The Human Condition: Hate crimes

By Daniel Schnee on April 12, 2023.

Recently, Statistics Canada revealed that in 2021 hate crimes had risen across Canada; crimes centred on people’s sexual orientation, race or religion. All together they had gone up 35% in 2020, and then another 27% in 2021. In Alberta alone hate crimes tripled in 2021, and both those who committed or experienced hate crimes were overwhelmingly men and boys.

Hate crimes against various Asian ethnicities rose 16% in 2021, a number that is four times higher compared to 2019, and yet only one in five reported incidents usually result in actual charges being laid or recommended, if they are reported at all. This question of reportage intrigued me, so I decided to do some casual research into the matter, by actually speaking to Asian people living here in Medicine Hat to see if there was any correlation. What I heard was both sad and fascinating.

Overall what I was told could be described as more insidious hatred, or bigotry delivered in more subtle ways as often as open verbal abuse, etc. This took the form, for example, of older Indian Muslim women struggling to reach the top shelf at the grocery store, or trying to lift a pallet of water into their grocery cart and receiving no help as physically capable people casually strolled by giving them “The Stare.”

This stare took many forms, but was generally described as a “dirty look” from a white person, i.e. disproval over no particular thing that person had done or said. Sikh men who wore turbans described receiving this look though they stood next to a casually dressed Sikh friend.

The Stare also manifested in the moments Indian and Pakistani men described needing roadside assistance, for example, and people not stopping to help as they drove past giving the Stare.

Conversely, Indian and Pakistani women (mostly Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim) described experiencing no such issue, even remarking on how they had actually been surprised that they had experienced no racism at all.

Also, the Filipino women I interviewed spoke quite consistently about how they had experienced a significant amount of racial positivity in a way that was not patronizing, or based in stereotypes. One even described being a Canadian Filipina as “fun.”

What baffles me to this day though is the resistance to Canada being a land of multiple languages, though I understand and appreciate the need for a common tongue.

A kind, gentle Sri Lankan women spoke to me of how it hurt her heart to receive an international call on the bus from an elderly (non-English speaking) loved one in Sinhalese, and being told by a nearby passenger to “speak English!” for merely having to use her ancestral language.

Her psychic injury over her mother tongue, a wonderfully rhythmic language, may not count as a crime of criminal magnitude, but these little constant woundings over unnecessary issues build up, and sure make life miserable. A billion of these go unreported daily.

Overall, a clear if not generic image emerged: we Canadians do a better job at acceptance than most other countries, but we Caucasians still have a lot of work to do in sharing public space. For Canada is not “ours,” but we sure act like it sometimes.

Dr. Daniel Schnee is an anthropologist and jazz/rock drummer

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