KKK costume shocks Ont. town

The Ku Klux Klan costume at the halloween party

     Mark Andrane was at a bar on Saturday night when he sighted a man parading down the down the street in a Ku Klux Klan costume with a confederation flag. The sight was very disturbing to Mr.Andrane as he was an African American himself; the Ku Klux Klan was a society built upon white surpremacy and white nationalism. In addition, the man in the Ku Klux Klan costume was dragging a black man behind him with a rope around the man's neck; suggesting white surpremacy ideas. Mark later finds out from his friends that the two people in the costumes had won a halloween party contest in a legion. Mark later expresses his worry for this issue, " This is 2010, that is unacceptable, especially in a legion". The principle of the legion issued a public apology and there was an investigation of the two people in the costume. Mark feels that an apology is not enough to solve the issue at hand, he feels that there should be some kind of sensitivity training for them.

     I think that this a huge issue when students are unable to identify the difference between having fun at a halloween party and going overboard to the extent where you are offending others. Althought some may argue that making mistakes is a learning process and helps people become better citizens; there are situations in which mistakes should not be made. The issue of racism is an issue that Canada takes alot of action on in order to education its population to not tolerate it; this education system is implemented from as early as kindergarden. Yet, these two individuals, from a "school" decide to dress up as something that degrades a certain race, is very shocking and a huge sign of warning to the boards of education that something needs to be done.If students now are unable to identify the boundary between fun and offense, then what will the future bring upon? Chaos. Thus brings the point that schools are not doing enough to raise awareness of this issue, because a majority of people think that it is a big issue that people will be aware. Those people are wrong, there is a difference of being aware and then knowing what to do about the issue or rather, what not to do.