Right, Left and Centre: The Poltics of Some Canadians by Dave Jaffe. Chapter 37. Part Three.

   The Anthropologist Who Sided With the Government by Dave Jaffe


     Stanley Whitehead didn't get off scot free after giving evidence against some land claims by a First Nations group.
      He helped a man who had taken over $3,000 from a woman who he'd known. And this man wouldn't repay the money he owed.
      The woman who'd been shafted contacted Whitehead's employer after Whitehead gave the man a written character reference. Whitehead nearly lost his job. "You bitch!" Whitehead told the woman over the phone.
     "Well, you shouldn't have helped that man," the woman replied. "He's a complete crook." The woman who may have had a First Nations ancestor in her family, didn't forget Whitehead's testimony that hurt a First Nations' land claim.
    Yet this was the only time Whitehead's politics hurt him. He retired from work as a contented man. This divorced father of one daughter had used his powerful intellect to win his way into the world of anthropology. Yet like many other academics, he supported the status quo and never came out to stand beside  citizens in revolt. He worked against the rebels of this world and not for them.