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More Canada banknote controversy


Balaji Murthy

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To be fair to the BoC;

 

They show proposed designs to focus groups so as to try and avoid controversy, in this case it has backfired.

 

Consider that visible minorities only make up around 20% of the population of Canada & that 20% is composed of Indian, African, Chinese, Japanese, Inuit & the other Native Canadian Indians, as well as people with certain disabilities etc. Showing a person from just one of those groups causes some people from the other groups to get upset because their group is not shown, I think it is nigh near impossible to represent them all on a banknote. Therefore the BoC goes with a person that looks like someone from the majority 80% considering it to be neutral, not intending it to be a slight against any of the visible minorities, or in fact against men!

 

While I feel sorry for any prejudices & hardship visible minorities suffer I think that this just illustrates the impossibility of pleasing everyone in a multicultural society.

 

I apologise in advance if I have missed any visible minority groups, it was not my intention to slight you in anyway.

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I think that is a fair comment. I wasn't making a judgment on the issue itself, rather just highlighting that after relatively for a long time, the new series seem to be beset with needless controversies. First, the reaction about the Vimy memorial on the $20 bill, and then this.

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I missed the Vimy memorial $20 bill controversy, as I was in hospital at the time, so I just googled it & found it quite funny what people thought they saw!

 

Plus "many people in the $100 bill focus group mistook a DNA strand for a sex toy, while some saw a skull on crossbones on the new $50", perhaps they should just give up on focus groups and "publish & be damned".

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Oy. I'm not one of those people who are anti-PC or super-PC, so please don't take what I say out of context. I agree with the above commenters. Perhaps some Asian-Canadian focus groupers were offended by the science stereotype? We certainly wouldn't get a great reaction in the US if we had an African-American playing basketball on a bill. We'd get "Why not as a scientist? Or a lawyer?"

 

But discussion is good and healthy.

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To be fair to the BoC;

 

They show proposed designs to focus groups so as to try and avoid controversy, in this case it has backfired.

 

Consider that visible minorities only make up around 20% of the population of Canada & that 20% is composed of Indian, African, Chinese, Japanese, Inuit & the other Native Canadian Indians, as well as people with certain disabilities etc. Showing a person from just one of those groups causes some people from the other groups to get upset because their group is not shown, I think it is nigh near impossible to represent them all on a banknote. Therefore the BoC goes with a person that looks like someone from the majority 80% considering it to be neutral, not intending it to be a slight against any of the visible minorities, or in fact against men!

 

While I feel sorry for any prejudices & hardship visible minorities suffer I think that this just illustrates the impossibility of pleasing everyone in a multicultural society.

 

I apologise in advance if I have missed any visible minority groups, it was not my intention to slight you in anyway.

 

Oy. I'm not one of those people who are anti-PC or super-PC, so please don't take what I say out of context. I agree with the above commenters. Perhaps some Asian-Canadian focus groupers were offended by the science stereotype? We certainly wouldn't get a great reaction in the US if we had an African-American playing basketball on a bill. We'd get "Why not as a scientist? Or a lawyer?"

 

But discussion is good and healthy.

 

This was almost echoed exactly in an Ottawa Citizen newspaper article today:

 

It strains belief to think the bank intended any slight. Rather, it seems to have been caught on the horns of identity politics, whose first rule is: no matter what you do it’s wrong. Focus groups had apparently objected to the image of the Asian-looking woman on the notes — some (presumably non-Asian) because other ethnicities had not been so honoured, others (presumably Asian) because it stereotyped Asians as scientists. So: put her in, and you offend some people; take her out, and you offend even more.
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