My Take: By Gordon Lambie

My Take: By Gordon Lambie

On Thursday morning, when asked about whether the front-page announcement of the arrival of “the Indian variant” by the Journal de Montreal could feed into prejudice toward minority groups, Premier Francois Legault responded that, “we always need to be careful when we speak of certain communities.”
It’s an answer so careful that it barely says anything at all.
Words have power, and it is important to pick them carefully when in a position of authority, but when a person in power works that hard to avoid making a clear statement about defending the rights and wellbeing of minority groups, it just reinforces the invisibility of those groups, and opens up the door for prejudice to grow.Linking virus mutations to regions or ethnic groups is irresponsible messaging and has clearly been observed as a cause of harm to those groups. We should stop doing it.

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