Dear Editor,
Re: “Racist rants on the rise,” News, April 5.
I have an appeal to my fellow Canadians of colour: Are you tired of ignoramuses or even well-meaning, friendly folks assuming you are new to Canada when some of your forebears may have been Canadian longer than theirs? When some of your family may have worked their fingers to the bone building this country for them, or even died, so that they could have the freedom to badger and insult you? Do you just shrug off this boorish behaviour by saying people just don’t know any better?
Well, lots of people probably don’t, so perhaps it’s about time we started speaking up about what our forebears, or we ourselves have done, and make our ethnic contributions to Canada known, First Nations people included.
My dear fellow Canadians, we need to tell others about ourselves more and what our families have done to help build Canada, not in a boastful manner, but in a factual way. If we have ancestors who have cleared the land we live on; built the fishing, mining and lumber industries which made our wealth; constructed the railways and highways we send our commerce on; found international markets for these industries to expand; contributed to the arts and culture of Canada and so on, then maybe we should be including our ethnicity in letting people know, to help clear up the misinformation that we are newcomers, or have not contributed?
And if we are new immigrants who are working hard to make others’ lives smoother, helping others save time to do their jobs better, often looking after our loved ones, and generally helping our economy and society grow, we deserve everyone’s respect and civility, not the venting and scapegoating from others for their frustrations. So, please realize people such as ourselves and our families, have helped Canada come as far as it has.
An unhealthy situation seems to be brewing when people in our communities seem to be self-censoring, and we cannot talk about disharmony without immediately going into a “racist” category. It would be great if we could discuss controversial matters more. Thank you.
Masako Stillwell
Richmond
