A notorious far-right extremist stormed a council meeting in Melbourne and abused councillors, all because news spread about a staff member who had given a workshop at a local highschool.
The incident followed a report in the Sunday Herald Sun about a Kingston City Council worker who taught a group of Year 11 boys about privilege, pronouns and intersectionality (which the newspaper put in inverted commas for some reason).
In the session, the worker told students who were white, male and Christian to stand up, and then said they were responsible for being privileged and oppressors.
The article cited anonymous parents and students who said they felt uncomfortable and called for the worker to get the sack.
The outcome of this non-story has now boiled over with very real consequences.
“It’s pretty funny isn’t it, if it was a Muslim kid you would have sacked [the council worker] by now,” the extremist said in a video which he later posted online.
“Why don’t you be racist to me, bully me mate.
“You fucking cowards, you’re Marxists. Cowards mate, pick on kids.”
It was pretty impressive how all the councillors kept their cool in the face of a ranting and raging neo-Nazi.
Kingston City Council has already issued an apology on Monday in response to the media-hyped backlash.
“Council is deeply sorry that a recent Diversity and Inclusion session delivered by Kingston Youth Services at Parkdale Secondary College has caused hurt and anguish to students and parents,” a spokesperson said.
“It is clear the program had the opposite impact to what was intended and we understand the serious concern of the school and wider-community.
“Please be assured we are investigating this as a matter of urgency and will take measures to ensure this can never happen again.”
The far-right extremist was eventually escorted out of the building by security, however these incidents shouldn’t happen in the first place.
Maybe, just maybe, the media doesn’t need to fan the flames of outrage on these kinds of non-stories in the first place.
