Editor:
Re: ‘I did my homework,’ May 12 letters
In her letter about the Surrey police change-over Margaret Shearman misses a few points.
It wasn’t the RCMP that arrested and handcuffed the Indigenous grandfather and granddaughter it was the Vancouver Police, the same police force that stood idly by for the most part during the anti-Asian race riots in Vancouver’s Chinatown which took place at the same time that the residential schools were operating.
It doesn’t matter what uniform a police force wears. What matters is the attitudes of the people who pay it, which probably mirrors the attitudes of society in general.
The RCMP kidnapped Indigenous children because they were told to.
Police officers who stood by and watched the riots happening in Chinatown weren’t ordered to do anything and were just as happy not to.
When we humans lose our “us and them” attitude, and every society has it, maybe then we won’t have situations like the above any more.
Edward Rubin, Ocean Park