Editor:
Re: Chinese fraud case hits White Rock, April 2.
It was with chagrin, irritation, sadness and eventual anger that I pondered your April 2 headline identifying a cultural/national group, in “connection” to a fraud case in White Rock, when you would never say Canadian or American fraud case hits White Rock.
The author, a longtime advocate and tireless supporter of the arts in White Rock, should know better; your newspaper, too.
The denial of 376 Indians on the ship Komagata Maru permission to land in Vancouver was in 1914. The head tax on Chinese was long ago abolished, in 1923. The Korematsu vs. United States decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, sustaining the legality of the internment of Japanese, was in 1944. Of course, Canada, too, sustained this (later found) illegal abridgment of civil rights.
Aboriginal Canadians were finally granted the right to vote in… 1960. The last Canadian residential school, which enfranchised the undermining of the Aboriginal people in shameful schools reflecting forced cultural genocide, was (finally) closed in 1996...yes, 1996!
Today, we are understandably embarrassed by our earlier systematic and pervasive prejudice towards these groups.
While we have attempted to make legal restitution or at least acknowledgement of these wrongs of the past, we still hold onto such depictions of Chinese or Japanese or East Indian or Aboriginals, and other minorities, in varied media depictions across our nation.
These are a clear and undignified assault on the (supposed) rights of non-discrimination we claim to hold dear.
While we all know that vestiges of discrimination will last as long as there are people who lead with intolerance, that does not excuse our Fifth Estate from leading us in a proactive way toward tolerance.
Frankly, that is historically one of the purposes of the media, albeit not as present today as it should be. But you can choose to help lead us out of the darkness, as we can all do our part to spread inclusion over exclusion. Not that it is easy.
It is long since time newspapers and other media outlets stop reinforcing the shame of the past… over and over.
I look forward to an apology for your headline and policies in the future which reflect forward thinking over shameful attitudes of the past.
“It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.” – Winston S. Churchill.
Thank you.
Steven Faraher-Amidon, Surrey
Editor’s note: The headline – written by me, not the reporter – refers to the fact that the fraud alleged by Chinese and U.S. officials originated in Henan, China’s third most populous province.