A COVID template to attack racism
Re: Canada’s not racist? Do your homework, Vanmala Subramaniam; and Letters to the editor, June 3
Our response to COVID-19 has been a broad collective effort, led by health experts, to educate the public, measure and manage the problem, and conduct research on treatments and cures. Our response to racism and racial bias should follow the same template with the same urgency, led by experts in sociology and psychology. We don’t expect our politicians to produce a COVID vaccine and we shouldn’t expect them to “fix” racism but we should expect — and demand — that they label this pernicious plague with clear, strong, honest language, rally support for a comprehensive societal response, allocate and mobilize resources to tackle the challenge, and see the process through to its conclusion (even if some of the findings are awkward, uncomfortable, or contradict conventional thinking). Anything less is unlikely to produce the durable and long- lasting solution that is sorely needed. Aaron Weinroth, Thornhill, Ont.
Canadians are well aware of racism in the police forces — since 2000 for example over 60 per cent of people killed by the police in Manitoba and Saskatchewan were Indigenous. Every jurisdiction can start dealing with this racism immediately — just make carding illegal.
Carding is the police practice of stopping innocent people to see if there was any reason to stop them. Police target people of colour and that is discrimination or racism.
Making carding illegal would indicate that Canadians are serious about addressing police racism, that politicians accept that police forces contain racist elements, that the forces themselves probably cannot deal with it, that having the police investigate themselves does not work, that oversight bodies lack teeth and credibility, and that our politicians are thankfully and finally starting to deal with it.
Anything short of real action now will suggest that Canada still tolerates racism. Ed Whitcomb, author of Understanding First Nations: The Legacy of Canadian Colonialism.
To outright state that Canada isn’t racist shows the privileged world you live in. I’ve worked in the First Nations arts community with the Talking Stick Festival in Vancouver and the Rubaboo Festival in Edmonton and the stories I’ve heard from people from across the country are varied but include everything from being denied entry to places or jobs, to having been thought to be stealing, to unprovoked verbal and physical assaults. I’m not going to say we can’t work to improve it because we can. Denying it outright however is dangerous because it allows the same level of racism to continue. Sean Mcquillan, Vancouver