Yeah, in everything, including the United Nations, we need more accessibility, more diversity, more plurality. And you are right. Unless a system, a group, a nation, or a building, goes out of its way to get more diversity, it won’t. I live in Canada, and we have a Toronto company that is called stopgap.ca that makes ramps. If you call that company, and tell them the measurement of your step that is stopping persons in wheelchairs and persons who don’t like stairs, they will build it. So some stores that get it, call the company, and get the ramps built. Those ores go out of their way to try and make their stores accessible and as a result survive on street. The stores that are inaccessible to persons in wheelchair, I find are often lacking other people with disabilities who boycott out of sympathy. 15% of the globe is disabled, so unless a store, goes out of their way, using whatever means necessary that they can get, to clear the road, and show a warm welcome, then all the welcome signs are nothing.
Sorry to be off topic. I know that your writing was about the perennial problem you all have with race. But abstractly, I have noticed that with any people, unless they REALLY feel wanted, REALLY feel welcome, they are not going to show up unless they are real cultural leaders such as Jacky Robinson, or Mohammed Ali, or Tiger Woods. Those guys show up because they are leaders.
You need more diversity in the States.
Bridges, not walls.I have American friends. I like the United States because Americans will fly in and do with confidence what we Canadians are hesitant to try. We are not all that confident so Neil Young and Celine Dion went to the USA.
In my profession, ESL teaching, racism is so inherent in the profession that currently there is a commercial for grammarly.com on the net. Guess what colour the main star of the video is? the star is saying how Grammarly helps her with her grammar so that she an pass the university. She was chosen because there is simply not enough diversity in English teaching itself. She was chosen because of the persistent lies and myths that stop more diversity from happening. Because the ideal teacher of English as a Second language is a blonde blue eyed fashion model looking like a young model. It is what it is, but when is it going to change? I thought that young people could see that this is 2016. But these racist lies and racist myths are difficult to defeat.
I was standing in front of my classroom yesterday and I had a professional existential crisis.
My students had walked into their first exam of the semester in various states of tension, resignation and hope, and a couple of them seemed uncomfortable to the point of rudeness – sticking their legs out into the aisle and not moving them as I approached, until I asked them to; not meeting my eye and limply taking the papers from my hand; saying “More paper” without saying “…please.”
It was irritating, and ego-bruising. I often tell myself, “I don’t care how they FEEL about me; I care about how they BEHAVE.” And it’s true that, for their own sake, they need to learn how to treat everyone, even people they don’t care for – their teachers, their bosses, their colleagues, their classmates – with politeness and respect. I have developed a classroom demeanour that…
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HAVE FUN LEARN ENGLISH 