Anti-immigrant politician invokes SOAS to save his bacon

T.O. councillor apologizes for 'Oriental' remarks

City councillor Rob Ford apologized Monday for comments he made earlier this month about Toronto's Asian community.

The apology came after Ford reiterated he did not intend to offend the community by calling them Orientals rather than Asians.

He said he meant it as a compliment to their work ethic when he said "Oriental people work like dogs, they work their hearts out, they are workers non-stop. They sleep beside the machine."

Ford made the comments during a debate on March 6 about keeping stores open on statutory holidays.

"I'm telling you that's what makes them such hard workers. Those Oriental people are slowly taking over," he said then.

At a council meeting Monday morning, he offered several examples where the word Oriental was used and accepted as part of everyday vernacular.

"Mr. Lee wants to know [why] Oriental studies is okay, but not Oriental people," he stated. "Someone please explain. Welcome to the faculty of Oriental studies at Oxford University, the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, and one of my Asian constituents brought this to my attention over the weekend, at No Frills, they're advertising Oriental flavour, 100 per cent pure corn starch."

"If I have offended anyone in the Asian community, I will proudly retract my statements," he said.

However, his colleagues on council insisted his comments were not an apology and voted 33 - 8 to have him make a formal apology.

Ford stood up and simply said, "Sorry."

Coun. Adam Vaughan, who presented his own petition where 260 members of the Asian community demanded an apology from Ford, said he wasn't impressed with his colleague's apology but that it would have to do.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• 'Orientals'
• Orientalism
• Asian
• community
• Canada
• SOAS
• imperialists
• Rob
• Ford
• anti-immigrant
• politics
• maple
• syrup

[lucy9359]

@inthewolf racism is a leading cause of the demise of the world and greed is another...white people are not responsible for the demise of other Nations bad people are and though white people had a hand in it so did your race and every other race...white people are scientists, doctors, and many other good things have also come from them!

[LulJam]

@SkyFranx it was the generalization that all oriental people work hard or work with machines. here's an example. "those westerners have it easy, everything is handed to them". see?

[SkyFranx]

How can "oriental" be an insult?it's the counterpart of the adjective "Western",how can western be an insult?you always hear things such western society,western culture,western country etc,so why consider oriental an offense?The more i see things like this the more i think that leftists are complete idiots.Moreover,is funny to see how leftists that see racism everywhere are racists towards white people and blame them for everything,hypocriticals

[acdc30450]

@inthewolf So that is why Zimbabwe and every other African country with the exception of South Africa "which has the most white people of any African country" is a mess. I don't mean to be racist, but you can not blame every thing on white people. Many countries are poor because they bought into that black power garbage and the polices the far left fancies. Just look at Detroit. The constituents there only elected left leaning mayors who play the race card, look what happened.

[acdc30450]

How is oriental a racist slur ? He was making a good coment. Working like a dog means you have a good work ethic, some thing liberals do not under stand. Just because he does not buy into the no one is illegal garbage does not mean he is a racist,

[DaGaDaN95]

@inthewolf I agree with you I mean other racis are pretty racist too and often get privilages whites don't but Fors is not rascist in this opinion piece of is he was actually explaining how Asian are more succsesfull becase they work hard. He wasn't being rascist he was being in politically correct but you know fat blacks your brain sells.

[abcun17]

I remember a time when Toronto was a welcoming city...what the hell happened to it? I don't recognize my own city anymore, everything now is about how mean and nasty we can be, turning on one another, blaming eachother for everything that is wrong, while the powers that be, Rob Ford et co. and the special interests who support him laugh all the way to the bank...It is sad to see the same happenning not only in Toronto but all across Canada! To bad...well good luck to us all!

[inthewolf]

@13Perica White people created civilization?? Please, brush up on your history before you make such ignorant comments! How about you look at the history of the world first? What exactly do you consider a civilization? Or did you mean civilized? In which case, white people are the cause of the demise of most countries in this world, and you better believe that's the truth. It starts with colonisation, and the rest is history. I can't believe I have to explain this to anyone anymore. Idiots.

[alchemist22]

@13Perica

ur telling me to grow up? u are a retarded kid

keep cryin white trash, that's what ur good at

[13Perica]

@alchemist22

You need to grow up. Hating white people because we created civilization is just immature. Now tell your mother she can sucky sucky for less than five dowwa.