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Opinion: Burnaby’s Asian community shouldn’t have to live in fear of racists

News broke earlier today that a racist who verbally assaulted two Asian women on transit in April – and then physically assaulted someone who defended them – had actually died of an overdose about a week later.
Chris Campbell
dead racist
Transit Police say this man attacked several people on transit, both physically and verbally, but has since died of an overdose. Submitted

News broke earlier today that a racist who verbally assaulted two Asian women on transit in April – and then physically assaulted someone who defended them – had actually died of an overdose about a week later.

The attack – which included a variation of that ol’ standby, “go back to where you came from” – is just one of several physical attacks targeting the Asian community recently in Metro Vancouver. One involved a woman getting punched in the face and another saw a white guy push an elderly man out of a store and onto a sidewalk.

Such a tough guy.

These physical attacks have been combined with well-documented racist comments towards the Asian community on transit, on the street and on social media as COVID-19 has spread into a pandemic.

This, of course, isn’t actually a “new” situation because virulent anti-Asian racism in Canada goes back to around the time of the infamous Chinese “head tax” (racism in Canada goes back much further for Indigenous peoples).

 

Canada has always had a racism problem - it’s just that this anti-Asian racism has become more high profile lately with COVID-19.

I see this racism every time I post a story on the NOW’s Facebook page about the housing crisis – there’s always a disgusting post that I have to delete blaming the Asian community for anything related to this.

Long before that, I heard ugly racist comments from the so-called “adults” in my life growing up in Burnaby in the 1970s and ‘80s (not my mother, but other friends and relatives). Adults were always whining about people moving to our city from Hong Kong as the 1997 handover inched closer. These newcomers got blamed for everything that was wrong in the lives of my white family and white neighbours. At first, the new kids in class got abused for their English skills “slowing down” classes (they didn’t). Then, after a period of time when these new kids had mastered English, they got abused for being “brainiacs” who always got straight As.  

Today, the Asian community is still getting blamed for everything white people think is wrong in their lives today.

What is different recently is how outwardly uneasy some in Burnaby’s Asian community feel with all of these recent attacks.

My best friend moved here more than 15 years ago from China and this is the first time she’s ever felt unsafe in Burnaby. She likes taking transit, but will not be taking it anytime soon after reading about all of the attacks.

“Why take a chance when there is so much hate,” she said.

One of my favourite people on Twitter is @RmystiQue78, a Burnaby resident who admitted feeling stress after the recent attacks.

“This is one of the reasons why I'm stressing over return-to-work plans, more than catching that damn virus,” @RmystiQue78 tweeted.“Should I have to hide my Asian-ness just so I can feel safe going to/from work? This is like the 4th one in a couple of weeks.”

 

No, you shouldn’t have to hide anything, nor should you feel unsafe to leave your home. But that’s part of what’s behind all of this viciousness. It’s always the goal of racists to make people who are different from them feel unwelcome.

Burnaby MLA Anne Kang spoke eloquently about anti-Asian racism in this story here.

 

You can also check out North Shore MLA Bowinn Ma’s tweet here for more about how the local Asian community is feeling.

People keep saying, “This isn’t my Burnaby!” Well, it’s a nice sentiment, but sadly it actually is so let’s work to change things.

Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.