annual high-level meeting, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made sure to emphasize that hope remained. But his remarks reflected a tense and worried world. He cited the war in Ukraine and multiplying conflicts around the world, the climate emergency, the dire financial situation of developing countries and setbacks in U.N. goals for 2030 including an end to extreme poverty and quality education for all children.

He also warned of what he called “a forest of red flags” around new technologies despite promising advances to heal diseases and connect people. Guterres said social media platforms are based on a model “that monetizes outrage, anger and negativity” and buys and sells data “to influence our behaviour.” Artificial intelligence he said, “is compromising the integrity of information systems, the media, and indeed democracy itself.”

September 21, 2016

The world lacks even the beginning of “a global architecture” to deal with the ripples caused by these new technologies because of “geopolitical tensions,” Guterres said.

His opening remarks came as leaders from around the planet reconvened at U.N. headquarters in New York after three years of pandemic interruptions, including an entirely virtual meeting in 2020 and a hybrid one last year. This week, the halls of the United Nations are filled once more with delegates reflecting the world’s cultures. Many faces were visible, though all delegates are required to wear masks except when speaking to ward off the coronavirus.

Nearly 150 heads of state and government are on the latest speakers’ list, a high number reflecting that the United Nations remains the only place not just to deliver their views but to meet privately to discuss the challenges on the global agenda – and hopefully make some progress.

September 14, 2022

The 77th General Assembly meeting of world leaders convenes under the shadow of Europe’s first major war since World War II – the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which has unleashed a global food crisis and opened fissures among major powers in a way not seen since the Cold War.

The death of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and her funeral in London on Monday, which many world leaders attended, created last-minute headaches for the high-level meeting. Diplomats and U.N. staff have scrambled to deal with changes in travel plans, the timing of events and the logistically intricate speaking schedule for world leaders. (The Globe & Mail)

From sketch to finish, see the current way Graeme completes an editorial cartoon using an iPencil, the Procreate app, and a couple of cheats on an iPad Pro …

 

Thursday May 19, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday May 19, 2022

‘Canada is not immune,’ leading Black voices say in response to Buffalo mass shooting

Members of the Black community in Canada on Monday are warning this country is also vulnerable to hate crime as they react with shock and horror to Saturday’s bloodshed in Buffalo that left 10 Black people dead.

October 30, 2018

“Canada is not immune to it,” Velma Morgan, the chair of Operation Black Vote Canada, told CBC News Monday. 

“We’ve seen what happened at different places of worship, we see what happens in London, Ont., we’re definitely not immune to it at all.”

Payton Gendron, 18, is accused of a racist rampage after he crossed the state to target people at the Tops Friendly Market in one of Buffalo’s predominantly Black neighbourhoods. He had talked about shooting up another store as well, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told CNN.

Authorities in Buffalo are working to confirm the authenticity of a 180-page manifesto posted online, which identifies the accused by name as the gunman. It cites the “great replacement theory,”‘ a racist ideology that has been linked to other mass shootings in the United States and around the world.