Ravi Kahlon: Time to stand up and protect the diversity that makes us strong
Credit to Author: Stephen Snelgrove| Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2019 01:00:31 +0000
In Canada and around the world, hatred and discrimination is on the rise and too often emboldened by mainstream tolerance of racist and anti-immigrant narratives, like those in the opinion article by Mark Hecht, which appeared in the print edition of The Vancouver Sun on Sept. 7, 2019.
Like many of you, I was appalled when I read it. The article was, in short, racism and white supremacy wearing a thin disguise of academic bluster. It was every kind of wrong. I was floored. I was angry. I was sad. I couldn’t sleep.
It reminded me of darker times in Canadian history when people were told to fear immigrants and warned against the “Asian Invasion.”
When Japanese and Ukrainian Canadians were stripped of their possessions and placed in internment camps. When a head tax was imposed on every Chinese person entering Canada, and when the Komagata Maru was turned around in Vancouver’s harbour.
I thought of my parents who came to Canada with nothing. My father could not get a job while wearing a turban, and like so many before him he was advised to make a choice between his faith and employment.
And fear sank heavy in the pit of my stomach. Because we all know that views like Hecht’s don’t live in a vacuum, and the problem of racism doesn’t only exist in the past.
Over the last two months, as part of our government’s work to combat racism, I travelled the province, met with community members and leaders, and listened as people shared their experiences of racism.
Indigenous peoples and people of colour don’t need a prejudiced article to tell them that our society is shifting. They are feeling afraid in their own communities and are forced to justify their right to exist in a province and a country they helped build.
People of colour, and people who speak other languages are being harassed on the bus, at school, and in their places of work. Told to go back to their country, that they are not welcome here. And Indigenous peoples face prejudice every day, often driven by the same white nationalism that erases Canada’s violent colonial history.
To their credit, The Vancouver Sun apologized and removed the article from their website. The print edition was already in newsstands and on doorsteps around the province.
It’s the kind of thing we could all move on from, chalk up to an editorial blunder, and forget in a few days. But if we do that, we fail each other, and we fail this diverse and beautiful province we are so lucky to live in.
Instead, we could use this moment to have a larger conversation. We need to ask news organizations, like The Vancouver Sun, to report about the experiences people face every day, about structural racism, about the role and responsibilities that institutions have in addressing it, and consider whose voices are heard in these important spaces.
Let’s create room for this conversation. Diversity is our strength, but protecting diversity is hard work.
For our part, our government will continue to call-out racism, and keep working to promote diversity, human rights, inclusion and mutual respect. But we need to stand together against racism, prejudice and those who seek to divide us, so we can build a better future for every person, in every community.
Ravi Kahlon is the MLA for Delta North, Parliamentary Secretary for Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, and formerly served as the Parliamentary Secretary for Sport and Multiculturalism. He is leading a provincewide engagement with community leaders to learn about what more can be done to better fight racism in this province.
Editor’s note: The Vancouver Sun will be reaching out to some of the people who participated in the recent roundtable discussions to give them an opportunity to share their stories.