by Jeff Goodall
There is no escape from political correctness, nor, in my opinion, from the eagerness shown by many members of minority groups to exploit it.
When Edmonton beauty queen and Miss Universe Canada contestant Tiffany Munro was discussing body image with students at an Oshawa high school recently, she said that she had deliberately put on weight to enter the competition, because the organisers didn’t want the contestants to look anorexic “like some little African child with the ribs going on.”
Well, you’d have thought she was Clifford Olsen! “Rumblings and muted jeers” erupted, we are told, and “African-born Solange Tuyishime, 26, spent much of her time onstage being consoled by another contestant.”
Indeed, the Toronto Star hard-copy version has a suspiciously posed-looking photo of the victim being comforted by one Ashley Callingbull, described as “a Cree woman who said she was representing aboriginal and Canadian women.”
It seems that Ms. Tuyishime spent some time in a Rwandan refugee camp, so should know and understand the realities of African poverty first hand.
But as she puts it, she was “hurt” by the reference to “stereotypical images they show on TV…..It’s very sad that in 2010 when we make references to the poor, we think of African children, because poverty is everywhere.”
Less so in Canada, perhaps.
If Ms. Tuyishime is so upset by references to starving African children, I certainly hope she doesn’t own a TV set, as tear-jerking fundraising ads showing starving African children are aired quite frequently.
One would think that the one-time resident of an African refugee camp would appreciate this heartfelt generosity, but instead, it seems she finds the ads to be stereotypical and discriminatory.
Not hard to do, perhaps, once a safe haven has been found…
And I do have one grammatical beef with Tiffany Munro: Shouldn’t that be “ribs sticking out”?