If someone said to you
“Yah, I’d like to go to Florida but in Miami you have to deal with all the Hispanics”
or
“The Chinese in Toronto are terrible drivers because they have no peripheral vision”.
or
“The problem is all those Blacks along Jane Street.”
Is that Racist or should it be filed under hate?
It's at the very least a hint of someone having an unhealthy attitude to "some" others. These thoughts often just roll off the tongue as easily as saying the sky is blue. Many of us may have these thoughts but they are not always verbalized in public or put on record.
I hope it’s something that can never be attributed to me. However, I am not entirely without guilt. When I hear someone make statements about “Hispanics” or “the Chinese” I should speak up.
I don’t always do that.
Every time I read about a stabbing or shooting in Toronto, I think “black man” before I even read the story or see a picture. The fact is much of this kind of trouble and lawlessness comes from that community because of drugs or whatever.
The papers are full of it.
It’s a pre-conceived notion that the media has plugged into my head. Can I be faulted for that?
This "hood" mindset is born in a small percentage of young men and women and yes a lot of the problems centre on that Jane/Finch area in Toronto or the Asian community. That being said “whites” are just as much to blame for lawlessness and outright stupidity. I mean many “white boys” have that “yo yo yo” mentality with their pants hanging around the cracks of their lily-white asses and knit woollen caps pulled down over moist brows when the temperature hits 30 degrees!
These “white kids” stab and shoot and kill and yell obscenities too.
Maybe it’s the rap music?
I dunno.
There certainly is a pre-conceived notion that the “yo yo hip-hop, rap nation” is all about drugs and hurting one another. Maybe I have blinders on. I don’t know.
Then, there's the recent attacks on members of the Gay Community in the Church Street Gay Village that are very alarming. I have always felt totally safe walking along Church and Wellesley in Toronto but maybe with the trouble of late- the copycat “slushing” thanks to the TV show Glee, I need to re-think about wearing that security blanket. Although not “racist” in nature, these acts are certainly “homophobic” or about “hate” at the very least.
I don’t believe it’s a problem that will go away easily- whether its racial comments about Blacks and Hispanics or Homophobic barbs, this kind of attitude is here to stay. Many of us keep it deep inside but occasionally it creeps up over the teeth and tongue and sees the light of day.
Maybe we all need to do a bit better and start correcting individuals possessing this verbal mindset.
I don’t know.
I do know it is the right thing to do but I don’t know…
