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Toddler's bathtub drowning partly the fault of racism, says Ontario judge
Systemic racism lightened the manslaughter sentence of a Jamaican-Canadian mother who left 15-month-old in the bath by himself
nationalpost.com
When a Jamaican-Canadian woman was tried for manslaughter — specifically, for leaving her 15-month-old son alone in a full bathtub for 10 minutes, causing him to drown — her judge had to ponder a question now standard in our country’s courtrooms: did systemic racism play a role in the crime?
Justice Jane Kelly of Ontario’s superior court answered “yes.” In her Jan. 8 decision, she included that as a mitigating factor that lightened, to some extent, mother Tajah Henry’s prison sentence of three years.
On a high level, this sent a message that it wasn’t just Henry who was at fault for drowning her toddler — it was all Canadians and their collective racist existence.
But society didn’t drown Henry’s child. Society didn’t tell Henry to fill the bathtub to the overflow drain, place her son in water 10 inches deep, exit the room, leave the door open a crack, put headphones on, clean her apartment, and check on the tub five to 10 minutes later. If society is to be blamed, it should be for allowing Henry to care for the child in the first place. He had been apprehended at birth and returned two months later — which Henry felt was unfair and “framed” her as an “unfit parent,” even though she went on to kill him.
But behind this tragedy was another: that of Henry’s own life, which was recounted in a racial background report provided to the court. (These reports really took off in 2021 with the advent of the racial discount regime for non-Indigenous minorities in some provinces; now, the federal government funds these reports for anti-racism reasons.)
From the age of seven Henry lived in care, as her step-father and addict mother were charged and later convicted of child abuse. “Teachers noticed various injuries on her and her siblings,” noted the court, and “Police became involved.” Henry remembered beatings with wires, cords, belts and hands. Between both parents, she had 15 siblings, but her family bonds were weak.
Henry lasted two weeks in her first foster home with a “sweet” Black couple, and placements afterwards were also short due to her “swearing, breaking things, and tantrums.” Stability looked like eight months to a year at a group home. In one of these homes, she alleged that the owners mistreated her by “lying, manipulating, shoving her into closets, and threatening to call the police,” though the court never examined the truth of this. At 16, she was moved into a house on her own.
At school, Henry skipped class, didn’t do homework, and didn’t have many friends (though one friend’s family attempted to foster her). She dropped out when she got pregnant at 17. She was sexually assaulted by the father of her son, who pleaded out after being charged, and she claims another man assaulted her in her sleep. She is on disability, housing, and income support, but has held various jobs in the past. Her diagnoses include ADHD, depression, oppositional defiant disorder and learning disabilities.
As for racism, Henry didn’t actually experience much of that. She’d been called the N-word several times, but in most negative interactions she’d experienced, she couldn’t discern whether racism or personal dislike was the cause.
The race report writer also noted that Henry “has been referred to as the ‘whitest Black person’” and “has felt that some people were ‘not inclusive or sensitive to her cultural needs.’” Which isn’t racist, let alone traumatic.
Finally, one woman who lived with Henry when she was a toddler told the court’s race report writers that systemic racism played a big role in her life. It was an unfalsifiable statement by a now-distant connection, so it was of little use.
It’s undeniable that Henry lived a difficult life, but this was primarily the result of the neglect and cruelty of her parents, who were Jamaican. It was the Canadian system that stepped in when her family failed, even trying to place her with a Black family, and later offering housing and welfare.
One has to be thoroughly steeped in ideology to blame Henry’s dysfunction on “systemic racism.” That feeble theory views any statistical disparity between groups as a result of policies and societal attitudes that aren’t adequately anti-racist; under this belief system, even neutral rules and beliefs are considered racist if they result in poorer outcomes for minority groups.
For example, the Canadian justice system is considered systemically racist by theory adherents because Black and Indigenous people make up disproportionately large shares of the prison population, and are disproportionately charged with homicide.
For those whose upbringing was normal, functional and loving, it can be hard to make sense of Henry’s story without this framework. So, like medieval pagans making sense of bad weather by attributing it to the gods, they blame Henry’s woes on systemic racism, the unquantifiable, immeasurable blight inflicted by Canadian society and its European roots. That seems to be what Justice Kelly did, as she couldn’t explain how racism led a mother to drown her little boy.
This goes back to Nova Scotia’s judges, who pioneered the racial discount in 2021, and their colleagues in Ontario who followed months later. The legal test says that race is a mitigating factor in sentencing if a connection can be drawn between systemic discrimination and the crime (courts insist this isn’t a racial discount, but that’s functionally not the case). Oftentimes, judges don’t bother explaining what that connection is.
Part of this is a result of Canada’s progressive legal culture. When a critical mass of judges follow the ideologies of the left, courts will transform their dogmas into law. Another part comes from direct coercion by the federal government: in 2021, the Liberal government updated the Judges Act by requiring judicial applicants to agree to undergo systemic racism training.
The judiciary is indeed perpetuating racism in a systemic manner — just not in the way progressives think. By excusing bad conduct for racial reasons, courts send a message to society that minorities do not have free will to the same extent as everyone else. White people, being ineligible for these discounts, receive harsher punishments. For just about everyone outside the courts, it’s a total farce.
This is fixable: we just have to amend the Criminal Code to prohibit discounts based on race and “systemic discrimination,” and this goes away. But the population needs to demand it — through letters to MPs and provincial justice ministers and even through basic exasperation on social media. If the courts can’t figure out that racial discounts bring the administration of justice into disrepute, perhaps the sheer force of ridicule will help them learn.
