Letters, Sept. 9: No place for fearmongering on the editorial pages
Credit to Author: Stephen Snelgrove| Date: Sun, 08 Sep 2019 05:19:55 +0000
I write with dismay in response to the racist op-ed by Mark Hecht that The Vancouver Sun elected to publish. Hecht — a professor, as am I — (speaks) with the full-throated conviction of someone who knows that his own ethnicity’s dominance will not last forever. Unreflective to the point that he does not feel it necessary to even mention his own ethnic background, he insists that ethnic diversity erodes social trust.
As a Canadian of mixed race, I know all too well what it is like to have to deal with the Mark Hechts of Canada: the people who move through their lives with the privilege that comes with accent-free whiteness, and who cannot (help) but recognize that as demographics change, their privilege will erode. Equality and equity are scary if they mean you might be just like everyone else.
So the Mark Hechts of Canada respond resentfully, and they fearmonger. That much is to be expected. What is shocking is that a paper of record would publish the ignorant rantings of someone who simply cannot countenance a country in which his own ethnicity or skin colour does not dominate.
Please do better.
Erika Honisch, PhD
Mark Hecht reads as what a rotten piece of fish smells like in a dumpster. Waves of gag-inducing stench.
The Vancouver Sun editorial team should be ashamed of the trash they just published in such a prestigious paper. What crap. I’m sorry you have resorted to such offensive click bait to get attention. Shame.
Rich Overgaard, Vancouver
I am curious as to what decision making process Postmedia went through in order to post this rather appalling (op-ed piece). Was it a search to find the most offensive (one) possible? The one most likely to appeal to our burgeoning hard-right collective?
Well, you seem to have accomplished something either way.
Faith Goldy was Tweeting out this article, so you have certainly garnered some attention. I would argue that accolades from a self-proclaimed white nationalist may not be something to be proud of, but hey, maybe that’s just me.
Hoping for better from our local newspapers in the future.
Carina Soderlund, Vancouver
The article by Mark Hecht in Saturday’s Sun regarding immigration and integration is so appallingly racist and Christian Protestant supersessionist that I find myself bereft of words.
I honestly can’t believe that this blatantly racist and offensive screed could find its way into a major newspaper, and in the city of Vancouver no less. I found myself choking back bafflement and rage over what I was reading.
Not only is this article littered with ludicrous inaccuracies and dubious sources concerning the effects of immigration on nations and societies, it is also entirely devoid of any reason or coherence. The content of this vile piece of writing isn’t worthy of comment.
What could possibly have motivated The Vancouver Sun to decide that this was an article worth assaulting its readership with?
Frederick Fajardo, PhD, Vancouver
On the same day this opinion piece was published, what was most of the country doing? Watching the daughter of immigrants from Romania win Canada’s first ever tennis Grand Slam. Sure sounds like social cohesion to me.
This is who we are as a country. Our diversity is our strength.
Audrey Pearson, Vancouver
Mark Hecht’s argument that economic prosperity and ‘social trust’ are enhanced by policies of racial nationalism and creation of ethnic ghettoes illustrates Canada is not immune from the pastiche fascism that is emerging globally.
Hecht’s pseudo-academic attack on diversity, tolerance, immigrants and racialized others fits neatly with the ‘science’ of eugenics, the politics of white nationalism, and reminds me of the racist, segregationist rhetoric I was surrounded by growing up in the Jim Crow South.
E. Wayne Ross, PhD, Vancouver
Letters to the editor should be sent to sunletters@vancouversun.com. The editorial pages editor is Gordon Clark, who can be reached at gclark@postmedia.com.
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