My mixed-race family has felt sting of racism

Dear Readers: In the growing momentum of a sorely-needed anti-racism movement, for full and equal civil rights vs. police harassment and brutality directed at a person’s skin colour, I cannot ignore these issues for mixed-race families, like mine.

There are three races among my closest family members (also two different religions and three different traditions in practising those religions.) This is normal in Canada, from the perspective of my relatives.

What’s not normal, and has never been acceptable, is the worry and fear we feel for the African-American children who are our family and who live in the U.S.

From their earliest age possible, their mother’s been strict in making them understand that when she says, “Stop,” about even mild misbehaviour, they must stop.

As a white woman without the lived experience of overt racism, I didn’t get it, initially. I thought the reaction was unnecessary with little kids. I was wrong.

They’re bigger now, young boys, athletic, tall and looking older than their ages. It pains me to write this — typical targets for bully cops.

I’ve even had to watch and accept as necessary their father’s instructions on how to react if told, “Stop” by a police officer. Stop immediately. Don’t move. Don’t speak. Hands visible. Don’t reach for anything. Do NOT run.

I know that this same life-saving mantra has also been taught to Black- and Brown-skinned children in Canada, by equally worried parents.

And, despite being aware of the dangers facing these kids — and countless adults for the same skin-colour reason or because they don’t look “right” to certain police who exercise brute force at will — many of us white people have uncomfortably just accepted the status quo.

Not this time. Not again. We must demand change, from any and every platform available to us.

We cannot turn away, disconnected, when people push for answers on what happened when, on May 27, an Indigenous Black woman in Toronto, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, alone in her apartment with police officers, fell 24-storeys from her apartment balcony to her death.

We cannot just add George Floyd’s name to a shameful list, pinned facedown on the street May 25 in Minneapolis, handcuffed, with officer Derek Chauvin’s knee ground into his neck for almost nine minutes. Pleading for air to this officer who has 18 prior complaints filed against him. Held down by three other officers, even as he stopped moving.

We owe it to all who’ve suffered this way for far more than decades — inhumanely — to stay angry, and demand systemic changes, not just feel bad.

Reader’s Commentary: I’m a 79-yearold man frustrated by the myth that all evils are perpetrated by males against females. This attitude grew with the #MeToo movement.

Sixty years ago, I learned that a co-worker was being routinely assaulted by his much bigger wife. I worked in a femaledominated profession and experienced and observed that women also make inappropriate comments and do inappropriate touching.

I’m opposed to all inappropriate behaviour. I wish there was more honesty about what really happens.

Ellie: Early in the #MeToo movement I invited readers to send their stories anonymously, urging both men and women to contribute.

The women’s stories were heartbreaking — young girls and women disbelieved by their parents, even blamed instead of their abuser.

Few men wrote, though their stories were equally wrenching. They also felt shame for having been abused. Today, there’s no question that men suffer spousal abuse and inappropriate behaviour from women.

Ellie’s tip of the day

For the anti-racism movement to succeed, we must be part of the change.