Even if we educate the world, will we ever gain acceptance and tolerance ?

[Long Duck Dong]

the following article is proof enuf that even if we teach people about a situation, they will still react with averse reactions.......
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/6891611/Boy-with-HIV-expelled-from-childcare

its easy for us to cry poz phobia, but this is a child that is now being treated like a leper for reasons that he doesn't understand, by adults that should be able to act like adults and start acting with the intelligence they profess to have and treat people with the tolerance and compassion that they preach about.....

what makes it worse.... is many NZ people remember young eve
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eve_van_Grafhorst

in a country where we have great advancements in human rights, anti discrimination and equal rights for all in the last 20 years...... we have gone backwards in the last 20 years, not forwards..... we have equal rights for so many, but the same excuse of protection of rights is now what is used to discriminate against people......

personally I am not sure if it is cos I lost my own sister and her partner to aids a few years ago, that I am so pissed off over this..... or cos its a young child that is showing that people are so full of shit when it comes to acceptance, tolerance and understanding of others, when they actually have to do it, instead of preach about it......

and people wonder why I have become so jaded with society and all their *goodwill to fellow men *

[darkeyes]

Chill Duckie me luffly.. we'll get there...we may not see it, but we have seen us advance far 2 much 2 get jaded quite yet ya daft ole bugger...

[Long Duck Dong]

then fran, you better do the believing for more than just yourself..... cos I am not the only one questioning just how good things supposedly are, theres a young kid learning how accepting and tolerant society is......... care to tell him how many years it will take before things get better for him ? ....

the here and now is that kids world, its what he understands...... put yourself in his shoes.....and then tell me what you see, not what you think about the world around you as a adult..... and then maybe you will understand why I have become so jaded with society.....

[darkeyes]

then fran, you better do the believing for more than just yourself..... cos I am not the only one questioning just how good things supposedly are, theres a young kid learning how accepting and tolerant society is......... care to tell him how many years it will take before things get better for him ? ....

the here and now is that kids world, its what he understands...... put yourself in his shoes.....and then tell me what you see, not what you think about the world around you as a adult..... and then maybe you will understand why I have become so jaded with society.....
I see a world better than it was for for all its problems.. better than when I was born, when my parents were born, my grandparents were born, my great grandparents.. still full of shite, still dangerous, still full if bigotry and intolerance and presently having a particularly bad time of it... and when I pop me clogs, I know it will not be perfect, far from it, and it has gone back a little in the last 3 or 4 years as has happened before and will again.. but I am pretty well sure it will be better than the one we have now... so don't despair ya daft lummox... I may be pigged off with the way things are rite now.. but I am far from despondent 'bout the fact that in a relatively short time in the great scheme of things, the weather of life will brighten up again... there will still be plenty rainy days and grey skies, but the climate of our existence and progress has never been all plain sailing...:bigrin:

[Long Duck Dong]

ok..... I see a world that is full of contradictions, selfishness, ignorance and me, myself and I..... a world where people preach about acceptance and tolerance but normally when its for their own gain, not for the person beside them......

I see a world where we will never stop fighting cos there will always be something that people want to change.....and thats a aspect of human nature, not really a issue with the world around us.... and yes, there will be those that are not really fighting to oppose us but fighting to hang on to their *right * world but we will call them the bigots, the phobics, the biased......

btw, what has left me jaded, is not society and the world around me, but the realization that I could help change the world to a better place, but in order to do it,I have to change the world for somebody else and the people around them.... and I realised that when I had a guy in my scope and I could have pulled the trigger on a person, a family member, a part of society, a human being just like me,.... but I was to only think of him as the enemy...... then I left the army... and saw the same thing in society....

to the people at the school, that child is somebody with HIV, not a child, not a person with feelings and desires and interests, but a person with HIV, therefore unwelcome..... and yet the same people are yelling about how they want more money from the government so they can look after more kids and saying how the government doesn't care about the young children of tomorrow......

to me, its a child that is wondering why they can not play with the other kids....... I see the reality of today, not the dreams of tomorrow.....

[tenni]

Under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, section15 a day care centre would not be able to exclude a child from attending daycare as AIDS/HIV is deemed a physical disability. Canada's Human Rights Commission has declared that HIV+ status is a physical disability.

"Everyone has the right to equality and to be treated with dignity and without discrimination, regardless of HIV/AIDS status."

http://www.chrc-ccdp.ca/legislation_policies/aids-eng.aspx

"Under the heading of "Equality Rights" in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms this section states:
“
15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
(2) Subsection (1) does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

If this is a private organization, it may argue that it is not established to accommodate a child with HIV if a complaint was filed. I don't recall a case being filed with the Human Rights Commission though. If the daycare received any form or level of government funding, they would have to accept an HIV positive child into the programme.

What New Zealanders may need to do is to improve their constitution to include a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that insures equality for all.

[DuckiesDarling]

Hey Tenni, it's not New Zealanders per se... reading the story very carefully you will see they did a hui... that's Maori... that's something where 14% of the population gets to pretty much do whatever they want cause at one time Cook got them to sign a treaty. They are also the first ones with hands out so they can "look after the children". This story just disgusts me. I hope that child finds a daycare where they are as loved as Eve.

