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Poet, writer and professor Rozena Maart is described thus in wikipedia:
Dr. Rozena Maart (born 1962) is a South African writer, professor and psychotherapist, currently living in Canada... [She] was nominated for the "Woman of the Year" award hosted in Johannesburg, for her work opposing violence against women and for starting, with four women, the first Black feminist organization in Cape Town, Women Against Repression (WAR).She exercised her activist tendencies, and wrote a letter to the editors of the Globe and Mail about a cartoon entitled "Afrocentric Algebra".
The cartoon was in reaction to the Afrocentric schools that were opened up experimentally in Toronto last year.
Part of the joke is that the cartoon character is mimicking a popular American Idol judge who often exclaims, "What's up, Dawg (dog)" whenever he is pleased with a singing contestant. Jackson is an accomplished musician, and his colleagues on American Idol, as well as the contestants, admire him and respect his viewpoints.
So, the cartoon was in no way diminishing this black teacher, or his pupils, with that slang. In fact, it was a respectful (and humorous) reference to Randy Jackson's enthusiastic outbursts.
Of course, someone obsessed with race (racism, to be precise), sexism, and is an avowed feminist, as Maart is, would find this cartoon insulting.
But, that is all beside the point (and predictable). What is funny is the follow-up apology by the Globe and Mail editors, who after listing all the positive references and writings the paper has published about Afrocentric schools, wrote this zinger (and I think the bigger joke), which of course Maart missed:
Moreover, through a mistake in transcription, the equations on the blackboard were not quite correct. This was our mistake, and there was no intention to suggest that the imaginary teacher in the cartoon was not competent.Or race-obsessed feminist are not either.
