Dear Editor:
Re: New Bigotry Repackages Prejudice as Virtue, July 28 This Just In opinion column.
It’s not just racist graffiti as reported in the North Shore News that raises concerns and questions about wider intolerance – Trevor Lautens’ opinion piece does too.
Although it is wrapped up in an attempt to criticize the NDP, what he really does is vocalize the underlying current of prejudice that emboldens the kind of racist acts we are seeing in the form of street graffiti.
Equity policies implemented by employers, or political parties for that matter, are designed to overcome biases that hold people back for reasons aside from merit – they do not exist to select people in place of merit.
Lautens implies that people of colour, indigenous peoples, people who identify as LGBTQ, women and people with disabilities who are succeeding through equity policies do so without merit, competence and experience.
This demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of the challenges faced by very qualified and capable people from these demographics and suggests their under-representation in senior executive positions, in politics, in all positions of influence is simply because they have less merit than straight, white males – which are by every measure overrepresented in positions of power.
As a recently retired baby boomer who spent the last few years of work hiring our replacements I saw the problem first-hand.
Trevor Lautens’ tag line says that he writes “with a West Vancouver bias.” His biases are certainly not mine. I would think that the vast majority of North Shore residents would feel as uncomfortable with his piece as I do.
Rhonda Spence
North Vancouver
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