[Bayoubear9]

I dont think so, not for a long long time anyway. IMHO human beings as an animal- have yet to evolve intellectually enough to get beyond fearing that which they do not understand. Granted I'm speaking on the whole with a blanket statement here. I know first hand that tolerance, compassion, and acceptance can be taught just as can prejudice, contempt, and hatred.

Not all of it is learned behavior. For example, my daughter's half sibling, on a visit to my homeland in the deep south, I'm guessing she was 7 or 8 at the time, we were in line at the grocery store behind a young black man. This kid was terrified. I mean scared shitless about to wet her pants terrified. Up to this point she had only seen non-white people on television. She was taught from birth all people are the same, we are equal, only difference is appearance, yada yada yada.... yet when someone different than her for the first time is that close, scared her to death. After we were back in the car her mother and i used this as a teaching moment, discussing her reaction with her. She had no idea why she was so scared only the fact that the man was so different it made her feel weird inside.

[tenni]

If the society has certain rights, then more than not the Maori will want the same rights of equality.

As far as "instinctive fear" in children, some may and others may have a naive curiousity about differences. The naive child may bluntly ask why a person is "this or that" different. A seven or eight year old child is frequently sophisticated about society that sheer innnocence of inquiry has been replaced. The girl seems to have been stuck in between. You were wise bayourbear9 to make the incident a learning experience.

[darkeyes]

Hey Tenni, it's not New Zealanders per se... reading the story very carefully you will see they did a hui... that's Maori... that's something where 14% of the population gets to pretty much do whatever they want cause at one time Cook got them to sign a treaty. They are also the first ones with hands out so they can "look after the children". This story just disgusts me. I hope that child finds a daycare where they are as loved as Eve.
Wasn't Cook.. but no matter... and they don't get to do what they like.. ask them.. they are New Zealanders too and have responsibilities as well as rights as dictated by law.. they have additional rights and responsibilities as indigenous people but that doesn't entitle them to do as they please either.. as to being the first who have their hands out for whatever reason, I can't say, but it is a rather bland statement, and if there is truth in it in any way probably has more to do with the social and economic conditions in which they live as to do with being parasites which is how you make them sound.... but having said that, it is an appalling way to treat a child and something new Zealand society has to address.. even in countries where such children have legal and constitutional rights I have no doubt that such children are treated as pariahs just as are any group of people who have such rights and protections.. we may put in place protections and rights but getting people to adhere to them and accept the usually takes some wee while longer.. and some unfortunately will never buckle down and accept them even then..

[tenni]

darkeyes
You have a point about finding ways around constitutional rights but there is a process to deal with complaints under the Canadian Human Rights Commission. There are tribunals that are established to deal with such infractions. Some have argued that the process is cumbersome and a shorter route has been tried. The main point is that legal rights are legal rights of equality. Canada, although far from perfect, has these equality rights in the constitution that have improved on the Bill of Rights in the USA. Canada made same sex marriage exactly as equal to cross gender marriage. There was no attempt to create civil unions under the argument of equal but different. The fight was about equality and the rights are enshrined there now for over thirty years. Even with more radical right winged governments, they dare not to tamper with the Charter decisions. They do seem to dare to try to circumvent the Charter and that is the danger.

I do wonder as the right winged Harper government gets to appoint more conservative Supreme Court Justices if decisions may begin to swing right. So far no, they haven't and the equality aspects of the Charter guide the Court decisions. Fortunately, Canucks regardless of background recognize (so far) that if your group wants equality all groups and all issues must be given equality. There are "crazy" right winged extremists though in all societies who use religion etc. to practice bigotry. It isn't easy and as each "new" inequality issue reaches the Supreme Court, the significance of the Charter's section 15 plays a significant role in determining equality.

[Bayoubear9]

One my many naive questions when i was that age, I asked an elderly relative why her hair was blue. Rather than explaining to me little old ladies with white hair get some bluing added so it wont look dirty... I got my butt tore up with a switch for being a smartass and disrespecting my elders. Ok, back to topic.

With the learned aspect of prejudicial behavior yes, we have come a long way but still have quite the distance to go. Myself for example, I am from the remote rural backwoods of Louisiana. For sure part of the bible belt, attitudes and culture of the deep south, and pretty much the kingdom of homophobic bigoted rednecks. As a very young child I did not know any better. Just as the child in my PP has been taught love and acceptance from an early age I was taught the opposite and spoon-fed rhetoric of hate from birth. Anything different than us was to be hated, anyONE different than us didnt matter, they werent simply another race of humans, they were viewed as a lesser species of animal. The object of the most violent hatred however was the gay community. The general consensus is that gays/bi/les/T etc are not only an abomination to nature, to god, to everyone, but they are also pedophiles and sex offenders. This ideology is far from dead. Imagine if you will the internal conflict I had growing up in this environment as a bisexual. Awkward.

As I got into about junior-high age I saw this all as the retarded bullshit that it was and moved on accordingly. While im not "out" completely I do forward share the occasional Human Rights Campaign post on Facebook or some of the cute little videos from FKH8. Some of my family scratches their heads at my choice of political causes to support but leave it alone. Some that USED to be on my friends list got deleted for comments they made about it. My siblings and I long ago made the decision that when it comes to our own kids that this culture of ignorance ends with our generation. We go out of our way to teach our kids that everyone is people and that every people are equal.