People are people
by The Standard | June 11th, 2020 Podcast https://thestandardnewspaper.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/People-are-People-June-11th-2020.mp3
I’m sure many of you reading this have heard the famous quote “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Recent actions by a few Minneapolis police officers in the United States have once again exposed the biggest underlying issue the country has: racial discrimination. The U.S. is not alone in this issue, Canada still has a ways to go to reach racial equality, and should take the opportunity to address this issue. Some people recently have said, discrimination does not exist or is not a big issue in Canada. But a couple of Canada’s leaders have acknowledged the opposite is true. During a recent press conference, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “anti-Black racism is real. It’s in the United States, but it is also in Canada,” later adding the country has “work to do” on this issue. Ontario Premier Doug Ford also addressed the recent news, at a press conference, on Monday, June 1st. He stated the province has “zero tolerance for anyone targeting the Black community, or any [other] minority group.” In a way, Premier Ford also said there is a discrimination issue in Ontario. “People are hurting right now and we must acknowledge this pain. We must acknowledge where it is coming from, and that means coming face to face with some of the most difficult problems we face as a society.” Need a recent example? How about the fears many Asian-Canadians have lived with recently, due to COVID-19 related stereotypes and misinformation, just because the virus originated in China. There is also the inequality First Nations peoples in Canada continue to face to this day. This divide was certainly exposed during the Wet’suwet’en protests, but history has many examples of the poor treatment the Indigenous peoples have faced from Canada’s officials, which the country is still paying for today. In my mind, every person should be viewed and treated as just that, a unique individual. We, as a society, need to stop categorizing people. In 2020, it’s time for us all to think differently. The first step is accepting, we, as a country, have a problem.