Racist hate crimes in city mobilize community
With three alleged white supremacist hate group members facing trial, several groups are building an anti-racism campaign.
After a series of high-profile hate crimes in B.C., including damage to a Jewish cemetery in Victoria last month – and recent criminal charges for the burning of a Filipino man and assaults on Black, Hispanic and Native people several years ago – anti-racist activists are organizing a renewed drive to stamp out racism in Vancouver.
With three alleged members of the hate group Blood and Honour facing trial – one of them tomorrow – for a string of attacks on people of colour, several groups are organizing around the upcoming February 13 trial of Alistair Miller and Robert de Chazal.
The pair – who were arrested in December – are accused of pouring kerosene over a sleeping Filipino man and lighting him on fire in 2009, and then attacking a black man who intervened. Tomorrow's trial centres around another alleged Blood and Honour member, Shawn MacDonald, charged with separate attacks on an Indigenous women, a Hispanic man and a black man in Vancouver.
“We're interested in building an anti-racist campaign,” said Krystle Alarcon with the Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance (FCYA). “People think of multicultural Canada, and of Vancouver as a beautiful and diverse city. But racism exists in Vancouver.
“These were very clear acts of outright racist ideology.”
The migrant justice group No One Is Illegal announced plans this morning to attend MacDonald's trial tomorrow and is also rallying around the February 13 court date. The group said that hate crimes stem from systemic problems of racism in Canadian society – listing colonization of Indigenous peoples, Conservative immigration policies, and anti-Chinese and anti-Muslim sentiment as examples.
“Racism is an ugly truth about Canada,” said the No One Is Illegal statement. “The crimes of white supremacists are not exceptions, because they exist amidst an underlying racism that continuously places people of colour as Outsiders from an imagined White Canadian identity.
“We encourage our friends and allies to remain vigilant, to be pro-active in countering racism, to strengthen our communities of solidarity and resistance, and to never let the haters have power over us.”
Alarcon questioned why the Vancouver Police Department (VPD)'s hate crimes unit took more than two years to lay charges against the Blood and Honour members. In MacDonald's case, his alleged 2008 beating of Papi Ngoqo, a South African man, was captured on video by a CBC camera. In de Chazal and Miller's case, several witnesses came forward to describe the attack.
“The really slow reaction from the police – two years to actually respond – is the generally legal atmosphere where racism isn't taken that seriously in Vancouver,” Alarcon said. “It seems the police know the group – there's enough evidence for the police to shut them down, or investigate their operations.”
The VPD said it could not discuss details of its Blood and Honour investigation, but said that investigations often last years before charges are laid. In December, the department displayed white supremacist flags and materials seized by officers after the arrests of Miller, MacDonald and de Chazal.
“Incidents involving potential hate bias or prejudice are extremely important to the VPD,” said spokesperson Cst. Lindsey Houghton in an email. “We want to be able to investigate crimes and assist victims of crimes so we encourage anyone who’s been the victim of a crime to contact us. Everyone deserves to have the police investigate if they’ve been a victim of a crime.
“It is not uncommon for criminal investigations to last a significant period of time as evidence is gathered, a criminal case built up, and information compiled before it is submitted to Crown Counsel for their consideration.”
VPD's hate crimes unit was asked about incident statistics but did not respond by press time.
Alan Dutton, chair of Canada's Anti-Racism and Education and Research Society (CAERS), told the Vancouver Observer he is pleased the alleged Blood and Honour members were arrested – but questioned how seriously the legal system is taking hate crimes. He said members of Blood and Honour being released on bail raises many concerns.
“I can't understand how or why these individuals are not in jail – why are they out on bail?” Dutton asked. “These are serious charges. It certainly looks like they're hate-crime involved. Why are they out walking the streets?”
The veteran anti-hate researcher – who has documented racist groups for 25 years – told the Vancouver Observer that he believes hate crimes are on the rise in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland.
“In the early 2000s, we saw ... the ebb of hate group activity,” Dutton said. “Now what we're seeing is the growth again.
“This is spurred on by continuing fears about the economy – downturns in the economy always result in people blaming others, in particular minorities and immigration for the loss of jobs, when we know that's not the case. That is one of the ways they mobilize young people and get them to join hate groups – by blaming other people for the problems we're facing.”
Alarcon told the Vancouver Observer she witnessed exactly that phenomenon recently on a bus from Joyce Skytrain station.
“A guy walked onto the bus,” she recalled. “(He) said, 'You guys' – it was a bus full of immigrants from Joyce station – 'You should go back and build our railway, this is our land, you're stealing our jobs.'
“Nobody said anything except me ... calling him out for being a white supremacist.”
Dutton said that Commercial Drive – where the Blood and Honour incidents occurred – has a several-decade history with organized hate groups. But many other parts of the city have seen activity, he said, citing New Westminster, Surrey and Richmond in particular.
