Police probe alleged racist comment from officer
Kim’s Convenience actor says he heard Toronto cop tell driver to ‘go back to your country’
Actor Andrew Phung often explores themes of racism onscreen in the CBC sitcom Kim’s Convenience, but what he says he heard on the street from a Toronto police officer this weekend shocked him.
Phung, who plays Kimchee on the television series, had dropped his family off at the Rogers Centre for a Blue Jays game and was walking to the stadium Saturday when he said he heard an officer tell a driver to “go back to your country.”
Phung described the alleged incident in a series of tweets Saturday afternoon and in a phone interview with the Star on Sunday.
“For me, if I see a racist, I will call out a racist,” he said.
Toronto police spokesperson Mark Pugash said officers spent Saturday evening gathering information and are currently investigating. He told the Star he cannot provide further comment.
Phung said he was waiting to cross at the intersection of Lake Shore Blvd. W. and Rees St. — a spot he calls “a confusing mess on a good day” — with a group of about 20 other people when the light changed, and a driver he described as a person of colour hesitated while pulling through the intersection.
He said a uniformed police officer shouted at the driver to proceed, which the person did, but as the officer was walking back towards the sidewalk, Phung said he heard the officer say, “If you can’t drive, go back to your country.”
“There is no excuse for what he said, at all. In any situation,” said actor Andrew Phung about what he says he heard on Saturday.
The 20 or so people around him audibly groaned, Phung said, and he responded by saying, “Not cool.” “Anyone would have been confused at that intersection. Any Torontonian would have thought that area under the Gardiner on Lake Shore, on a Saturday Jays game, is confusing.”
Two other men then allegedly said, “No, totally cool. If you can’t drive go back to your f------ country,” Phung recounted.
He said he continued to walk beside the two men, attempting to hold them verbally accountable for their remarks, all the while saying how much he loves immigrants and everything they do for our country.
Phung said he asked the men, “Do you think driving is a prerequisite for citizenship?” He added that his aunt failed her driving test four times, and asked if that meant she should be sent back to Vietnam.
“For me, as a child of immigrants, immigrants work so hard to be here. It’s so ridicu- lous to me that you’re making driving a prerequisite for citizenship,” he said. “Not, being a good person, not hard work, not values.” Phung emphasized he has great respect for police officers and all first responders and by tweeting the situation he was not trying to pit the public against the police.
The officer was directing traffic on a busy Saturday during a baseball game, Phung said, and he wouldn’t have blamed him for expressing frustration at confused drivers, but he said a comment like that is never acceptable.
“There is no excuse for what he said, at all. In any situation. I hope this is an opportunity for that police officer to reflect on his behaviour, his words. And to remember why he became a police officer in the first place. Maybe it wasn’t to direct traffic at a Jays game on a Saturday, but it was to help people.”
Phung said many people on Twitter have been extremely supportive, but others lashed out at him personally. “How do we know this happened?” one person tweeted. “Hope you publicize the good police and first responders do as quick as you post this. Rise above ignorance, don’t fuel it.”
Phung said he feels people of colour are often told to “rise above things” when they speak out. “As a police officer, they are the moral backbone of our society, and this individual empowered two others to say hateful words,” Phung said.
“Rising above that is calling it out.”