SEE THE WINNIPEG PRESS ARTICLE BELOW FOR A BALANCED UNDERSTANDING countering the racist Sun News account

From SunNewsNetwork.com

Manitoba deputy premier 'entitled' to make racist comments? Despicable

STRAIGHT TALK - TOM BRODBECK - August 27th, 2013

MANITOBA DEPUTY PREMIER ERIC ROBINSON

Credits: BRIAN DONOGH/WINNIPEG SUN/QMI AGENCY

Deputy premier Eric Robinson says he's "entitled" to make racist comments about non-aboriginals because he's been a victim of racism himself.

And his boss, Premier Greg Selinger, is standing behind him, telling reporters Monday that Robinson won't be booted from cabinet because he has a strong track record of standing up for missing and murdered aboriginal women.

So let me get this straight. If you've been a victim of racism and you've done some good work helping the cause of missing and murdered aboriginal women, you have a licence to make racial slurs against white people?

Wow.

Robinson pretended to apologize Monday for the racist remark he made against "do-good white people" in an email he sent in November. But it wasn't really an apology.

A very defensive Robinson told reporters that as a young boy, he experienced racism first-hand from "non-aboriginal" people. As a result, he has a right to make general statements about white folks, including characterizing them as "ignorant," based solely on the colour of their skin.

Last time I checked, that's racism.

In fact, Robinson didn't apologize for his "do-good white people" remark at all. He tried to justify why he thinks it's OK for him to paint all white people with the same broad brush. He pretends to oppose racism, yet he happily engages in it himself and tries to justify it based on his past victimhood.

That's despicable and we shouldn't tolerate it.

Greg Selinger, who has the backbone of a jellyfish, is tolerating it. He refuses to boot Robinson from cabinet. And when asked Monday whether he thought Robinson's remarks were racist, he refused to answer, saying the matter is now before the Manitoba Human Rights Commission.

Talk about a weak-kneed cop-out.

I don't know how Selinger or his party can ever expect the public to take them seriously when it comes to fighting racism in society. By leaving Robinson in his cabinet post, Selinger is telling Manitobans that it's OK to make racist statements in some cases and that as a society, we should tolerate it.

Nice message to the kids, Greg.

The right thing for Selinger to do would have been to relieve Robinson of all of his cabinet duties. Selinger should have stood up and said his government will not tolerate the kind of racist statement Robinson made and that there will be severe consequences for anyone in his caucus who makes similar remarks.

That's called leadership, which Selinger obviously doesn't have.

Instead, Selinger is trying to cover up for Robinson, downplay the seriousness of his remarks, and hope Manitobans will eventually forget about it.

He's chosen damage control and political expediency over ethical judgement.

And that's shameful.

It's one thing for Robinson to misspeak. We've all said things in the past we may later regret. But the fact Robinson is now defending what he said and trying to justify it makes it all the more egregious.

Remember, Robinson originally refused to apologize for his comments in an interview with APTN last week. It was only after the story broke that Robinson released a statement saying his choice of words were "regrettable."

However, by Monday, he was back defending his statements again to reporters. So he's not sorry at all.

To brand all white people as "ignorant" based on their ethnicity is inaccurate and it's hateful, just like it is to stereotype any race of people.

Is Winnipeg Harvest boss David Northcott - who's white - an ignorant do-gooder because he helps disadvantaged people, some of whom are aboriginal? No.

How about some of the white folks at places like Siloam Mission? Do-gooders? Ignorant?

I think not.

But according to Robinson, by virtue of their race, they're all do-gooders and they're all ignorant.

And that, folks, is racism in its purest form.

