One of Mao’s better known works that sticks in my mind is the essay, “Combat Liberalism”. In it he describes the harmful effects that liberalism takes upon the society and its people. He wrote it because they “stand for active ideological struggle because it is the weapon for ensuring unity…”. Of course he meant it as unity for the society and the Party as a whole. But the point was there about unity, whether that be a capitalist society or a communist one. We do have to recognize we’re all in this together.

Today in Toronto they are faced with the same kind of harmful liberalism. It surrounds the issue of LGBT identity in schools. A 20 year old individual by the name of Fan Wu has decided that the public needs a debate on the possibility of building an all homosexual school. He is a former TDSB student trustee and is assisted in his quest by Javier Davila, of the Toronto District School Board’s Gender-Based Violence Prevention Office.

This idea has been met with much criticism by the public, and rightfully so, it is a ridiculous idea. It seems to be the trend in Toronto right now, segregation rather than investigation. It is already being proposed that there be an Afro-centric school for Black students because of the statistically lower graduations rates and grades those students receive. Apparently no one is looking into what is causing the various problems, they would rather instead go back to segregation.

Now, both these groups are suggesting separate schools for different reasons. The Africentric school is supposed to “better teach Afro-Caribbian students”. I have absolutely no idea how a separate school is supposed to achieve this. No information by its advocates has come forward. They have merely claimed that a separate school will focus education around Afro-Caribbian culture, with no explanation of what that is or what it entails. I suspect there isn’t one.

There are a ton a reasons why an all Black school is a bad idea. So I’ll just stick to one that I think is very important. Give the school a few years and politicians will be making budget cuts to it because of “tough times”. Guess which school will get more cut from them? The multiracial schools with much more students in them, also more likely to have wealthier parents, or the Black school with less students with parents of lesser social power. It would take very little time for Toronto to develop a two-tier education system.

There is a reason why schools were desegregated to begin with.

Building a separate school reeks of “special needs” for being Black. I’ve literally heard people say this, that Black students have special needs considering their Afro-Caribbian ethnic cultural origin. This “argument” basically blames Black people. It is literally implying they are somehow lesser people that need “special classes” to help them keep up with non-Black students. This is basically a subtle form of eugenics.

The “gaycentric” school makes even less sense than the Afrocentric school. There is no different needs for LGBT students than heterosexual students. The issue is over the bullying and violence that homosexual students face in regular schools. The problem here is that the schools are not doing enough to stop this kind of harassment. This is not really an education problem, this is a discipline problem. This is an issue of schools not combating hate crimes. Should we build a nerd school for those of a particular personality type that are also highly bullied? No, you fight the bulling at its source.

An all-Gay school would be harmful to LGBT students. Exactly how do you prove a student is Gay? Being homosexual isn’t as clear cut an issue as non-Gays think it is. How does a parent decide their child is homosexual? What if the child discovers that they are not Gay but was just curious as to what their sexual orientation was? For some people this can be very confusing, let alone having to do it in their youth. Sending a student to an all-Gay school would indoctrinate them that they are Gay and thus would be forced into thinking that they are instead of discovering what they are.

Let us also consider the utter waste of tax money and educational resources this is. Already having a Catholic and public school system is a waste of money. We have whatever finite resources the ruling class will allow us to have for education, why break these up and distribute them according to religion? If we pool these resources together their sum can be greater than their parts. We could improve the education system we have.

This is not about special interest groups getting their way, its about reactionary liberal thinking winning out over the correct idea of stomping out gender and sexual orientation based hate crimes. This is a bunch of people who want segregation and are coming up with excuses for it. This is an inclusive society as all societies are. When these kids go out into the real world there isn’t hetro and homo only work places. There are in rare cases based on the nature of the job, but that is not a segregation that exists in society. Why force it in schools and create an unrealistic view of life?

It comes down to one idiotic concept: prejudice won’t exist if everyone is separated, and separation fights the idea that people are inherently different because of these issues. It makes no sense, separating people does not create understanding. This is the opposite of a modern enlightened society. This is pre-civil rights era mentality.

It is wrong and should not be allowed.