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The Globe and Mail has officially published Canada’s worst headline of 2016

The Globe and Mail published a headline comparing the controversy surrounding author Joseph Boyden to a "lynching."

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“Lynching?”

Nope, you didn’t wake up in an alternate reality – this is a real headline that ran in the Globe and Mail on December 29, 2016:

On the same day that a new poll reports two-thirds of Canadians agree Indigenous people in Canada face discrimination, the Globe and Mail decided to publish a column comparing the unfolding controversy surrounding well-known Canadian author Joseph Boyden’s Indigenous identity – sparked by an investigative report by award-winning investigative journalists at APTN, no less – to a “lynching.” 

Globe columnist Konrad Yakabuski, who points out he once read Boyden’s The Orenda and found it personally fulfilling, claims Boyden is the victim of a “confederation of aggrieved minorities”:

“In the age of Idle No More and Black Lives Matter, grievance is the glue that keeps groups such as these together.”

And after worrying about what this “angry mob of identity politics” is doing to “Western democracies,” Yakabuski concludes:

“Mr. Boyden’s lynching should set off alarm bells in this regard.”

The Globe later edited the headline on the newspaper’s website, replacing “lynching” with “attacks,” although the online version of the column still concludes with Yakabuski comparing the author’s identity crisis to a “lynching.”

Here’s a sampling of how Twitter reacted:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the other hand, if Globe and Mail readers want to inform themselves with something a little more thoughtful and rational on the topic, here’s a column by Indigenous academic Hayden King:

Photo: B. Aarsteinsen. Used under Creative Commons license.

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