{"id":481,"date":"2019-10-15T18:25:51","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T21:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/?p=481"},"modified":"2019-10-16T07:36:02","modified_gmt":"2019-10-16T10:36:02","slug":"welcome-to-everybody-on-board-you-thought-we-meant-ladies-gentlemen-in-english-how-dare-you-our-take-off-is-delayed-opp-tells-us-that-a-person","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/2019\/10\/15\/welcome-to-everybody-on-board-you-thought-we-meant-ladies-gentlemen-in-english-how-dare-you-our-take-off-is-delayed-opp-tells-us-that-a-person\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to \u201ceverybody\u201d on board (you thought we meant \u201cLadies & Gentlemen\u201d in English. “How dare you?”). Our take-off is delayed. OPP tells us that \u201ca person\u201d stabbed \u201can individual\u201d inside Pearson airport (you dare wonder if this could be terrorism-related? No systemic racism please; AC is a safe space!)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Whilst other countries or non-countries are facing\ntragedies \u2639 (Lebanon burning with\n103 fires & the Kurds betrayed by the US and their allies), Canadians seem to\nbe outdoing themselves with odd decisions in the name of so-called diversity\nand inclusion, and what have you\u2026 to the point of excluding the vast majority\nfrom the society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bambi is referring to two pieces of news, perhaps the second\neven more worrisome (the first can just make us smile ?):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Air Canada will no longer be greeting us with \u201cSir\/Madam\u201d\nor \u201cLadies & Gentlemen\u201d (or \u201cBonjour Madame, Bonjour Monsieur\u201d):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/montreal.ctvnews.ca\/air-canada-staff-will-no-longer-greet-ladies-and-gentlemen-onboard-planes-1.4636694<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, its staff will use words like \u201cEverybody\u201d or \u201cTout\nle monde\u201d (who knows maybe \u201cYo\u201d as students sometimes write in their emails ??). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Madam or Sir may offend some travellers who may not self-identify as either a male or a female or who may be transgender, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In and by itself, this decision seems noble. It is\namazing to be respectful of clients. However, let\u2019s not forget that we are talking\nhere about a very small minority of clients that can be perhaps offended or\ntriggered if not addressed properly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of calling a specific traveller in a non-gendered\nmanner (say after checking his or her passport and perhaps noticing \u201cother\u201d or\nX for the gender), we choose to go the extreme by denying ALL the clients the polite\nwords in both French and English, even when they would be the majority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, the AC staff may clearly greet or serve\na pregnant woman and we do not want to address her with Madam in order to be\ninclusive. Perhaps they will be serving an elderly man during a 7-hour-trip\noverseas, wearing gloves before interacting with him every time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plus, during a violent turbulence or serious incident, Bambi suspects that the words that will get out of the mouth of staff will be tainted with neither political correctness nor politeness (maybe). I hope so as what would matter then would be to save lives and not to offer a safe verbal gender-neutral space to an injured person. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyhow, the news is more amusing than anything else. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Air Canada may not call me Madam\/Sir but Bambi will keep being polite in the same manner, especially when too jet lagged to remember societal trends (I will likely be saying: “Merci Monsieur”; “Merci Madame”; as long as the flight attendant is OK with this of course). As for Bambi, she frankly does not care how you would address her as long as you offer her good food on board on longer flights ?.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Now the MORE worrisome news is a link in the\narticle above about the Ontario provincial police (OPP), no longer releasing\nthe gender of people charged with crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.ctvnews.ca\/canada\/ontario-provincial-police-no-longer-releasing-gender-of-people-charged-with-crimes-1.4606630<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With all due respect to the OPP and all the police\nforces, Bambi finds this decision absurd. Indeed, it does not serve neither\ncommon sense nor science anymore (messing up epidemiological public data). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bambi wonders what would have Indigenous Ontario women, victims of violence, thought about this had they been still alive? Is this a good thing for the sake of justice? What do their grieving families think?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More broadly, what do the current or future so-called\nvictims or so-called criminals think?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why doesn\u2019t the OPP use the language used in Lebanon in\nthe media. They name the gender but not the name (just the initials). That way they\nprotect the privacy of the person (if this is the motivation here).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Bambi is not mistaken, the Edmonton police may have\nmoved in the Lebanese direction (protection of identity by hiding names). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basically, why is the OPP complicating matters?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why can\u2019t it call a spade a spade anymore? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it truly to protect others or to protect itself from\nany liability or\u2026 to give in\/dive more into the collective insanity of political\ncorrectness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today it is about gender neutrality. Tomorrow about\nwhat?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whilst other countries or non-countries are facing tragedies \u2639 (Lebanon burning with 103 fires & the Kurds betrayed by the US and their allies), Canadians seem to be outdoing themselves with odd decisions in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":490,"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481\/revisions\/490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bambisafkar.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}