RELATED ARTICLES

Manitoba deputy premier Eric Robinson will keep job after racist remark

++++++

From Winnipeg Free Press

A mom beaten, a son changed

Trauma still vivid in Robinson's mind

By: Larry Kusch Posted: 08/29/2013

Eric Robinson and his wife, Catherine, with their daughter, Shaneen, in this undated photo. Robinson's father is seen at left. (HANDOUT)

ERIC ROBINSON

• Born: Feb. 5, 1953, in Norway House. He's a member of Cross Lake First Nation. He was placed in a residential school in Norway House at age five and remained there for three years. He was raised mainly by his father.
• Career before politics: Worked in a variety of jobs, including as a dishwasher in Churchill, a drug and alcohol counsellor in British Columbia, a DJ and copywriter in private radio and as an on-air personality with the CBC in B.C., Churchill and Thompson. He also was a longtime activist with various aboriginal organizations and worked as a researcher for the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry in Manitoba. He co-authored a book,The Infested Blanket: Canada's Constitution-Genocide of Indian Nations, which was published in 1985.
• Political career: First elected to the Manitoba legislature in a byelection in 1993 for the northern constituency of Rupertsland. The constituency is now called Keewatinook. He has been a cabinet minister since 1999, when the NDP gained power, and now serves as minister responsible for Aboriginal and Northern Affairs and Sport Manitoba.
• Family: He and his wife of 35 years, Catherine, have one daughter, Shaneen.

RELATED ITEM

'Do-good white people' comment rapped

As a 10-year-old boy, Eric Robinson looked on in horror as his mother was badly beaten, a transformative event that would influence his future political career.

"Her non-aboriginal boyfriend was beating the hell out of her, hitting her like a man would hit another man in a boxing match," Robinson recalls.

"I tried to defend her and I was knocked against the wall" and lost consciousness.

The young Robinson, by then a survivor of three horrific years in a northern residential school, remembers coming to the next morning in his mother's arms.

"Here she was cuddling me, trying to be a mother, and yet when I woke up to see what this guy did to her, it was simply appalling," he recalled in an interview Wednesday.

His mother, an orphan who spent virtually all her childhood in a residential school, would not play a significant role in his upbringing. "She (later) died a miserable street death," Robinson said.

Fast-forward half a century and Robinson, now a 20-year MLA and a longtime cabinet minister who has championed the cause of learning the truth about hundreds of murdered and missing Canadian aboriginal women, is on the political hot seat.

A Winnipeg women's shelter, at odds with the province over funding and other issues, has obtained an internal government email in which Robinson referred to backers of a fundraiser as "do-good white people." His critics have labelled the comment racist and demanded his removal from cabinet.

It's why, in telling the story about his mother, he refers to her "non-aboriginal boyfriend." "I can't say 'white' anymore," he deadpanned Wednesday, revealing an ever-present sense of humour.

Speaking in 2008 about his residential-school experience, Robinson said he could "still taste the lye soap placed in my mouth for speaking my language, Cree."

In an address in the Manitoba legislature, he said being molested at a young age by a priest brought him "a lifetime of pain and anguish. Being told it was my fault and later learning to blame everyone around me has taken a toll on my personal relationships."

Later on, alcohol and drugs were a temporary relief but only accelerated his feelings of despair, he said.

But in 1976, through a combination of conventional treatment and traditional teachings, he "sobered up." After receiving a certificate in drug and alcohol counselling, he worked for a time with the down and out in northern B.C.

For a good part of the 1970s and early 1980s, he held a series of broadcasting jobs, winding up with the CBC in Thompson.

From there, he worked as an activist with a number of aboriginal organizations and landed a job in the late 1980s doing research and conducting prison-inmate interviews for the landmark Aboriginal Justice Inquiry.

As a cabinet minister in the Doer government, beginning in 1999, he would be instrumental in implementing many of the report's recommendations, including placing control of First Nations child welfare in aboriginal hands.

Robinson was a driving force behind the formation of the Helen Betty Osborne Memorial Foundation, named after the aboriginal high school student who was abducted and murdered near The Pas in 1971.

The foundation will this year surpass the $1-million mark in bursaries that enable aboriginal students to attend post-secondary school.

In the legislature this week, Premier Greg Selinger, in defending his embattled minister, noted Robinson was one of the first to meet with Osborne's family to acknowledge their suffering. Asked Wednesday in what capacity he made the visit to a family he knew of but not well, Robinson replied: "as a fellow human being."

Meanwhile, Robinson said witnessing his mother's brutal beating as a boy has helped direct his actions ever since.

"I think that's what ignited a bit of the fire in my stomach to this day to do what I can for marginalized people, particularly women," he said.

"I haven't been an angel all my life either, but at the very least I've done my best to be a protector of the life-givers of our people."