B.C. experts weigh in on 'speak English' racist rant in Burnaby drugstore
Credit to Author: Lora Grindlay| Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2019 21:00:38 +0000
The video lasted just under two minutes, but its content has sparked a conversation that has lasted for days. Some online commentators have labelled the unidentified woman’s angry tirade towards the Burnaby drugstore employee as racist and a symptom of deeper, simmering problems in our community. Others described it as poor customer service. Others chalked it up to bad behaviour and even worse parenting. Postmedia reached out to some local leaders for their take on video and the lessons it can teach us.
Convener, Canadian Friends of Hong Kong
Fenella Sung, of Friends of Hong Kong and former Fairchild Radio host.
The incident is a full display of how disrespectful, insensitive and aggressive one could be, if angry, and how damaging these traits could be in a multicultural setting. The customer is extremely rude and disrespectful. Her rants are hurtful, demeaning and unacceptable. Worse, she did it in front of a child, apparently her child.
If she has found any staff behaviour unacceptable or offensive, she could have chosen to communicate her message across in a respectful manner, to the staff and/or to management or to corporate headquarters. The management surely will examine the validity of her complaint. However, by telling the staff to go elsewhere, her remark, racist in nature, is meant to hurt and to make people feel alienated and excluded.
We don’t have the video of the earlier incident that triggered the ranting. According to The Vancouver Sun, two staff communicated in a language that the customer did not understand while she was being served. If so, then what worries me more is the business practice or retail culture that allows staff to communicate with one another in a way/language that others don’t understand. This is very disrespectful to those who are present, making them feel insecure and excluded. We should bear in mind that this is a retail setting, a public environment that should make everyone present feel safe, comfortable and welcome. Even in a social or casual setting in private, we all know it is disrespectful to speak in a language unknown to other participants involved. We were taught this in kindergarten.
Both sides have demonstrated how ugly things can become when people are made to feel “otherness” or as “an alien.” It is high time for all of us to stop, ponder and learn to be a good neighbour to others.
B.C. parliamentary secretary for multiculturalism
Anne Kang, Burnaby–Deer Lake MLA.
Burnaby is my home, and I’m filled with sadness that someone chose to treat a person simply trying to do their job with such hostility and disrespect. The racist, hate-filled language directed at the employees working at the store was truly shocking and disturbing, and my heart goes out to them. I’d like them to know that their community, and their government, stands beside them.
As a society, we are at a critical moment. Too many people are facing racism and discrimination, and it’s time for all of us as British Columbians to say enough.
In my new role as parliamentary secretary for multiculturalism, I think every day about how I can use my position to help bring about change. I believe that one of our most powerful weapons in fighting against hatred is building connections with each other as people.
I’m optimistic that we can create a better future, and a world where people treat each other with dignity and kindness, because we all have the same basic desires. We all want to live freely. We want to be able to express ourselves. And we want to live in a world where our families, friends, colleagues and neighbours feel safe.
And so I encourage everyone in B.C. to think about how you, too, can be a part of this change through the small choices we each have everyday. We can choose to lend a hand to someone who may be having a hard time. We can choose to learn about a custom or history we hadn’t known about previously. And we can simply offer a smile to someone in our community, who we may not have connected with before.
For our part, the B.C. government is having these conversations every day. We’re asking ourselves how we can better support communities in bringing about positive change. We are working to put supports in place that will help create safer spaces for everyone to live in. One way we’ve done this is by re-establishing the Human Rights Commission to promote and protect human rights for all people in B.C. But we know that there is much more we can do as a government to create a better future, and will continue to focus on celebrating diversity, building connections, and fighting against racism and hate.
Diversity and inclusion strategist and facilitator
Alden Habacon, a Vancouver-based diversity and inclusion strategist.
The video made me think of two things:
First, vigilance is the price to liberty, freedom and Canadian values.
The moment we let our guard down is the moment non-inclusive language and behaviour have an opportunity to creep in. When I hear this kind of racist tirade, I know this is the result of us, as a community, not being vigilant enough against intolerance and xenophobia. Sometimes I think we, as British Columbians, are more serious about our recycling than enforcing our values of inclusion.
Second, no one seemed to know what to do. I know that the manager tried to de-escalate the situation, but what was really needed was an intervention. I deliver what is called “active bystander training,” which is focused on knowing what to do when one witnesses non-inclusive language and behaviour. What we know to do is record the incident on our phones. Create evidence, which is important for the victim. But beyond this, someone needed to act. Someone needed to interrupt the language and the behaviour. In these kinds of moments, when you don’t know what to do, if you’ve never practised, you freeze.
We need to be better prepared to act.
This kind of thing isn’t going away, so let’s get better at responding. Let’s all get better at disrupting the behaviour, supporting the receiver and using these moments to reiterate what are values are. I know it took some courage to take the video, but what value is the video beyond shaming? Beyond building a case against the aggressor? If we want the video to be more than a record of what sucks in our community, let’s use this video as a practice tool, to reflect on what you could have done or said in the moment.
PhD, professor emeritus of international management, Simon Fraser University
David C. Thomas, PhD, professor emeritus of international management, Simon Fraser University. Handout: SF
First, I think the rude and aggressive behaviour of the woman in the video is unacceptable. And I suggest that most of my fellow Canadians feel the same way. She is just behaving badly.
However, it’s not really possible to know why she is behaving this way. She may have issues in her personal life that are troubling her, she may have become frustrated by what she perceived as poor service. And, yes, she may even harbour negative feelings about Chinese people. Regardless, her behaviour is inappropriate.
The fact that the salespeople begin speaking in Chinese further exacerbates the situation. People are often threatened when others start speaking in a language they don’t understand. They wonder if the others are talking about them and so on. Again, however, the customer reacts inappropriately to the situation. From the standpoint of the Chinese salespeople, I expect they were stressed by the situation and when stressed people typically revert to the language with which they are most comfortable. And thus, they unknowingly made the problem worse.
It is interesting that the customer suggested that speaking in Chinese was rude. Despite the fact that she expressed this in an inappropriate threatening way, she has a point. Bilingual people have an obligation when interacting with monolingual people to be forthright about why they are switching languages. It’s probably too much to ask for the salespeople to remember this in the heat of the moment, but it is worth mentioning in terms of understanding the situation.
Finally, while this type of incident may be related to broader societal issues such as the level of cultural diversity in our country, the level of income disparity, and the general state of the world at the moment, the solution rests with us as individuals. Basic human decency means treating others with respect and consideration no matter their ethnicity, their socio-economic status, their level of education, their religion, their sexual orientation, their abilities, or their position behind the sales counter or in front of it. By starting with that, we can then move on to understanding the nuances of interacting across cultures.
* Responses have, in some cases, been edited for space and clarity.