Racist behaviour in Toronto simply coming into sharper focus, experts say

Recent incidents involving xenophobic posters and a racially charged outburst captured on video are just examples of underlying racist attitudes, observers say.

Thestar.com
Nov. 15, 2016
By Jackie Hong

A recent rash of widely-reported racist and xenophobic incidents in Toronto - posters urging white people to join the “alt-right,” video of racially-charged language being used during a dispute on the TTC - are just ugly attitudes that have long existed in society bubbling to the top, say experts and community members.

Last week’s election of Donald Trump may have played a role in helping them flare up, or simply have brought attention to them, again.

“We are not surprised by these reports,” said Nigel Barriffe, president of Toronto non-profit Urban Alliance on Race Relations. Founded in 1975, the alliance works with community leaders and institutions to address racism in society.

He was referring to two events that provoked shock and outrage from some on Monday, as signs targeting white people “sick of being blamed for all the world’s problems” were discovered in East York in the morning, and, later the same day, video emerged of a man using racially-charged language during a heated exchange on a TTC street car.

The Urban Alliance on Race Relations is typically contacted five or six times a week by people seeking advice and support on how to deal with racist incidents, Barriffe said. About half the reports relate to the workplace, while the rest involve things such as racist graffiti or people having slurs yelled at them from moving cars.

“Because of the work that we do around building education, building bridges between communities and ethnicities, we have been made aware (of similar incidents before),” Barriffe said.

Rinaldo Walcott, director of the University of Toronto Women & Gender Studies Institute, agreed.

“I’ve been on subways where I’ve been personally called ‘n----r’ by people,” said Walcott, whose areas of research include black culture and colonialism.

“As recently as 25 years ago, white nationalists were organizing right here in the city of Toronto . . . . Those overt acts have been happening before, but with less attention.”

“Trump’s election has focused attention now on things that have been happening prior.”

Toronto police spokesperson Victor Kwong could not confirm how many reports of racist incidents the service typically receives, but said in an email that he asked “anecdotally about whether or not there has been a rise in hate crime.”

“(The) Hate Crimes unit says there has not been a rise,” he said.

Underlying racist sentiments can be whipped up by periods of political upheaval, U of T political science professor Randall Hansen explained, although it’s unlikely that Toronto will see the same increase in racist attacks reported in the U.S. since Trump’s election.

“We’re two or three degrees removed from the campaign that led to this sort of racist sentiment,” Hansen said. “We’re getting sort of an echo effect, I think, but it’s very different from being at the centre of the boom.”

Political climates or events can aggravate conditions that already exist, Toronto-Centre-Rosedale Cllr. Kristyn Wong-Tam said. In a phone interview, she described Toronto as a “social miracle” in that it can accommodate so many cultures, languages and religions, but that it has seen unpleasant flare-ups from a minority of the population before. She cited the social climate after Rob Ford was elected as mayor in 2010.

“(Ford) gave licence to people who were more racist, who were homophobic. He gave them licence and permission to speak up and be seen and be heard,” Wong-Tam said. “And I don’t believe that represents the majority of Torontonians or Canadians, but by him being outwardly homophobic and using racist language, it (gave) people permission to do the same.”

While racist sentiments may only be expressed by a small number of Torontonians, it’s important for everyone else to stand up to it, Wong-Tam added.

Barriffe agreed.

“We definitely have to stand with our fellow neighbours,” he said. “So, if you have a neighbour that’s in one of these groups that’s being attacked, whether it’s from the Muslim community, from the black community, from the LGBT community . . . we have to reach out and hug our neighbours and let them know we love them, that they belong, that they’re part of our community.”

“(Racism’s) not new, it’s experienced here in Canada, but what we have to do is redouble our efforts to fight against it.”