This sign above is one of many on my favourite local trail. It is a positive message that we can all learn from.
Sheila Tucker
Recently, a young woman in Vancouver was walking her dog. She was punched in the face and head and knocked to the ground by a tall, stocky man who hurled insults that included telling her she didn't belong in Canada and to go back to Asia. Her dog managed to scare the man off, and later she called the police, who helped her retrace her steps. They took a report. Let's hope this violent man is found before he does this again.
The irony, according to this woman, is that she is not even Asian. She is an Indigenous Canadian. (Read her story in the link at bottom.)
Whether a person is an Indigenous Canadian or an East Asian or anything else, no one should believe they can willfully inflict violence and verbal abuse against them. Nor do they have the right to approach someone and tell them to "go back to Asia" or "Africa" or "Pakistan" or wherever the abuser assumes they're from.
I feel ashamed knowing that many of these abusive acts are committed by people of European ancestry, like myself. Often, the people they attack have lived in Canada as long as they have, yet these perpetrators assume by their skin colour that these individuals have just arrived. Even so, it makes no difference whether someone has recently arrived in this country or lived here for generations. Racially motivated attacks are hate crimes, pure and simple.
Tragically, early white settlers did tremendous harm to this country’s original peoples. These communities are still suffering the effects of being pushed into hostile lands away from their traditional home grounds, and the trauma of residential schools and governmental "legal robbery." Increasingly, this shameful history is now being documented. Seven Fallen Feathers by Anishinaabe Canadian journalist Tanya Talaga is a great place to start.
But racist attacks aren’t restricted to Canada or even the North American continent. It is a worldwide phenomenon, as extreme right groups, motivated by fear of otherness, commit acts of abuse, bullying, discrimination and marginalization. Another Indigenous journalist, Stan Grant, an Australian Wiradjuri man, gave a speech in 2015 that went viral in that part of the world. The transcript of his powerful message is pasted below, in this link:
https://ethics.org.au/stan-grants-speech/
Listening to Mr. Grant's speech, it is clear the colonial injustice meted out to Canadian (and American) Indigenous communities mirrored that inflicted on Aboriginal peoples. They too, were pushed into remote areas, their traditions and rights quashed, their children moved to residential schools and their languages outlawed.
The way that Vancouver man behaved with the woman walking her dog (mistaking her for Asian), is a microcosm of the prejudicial behaviours and policies of governments both past and present. Right now, similar horrors are befalling Brazilian native peoples in the Amazon, under that country's president, Bolsonaro, elected in 2019.
This country, Canada, prides itself on being multicultural. But for that to truly be so, we need to accept and embraceall ancestries. This begins in the schools by imparting knowledge of world traditions and the history of global migration, so that we can we begin to develop a deeper appreciation of others and create a healthier and richer society based on acceptance and mutual respect.
We may never completely lose the narrow-minded "yahoo" thuggery of some people, but we can reduce it.
Canadian woman kicked and punched: reported by the CBC, May 17, 2020
https://ca.yahoo.com/news/indigenous-woman-says-she-punched-175612596.html