He said that incidents of hate crimes reflect a growing acceptability of racial prejudice across class lines in Canadian society, and fears and resentments which can can be stoked by government policies such as the recent ban on Muslim face coverings at citizenship ceremonies and the deportations of thousands of allegedly “fraudulent” immigrants.
“If you don't have that underlying racism in society, then hate groups would never be able to recruit,” Dutton said. “When you have politicians that appear to be blaming people who are Muslim and who appear to be different, you are going to have resentment and fear – people will use that as a basis for mobilizing young people.
“What we see, across Western Europe and in North America, is the rise again of organized hate groups and political parties representing those hate groups. We are very concerned that we do not have the mobilization of the community at this point.”
Dutton, Alarcon and No One Is Illegal all agreed that mobilization many people to speak out against racism is essential to combatting the rise of hate crimes and white supremacist groups. Dutton cites previous mass rallies in Vancouver for the decline in hate activities in the late 1990s, and praised hundreds of Victorians who rallied in December against attacks on a Jewish cemetery.
“Mobilization – this is the critical factor – mobilizing the community against hate,” he said. “There were pickets, there were marches, there were massive demonstrations.
“We need to be aware of what's going on and bring out large numbers of people to demonstrate against hate.”
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(27) Comments
Africa for the Africans,Asia for the Asians,white countries for EVERYBODY!
Everybody says there is this RACE problem. Everybody says this RACE problem will be solved when the third world pours into EVERY white country and ONLY into white countries.
The Netherlands and Belgium are just as crowded as Japan or Taiwan, but nobody says Japan or Taiwan will solve this RACE problem by bringing in millions of third worlders and quote assimilating unquote with them.
Everybody says the final solution to this RACE problem is for EVERY white country and ONLY white countries to “assimilate,” i.e., intermarry, with all those non-whites.
What if I said there was this RACE problem and this RACE problem would be solved only if hundreds of millions of non-blacks were brought into EVERY black country and ONLY into black countries?
How long would it take anyone to realize I’m not talking about a RACE problem. I am talking about the final solution to the BLACK problem?
And how long would it take any sane black man to notice this and what kind of psycho black man wouldn’t object to this?
But if I tell that obvious truth about the ongoing program of genocide against my race, the white race, Liberals and respectable conservatives agree I am a naziwhowantstokillsixmillionjews.
They say they are anti-racist. What they are is anti-white.
Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white.
Integration is like trying to put a square peg in a round hole.
Stop the hate -- segregate!
The Drive is my home. Racist peeps get short shrift here, and mentioning it as a possible source of conflict just invites out-of-towns to cause shit in my 'hood. If you're 'hater', don't bother with my 'hood. We got teeth even if the cops aren't on side; we've had problems bigger than you from before you were born. These 'Murdoch" press people that say multi-culti doesn't work haven't seen my life; have they seen yours?
You sound like the same white supremacist idiot that pollutes the Vancouver Rants and Raves section of Craigslist. What a pathetic loser you are, disseminating hatred online.
"Pale Coney", "Zrinski", "Rita Rabbit", and "GusBaker", who are all the same person. How sad, making up multiple user names to try and make it look like you have a groundswell of support for your "ideas".
Pay no attention to GusBaker or the other bigoted comments above. I've seen the exact same messages word-for-word on various articles that have to do with racism. They're most likely members of Stormfront or another white supremist group that like to troll articles like this to spread their message of hate and intolerance. They in no way represent the people of Vancouver.
you know its funny how its only a hate crime when whitey does it butt when blackey does Thea just get a slap on the wrist just learn too accept the fact that racism itsnt going anywhere any time soon and Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white.
No one says a country that is 100% Black needs more diversity.
No one says a country that is 100% Asian needs more diversity.
They are already 100% diverse.
All White countries and only White countries always need to be more diverse. White countries only stop needing to be more diverse when there are no White people left in them.
Diversity is a codeword for White geNOcide.
Anti-racist is a code word for anti-White.
When I met OBAMA to discuss RACE he fled when I handed him this:
Every WHITE country on earth is supposed to become multiracial. EVERY WHITE country is expected to end its own race and end its own culture. No one asks that of ANY non-white country. Everybody says the final solution to the RACE problem is for EVERY white country and ONLY white countries to bring in the third world and assimilate with them. It is GENOCIDE. IF YOU ARE WHITE WILL YOU JUST EMBRACE GENOCIDE FOR YOURSELF AND ALL WHITE CHILDREN?
Want to eliminate "racism"?
Stop flooding our country, which was built by europeans for europeans, with endless waves of third world immigrants. No one in Canada asked for this mass immigration, it was imposed on us.
If the current third world immigration rate continues, european people will eventually be pushed out of the country that we built. It is impossible to keep our birthrates at even the same level as the current mass immgration.
