Clean Up the Office - Throw Hurst Out With the Trash

Michael Hurst started more than he intended when he clicked on "send" a couple of weeks ago. The racist, hate material Hurst aimed at women that day was directed to 31 people, and someone in the group obviously decided they felt it was wrong, because the puerile misogyny he sent off into hyperspace made its way to public notice. Two women's groups, the Status of Women Council of the NWT , and the Native Women's Association of the NWT, contacted Industry Minister Maxime Bernier to ask that Hurst be fired.
The latest word is that Hurst, an Industry Development Officer with Industry Canada in Yellowknife, may be allowed to keep his cushy government job. Apparently a senior executive at Industry Canada has suggested that the slimeball should perform 75 hours of community service with three women's groups in the Northwest Territories. It has been proposed that he "do a project on discrimination". Sharon Thomas, executive director of SWC, has been quoted as saying that she would hope for it to be geared toward sensitivity training; adding, "That sounded like a pretty okay plan ... to have a man lead that (type of project) would be really good."
No. No. No. You're missing the point here entirely, Ms Thomas. Sensitivity training led by a man who would send those e-mails in the first place would be little more than a really bad joke.
Community service isn't likely to provide any epiphany for the mental midget, either. He would be just as likely to carry it out in a spirit of resentment at having been called to task, and then come away from the experience at best unchanged and at worst even more hate filled and racist than before.
Says Thomas, "I don't want him to lose a job. " Why not? Don't talk to me about healing. He has no understanding of the concept. If the women of the targeted groups are willing to be so accommodating and forgiving, the only end they are really achieving is being enablers. Why?
Are they afraid to make demands that will differentiate them from a doormat? Are they afraid to demand his job? Perhaps they are totally disillusioned and already know their demands will be futile.
I hope they don't cave on this issue. Sharon says that Hurst's hatefulness is not isolated. "It's a fairly common thing with the federal government, with everybody", she states. What a godawful situation to facilitate. I understand that the fight against systemic discrimination can seem unending, a fight that can not be won, but if the women involved here would just think for a moment about the story of that little boy and the dike in Holland, they might find some inspiration for their fight. That little guy found a hole in the dike holding back the ocean from swallowing his world. It was only a small hole, but he knew it was all the ocean needed to make its way in and devastate the countryside.
Remember that situation and rethink the Hurst incident. Hurst has provided a little hole in the wall of systemic discrimination. Don't allow it to be plugged up. Don't ask for anything less than Hurst's resignation. Keep that hole open and let the swirling waters of pride and equality make their way through that hole. Let them begin to wash away the filth that is Hurst and everyone like him.
He directed his e-mail against every woman in Canada. Every one of us should be joining our voices together to demand his resignation. So should every man who understands the concept of equality.
Hurst "doing a project on discrimination"? Give me a break.