The conflict arose after Ojo-Thompson is alleged to have suggested that Canada was more racist than the U.S., in part because Canada has “never reckoned with its anti-Black history” in the way the U.S. has.
Bilkszto, who previously taught high school in Buffalo, N.Y., disagreed with the statement. He said it would be “an incredible disservice to our learners” to suggest the U.S. is a more just society than Canada.
“We are here to talk about anti-Black racism, but you in your whiteness think that you can tell me what’s really going on for Black people?” she said, according to Bilkszto’s lawsuit.
Bilkszto claims he tried to de-escalate the situation, admitting there was anti-Black racism in Canada but argued that the evidence suggests “we are a far more just society” than the U.S.
At this point, according to Bilkszto’s lawsuit, another KOJO facilitator intervened, saying what Bilkszto was bringing up was not relevant.
The facilitator allegedly said if Bilkszto wanted to be “an apologist” for Canada or the U.S. the session was “not the forum for that.”
Another session was held a week later. At the beginning of the session, according to Bilkszto’s lawsuit, Ojo-Thompson referred to what happened the previous week and described it as a “real-life” example of resistance in support of white supremacy.
Bilkszto claims in his lawsuit that the statement, among others, implicitly referred to him as a racist and white supremacist.
The Star had begun reporting on the lawsuit prior to Bilkszto’s death.
In a July 7 statement, the KOJO Institute said it disputes many of the allegations in Bilkszto’s lawsuit against the TDSB, “including the descriptions of interactions with KOJO Institute staff which paint an inaccurate and incomplete picture” of what happened in the sessions.
They said it would be “inappropriate” to comment further since the matter was before the courts.
YMMV on whether it was whataboutism or not, but regardless, it was pretty clearly not malicious, and it’s a shame that the distress over the incident led him to suicide considering his positive record in the schooling system.
My personal reading of the very limited information is that this was a clash of personalities and priorities rather than malice on either side. The principal probably came in expecting that a DEI seminar would be about methods to make students from minority backgrounds feel more included; the speaker presumably felt that the point of the session was to develop the tools examine one’s own biases and reduce the implicit prejudices of our society and ourselves.
Thus, when the conversation turned to personal and societal biases, the principal felt unexpectedly attacked (as those who appreciate their societies often feel in such unexpected conversations) and became defensive. The speaker, on the other hand, probably took the defensiveness, without any context to ground it in, as some chud playing dumbass games and playing argumentative in a session they were forced to be in, and reacted with understandable hostility. The other facilitator seemed to recognize this to some degree by pointing out that the point wasn’t to play apologist for one country or the other.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/former-principal-who-sued-tdsb-over-alleged-bullying-during-anti-racism-training-dies-by-suicide/article_4b9f98a9-7394-5517-909b-c69eb581aec9.html
YMMV on whether it was whataboutism or not, but regardless, it was pretty clearly not malicious, and it’s a shame that the distress over the incident led him to suicide considering his positive record in the schooling system.
My personal reading of the very limited information is that this was a clash of personalities and priorities rather than malice on either side. The principal probably came in expecting that a DEI seminar would be about methods to make students from minority backgrounds feel more included; the speaker presumably felt that the point of the session was to develop the tools examine one’s own biases and reduce the implicit prejudices of our society and ourselves.
Thus, when the conversation turned to personal and societal biases, the principal felt unexpectedly attacked (as those who appreciate their societies often feel in such unexpected conversations) and became defensive. The speaker, on the other hand, probably took the defensiveness, without any context to ground it in, as some chud playing dumbass games and playing argumentative in a session they were forced to be in, and reacted with understandable hostility. The other facilitator seemed to recognize this to some degree by pointing out that the point wasn’t to play apologist for one country or the other.