If opposing the genocide of my people is racist, then I'm the biggest racist on earth.
"Pale Coney", "Zrinski", "Rita Rabbit", and "GusBaker", who are all the same person. How sad, making up multiple user names to try and make it look like you have a groundswell of support for your "ideas".
Right now White people are being taught thait their whole identity is a lie, and that their whole history is the cancer of the world.
In the 1940s, Hitler taught that the Jewish people's history was a cancer on Germany, and that their identity was a lie.
How long are you paranoid Anti-Whites going to keep cyber-bullying white people into accepting their own genocide?
Will you stop when little white children are put in gas chambers?
I forgot! You don't care, because Anti-Racism IS a code word for Anti-WHITE.
I'll be polite and ask you to use proper 10th grade grammar and spelling in your 'response'.
In 1965 america was FORCED to open it's borders to the non-white world, at the time nobody said it would change the country from white- to non-white, BUT. IT. HAS. In the 80s, everyone said that there was no diffeence in races, in the 90s that race doesnt exist, 5 years ago it was 'White priviliage'. EVERYBODY TODAY SAYS ANTI-RACISM IS A CODE WORD FOR ANTI-WHITE.
In the end you are just Anti-White, you were never Anti-racism in the first place
Sure yeah, you own the courts and the politicians and everything else, which is why you are perpetually whining about "injustice" and getting thrown in prison like the feral savage sub-humans you are. Not doing too much with it, I'd say. Don't worry, be as arrogant and as you want, it only creates more racists every day who are waking up to the truth of the failure of "multiculturalism." These "anti-racist" (read: anti-White) campaigns are a joke.
First of all, white countries are being "overtaken" by non-whites because you detroyed our own lands in Africa, Asia, etc. Japan doesn't have immigrants because they don't need them! The Canadian economy DEPENDS on immigrants. Immigration=labour=profit. You don't have enough of a labour force to make this country run. So you OWE us for your own wellbeing -- for being doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, taxi drivers, factory workers, business owners, etc. Your economy would not even exist without us. And therefore you owe us all the entitlements every other Canadian has, which means equal rights for us too.
Secondly, this is NOT your land. Canada belongs to First Nations people, keyword: FIRST. So for you to even argue that Canada is WHITE is a misnomer.
And this is the 21st century, human migration existed over a million years ago. So get used to it!
Lastly, race is a human construction. There is no biological proof that any "race" is different from another in human DNA. Racism was created to colonize people of colour, i.e. by white supremacists. In other words, you are not superior because race does not exist!
Learn some history, some economics, some biology, and some clear common sense.
The Missing Womens inquest and the beating of minorities on the east side and the attiude of past senior VPD officers (and current ones) speaks to no-lessons learned. Look at them, a bunch of white guys in charge of Vancouver,we should get this Mayor out and put more divesity in at the top .maybe then we could make the VPD and other departments more represenative of our community. I'm tired of the white people trying to explain away all of the murders in the Missing women inquest, was anyone of colour sitting at the table deciding on their fate or was it a bunch of white guys from bedroom communities putting death sentences on people of colour and the poor.Wake up Robertson and Jim Chu and all you other so called city leaders, like Penny Ballem.
First of all, white countries are being "overtaken" by non-whites because you detroyed our own lands in Africa, Asia, etc. Japan doesn't have immigrants because they don't need them! The Canadian economy DEPENDS on immigrants. Immigration=labour=profit. You don't have enough of a labour force to make this country run. So you OWE us for your own wellbeing -- for being doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, taxi drivers, factory workers, business owners, etc. Your economy would not even exist without us. And therefore you owe us all the entitlements every other Canadian has, which means equal rights for us too.
Secondly, this is NOT your land. Canada belongs to First Nations people, keyword: FIRST. So for you to even argue that Canada is WHITE is a misnomer.
And this is the 21st century, human migration existed over a million years ago. So get used to it!
Lastly, race is a human construction. There is no biological proof that any "race" is different from another in human DNA. Racism was created to colonize people of colour, i.e. by white supremacists. In other words, you are not superior because race does not exist!
Learn some history, some economics, some biology, and some clear common sense.
Africa was destroyed by White people? So it was a sprawling paradise before Europeans arrived? And you have evidence of this?
As to immigration improving Canada, that is nonsense. Canada would be better if it remained mostly White. Like Japan, Canada needs no immigration.
Race doesn't exist yet Canada belonged to "First Nations" who apparently do not exist according to you? Makes sense.
In reality, almost all of the infrastructure and the institutions in Canada were created by people of European descent. And if you hate White people so much - who "do not exist" - then stay in your third world dump countries. Then you will never have to see any White people.
Try refuting some of the comments at hand.
Also, go move to Haiti immediately.