Systemic racism lightened the manslaughter sentence of a Jamaican-Canadian mother who left 15-month-old in the bath by himself
Jamie Sarkonak: Toddler's bathtub drowning partly the fault of racism, says Ontario judge
Systemic racism lightened the manslaughter sentence of a Jamaican-Canadian mother who left 15-month-old in the bath by himself
nationalpost.com
When a Jamaican-Canadian woman was tried for manslaughter — specifically, for leaving her 15-month-old son alone in a full bathtub for 10 minutes, causing him to drown — her judge had to ponder a question now standard in our country’s courtrooms: did systemic racism play a role in the crime?
Justice Jane Kelly of Ontario’s superior court answered “yes.” In her Jan. 8 decision, she included that as a mitigating factor that lightened, to some extent, mother Tajah Henry’s prison sentence of three years.
On a high level, this sent a message that it wasn’t just Henry who was at fault for drowning her toddler — it was all Canadians and their collective racist existence.
But society didn’t drown Henry’s child. Society didn’t tell Henry to fill the bathtub to the overflow drain, place her son in water 10 inches deep, exit the room, leave the door open a crack, put headphones on, clean her apartment, and check on the tub five to 10 minutes later. If society is to be blamed, it should be for allowing Henry to care for the child in the first place. He had been apprehended at birth and returned two months later — which Henry felt was unfair and “framed” her as an “unfit parent,” even though she went on to kill him.
But behind this tragedy was another: that of Henry’s own life, which was recounted in a racial background report provided to the court. (These reports really took off in 2021 with the advent of the racial discount regime for non-Indigenous minorities in some provinces; now, the federal government funds these reports for anti-racism reasons.)
From the age of seven Henry lived in care, as her step-father and addict mother were charged and later convicted of child abuse. “Teachers noticed various injuries on her and her siblings,” noted the court, and “Police became involved.” Henry remembered beatings with wires, cords, belts and hands. Between both parents, she had 15 siblings, but her family bonds were weak.
Henry lasted two weeks in her first foster home with a “sweet” Black couple, and placements afterwards were also short due to her “swearing, breaking things, and tantrums.” Stability looked like eight months to a year at a group home. In one of these homes, she alleged that the owners mistreated her by “lying, manipulating, shoving her into closets, and threatening to call the police,” though the court never examined the truth of this. At 16, she was moved into a house on her own.
At school, Henry skipped class, didn’t do homework, and didn’t have many friends (though one friend’s family attempted to foster her). She dropped out when she got pregnant at 17. She was sexually assaulted by the father of her son, who pleaded out after being charged, and she claims another man assaulted her in her sleep. She is on disability, housing, and income support, but has held various jobs in the past. Her diagnoses include ADHD, depression, oppositional defiant disorder and learning disabilities.
As for racism, Henry didn’t actually experience much of that. She’d been called the N-word several times, but in most negative interactions she’d experienced, she couldn’t discern whether racism or personal dislike was the cause.
The race report writer also noted that Henry “has been referred to as the ‘whitest Black person’” and “has felt that some people were ‘not inclusive or sensitive to her cultural needs.’” Which isn’t racist, let alone traumatic.
Finally, one woman who lived with Henry when she was a toddler told the court’s race report writers that systemic racism played a big role in her life. It was an unfalsifiable statement by a now-distant connection, so it was of little use.
It’s undeniable that Henry lived a difficult life, but this was primarily the result of the neglect and cruelty of her parents, who were Jamaican. It was the Canadian system that stepped in when her family failed, even trying to place her with a Black family, and later offering housing and welfare.
One has to be thoroughly steeped in ideology to blame Henry’s dysfunction on “systemic racism.” That feeble theory views any statistical disparity between groups as a result of policies and societal attitudes that aren’t adequately anti-racist; under this belief system, even neutral rules and beliefs are considered racist if they result in poorer outcomes for minority groups.
For example, the Canadian justice system is considered systemically racist by theory adherents because Black and Indigenous people make up disproportionately large shares of the prison population, and are disproportionately charged with homicide.
For those whose upbringing was normal, functional and loving, it can be hard to make sense of Henry’s story without this framework. So, like medieval pagans making sense of bad weather by attributing it to the gods, they blame Henry’s woes on systemic racism, the unquantifiable, immeasurable blight inflicted by Canadian society and its European roots. That seems to be what Justice Kelly did, as she couldn’t explain how racism led a mother to drown her little boy.
This goes back to Nova Scotia’s judges, who pioneered the racial discount in 2021, and their colleagues in Ontario who followed months later. The legal test says that race is a mitigating factor in sentencing if a connection can be drawn between systemic discrimination and the crime (courts insist this isn’t a racial discount, but that’s functionally not the case). Oftentimes, judges don’t bother explaining what that connection is.
Part of this is a result of Canada’s progressive legal culture. When a critical mass of judges follow the ideologies of the left, courts will transform their dogmas into law. Another part comes from direct coercion by the federal government: in 2021, the Liberal government updated the Judges Act by requiring judicial applicants to agree to undergo systemic racism training.
The judiciary is indeed perpetuating racism in a systemic manner — just not in the way progressives think. By excusing bad conduct for racial reasons, courts send a message to society that minorities do not have free will to the same extent as everyone else. White people, being ineligible for these discounts, receive harsher punishments. For just about everyone outside the courts, it’s a total farce.
This is fixable: we just have to amend the Criminal Code to prohibit discounts based on race and “systemic discrimination,” and this goes away. But the population needs to demand it — through letters to MPs and provincial justice ministers and even through basic exasperation on social media. If the courts can’t figure out that racial discounts bring the administration of justice into disrepute, perhaps the sheer force of ridicule will help them learn.
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