Dear Editor,
Re: “New anti-Chinese flyer delivered,” News, Nov. 30.
Last week, a dozen or so Richmond community members, including MLA Linda Reid and school trustee Jonathan Ho, attended a silent protest in an effort to denounce the racist flyers circulated in Richmond.
While the effort should be commended, I question why all Richmond residents were not invited to stand in solidarity against excluding certain groups in our city and racist fear-mongering.
Unfortunately, it seems that this “protest” was simply a photo-op for the local Liberal MLAs. I am certain that if this event had been widely publicized, instead of selectively inviting a handful of residents to attend, hundreds of Richmond community members from a wide range of ethnic and political backgrounds would have gladly attended. Wouldn’t this have sent a stronger message?
Standing up against racism and xenophobia in our city should not be political. We need to take a united stance and our MLAs should represent all Richmond residents and be passionate about standing together as opposed to dividing us, which is exactly what those flyers were intended to do.
It’s disappointing that our elected MLAs are not interested in actively rallying the population of Richmond to show that these types of messages absolutely do not represent the sentiment of our residents. Sadly, however, this particular protest appears to have simply been for political gain.
Kim Nowitsky
Richmond
