Monday, April 26, 2010

Quebec Human Rights Commission: Fork you!

From Tasha Kheiriddin at the National Post:

A family has just been awarded $17,000 in damages because a lunch monitor tried to instruct their then-seven-year-old son to eat with a knife and fork, instead of with a fork and spoon (the traditional Filipino way of eating). Human rights lawyer Pearl Eliadis said the ruling should be a lesson to schools and public service providers that they need to treat people in a way that is respectful of where they come from.


BTW Chinese restaurants across the land beware. If I come in and I find a couple of sticks on the table instead of a fork you are going to be paying dearly for that little oversight. I demand respect, I demand a fork!

What a great land we live in where I don't have to respect your traditions when I walk into the door of your restaurant and want to eat your traditional food and can potentially get $1000's of dollars from you to do it.

We are doomed. Fire them all now.

6 comments:

Bec said...

What great news this is! I went for Sushi on the weekend and as a rookie, made a complete fool of myself using THEIR table tools. Everyone else in the restaurant seemed to be just fine with the same tool and so in order to avoid a total stare down by the other patrons, I SUFFERED THROUGH 3 hours of mere morsels of food....

$30,000. should do...I have a wedding to throw in a year. I should be able to keep this outrage and humiliation going for that long hey?

CanadianSense said...

$ 17k (from school board budget) awarded from the committe of hurt feelings, how nice!

This is a great gig if you can make money.

http://ezralevant.com/2008/06/an-angry-woman-named-pearl-eli.html

Anonymous said...

I was a volunteer at this school and my son went there. I know the principal and lunch monitor and they are both dedicated employees who have worked for years in this multicultural school. They don't deserve this public lynching.

At the time we were inundated with hate e-mails from around the world and the board had to hire a security guard to perhaps ensure the safety of the staff and elementary students.

The monitor did not say the child was a pig, just that he was eating like a pig (mangé comme un cochon). And indeed the child had been set aside before for spreading food all over the place.

The mother says her child was humilated but it was she that took her grievance to her ethnic association and made her child unloved by the other students after this story went on for weeks.

Journalists and human rights people love this story, but the result is teachers are afraid to discipline kids and the kids know it.

Bec said...

That is fabulous clarity, Anon @2:38 pm. The whole thing absolutely stinks and if you want my opinion, many if not most times, in these cases IT IS the parents that make their child stand out and vulnerable to humiliation.
Children in many cases have never been given the tools to behave with polite and acceptable decorum, based on their surroundings. Everyone needs to be respectful of the norm not the exception, imo.

This kid will have no skills to enter any other culture if he is not taught to adapt. That is the real crime here, imo.

Anonymous said...

Oh boy... you just know this is the beginning of a tidal wave. Free money! All I gotta do is just be difficult, weird and well self-serving. Watch the floodgates open now. (real conservative)

Unknown said...

Is it a human right to eat like a pig? What's your take? http://3.ly/9tLE