…Seriously?
Irradiated by LabRat
This National Post story reports the eyebrow-raising story that the Carleton University student council voted to end their 24-year-old tradition of fundraising for a cystic fibrosis charity because the disease “has recently been revealed to only affect white males”. According to their council defending themselves, it was about rotating the charity rather than just flat “fuck white males”, but this was still apparently the rationale that the motion was raised under.
I’m not familiar with Canadian papers. If any of you Canadians out there want to tell if the National Post is more equivalent in tone to the New York Times or the New York Sun, now would be a good time…
Needless to say, CF doesn’t affect only “white males”. It’s an autosomal recessive that affects males and females in the same ratio, and while it mostly affects those of European descent, that’s hardly universal- one might point out that there has been more than a little gene flow on this continent in the last couple hundred years.
Exit question: are they going to avoid sickle-cell charities as being similarly not inclusive enough a disease?
November 25th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Don’t look at me, I’m still fucked up over the fact that electing a black President is a big deal. What the fuck does his dermal melanin content have to do with … well… with fucking anything?
Someone told me this was the 21st century. I think they must’a miscounted.
November 25th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Well… I guess all those breast, prostate, testicular and ovarian cancer charities are screwed now.
Off now to burn my pink ribbons and that yellow bracelet.
November 25th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
I’m not familiar with Canadian papers. If any of you Canadians out there want to tell if the National Post is more equivalent in tone to the New York Times or the New York Sun, now would be a good time…
It was once notoriously “right-wing” (though you have to take that in a Canadian context). Sorry to burst your bubble….
(Looking at the subheading, though, I think the National Post is almost half as irritated about this as I am.)
November 25th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Fuck them! CF is one of those few nasty diseases where we’ve actually made major progress. My best friend from high school has it. I met him at age 15 and he wasn’t expected to live beyond 16. He’ll turn 33 this month. Why? Because his family is Stetson, of the hats and cologne, and could pay for the latest and best. All that stands between most CF kids and excellent, borderline-miraculous treatments these days is money. And this charity decides to pull out because the cause no longer has sufficient street cred. Forgive the rant, but I say again: fuck them.
November 25th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
And as Peculiar knows, I am heterozygous and somewhat symptomatic at 58, as many are being found to be. And I’m poor, and pay my own bills. Yeah, fuck them.
November 26th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Blunt- yeah, that’s about what I thought. I wanted to gauge how much mountain-from-molehilling might be going on, but just because a media source is biased doesn’t mean it’s WRONG. Googling around… they’re not wrong.
So I’m with the rest of you: fuck them!
November 26th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
I’ve been following this story around teh intarwebz a little, and came across this line from Henry Kissinger:
“Student politics makes me long for the simplicity of the Middle East.”
(Well, allegedly from Kissinger; I can’t find a particularly trustworthy citation. Still, if he didn’t say it, he should have.)