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28 MAY 2010
NO 1583
Victim in the dock
A high profile murder trial happened recently in Victoria. Three men in their early 20’s were brutally stabbed by another young man, resulting in the death of one of them and life-long physical and emotional scars to the others. The local newspaper published daily accounts of the trial and the various testimonies.
The other day I was talking about this trial with a friend. He was quite adamant that these three young men were looking for trouble, and the fellow who died was “no saint.” I wondered how it was that my friend found it so easy to condemn the victim in this tragic case. I began asking other friends about their perceptions and was dismayed that some of them also thought the victims were somehow responsible for this crime. I was just as concerned about those who knew nothing about the trial, and had no interest in hearing about it.
Now, there is an important piece to this story that I have omitted until now ... the murdered victim was black. While this fact may not be obvious to the general public, his Ethiopian name clearly signaled that he was not mainstream Caucasian. This leads me to wonder about how stories such as this one are racialized by the media in a way that perpetuates stereotypes and inadvertently contributes to racial discrimination.
Victoria is not a very culturally diverse city, and ethnic minorities reportedly have a difficult time finding acceptance here. I don’t believe that we are unique in this regard; it is probably true in many regions of this country. It seems that when we hear news stories about youth or young adults from ethnic minorities, we automatically assume that the crime is drug or gang related. We’ve become accustomed to this association through the many gang and drug related stories that dominate the media. It becomes easy for us then to distance ourselves from any event involving particular groups, because this is a story about “those people” and it really has nothing to do with us. This attitude contributes to further distancing of whites and non-whites and perpetuates racism that is unwittingly denied by the dominant culture.
Recently I came across a magazine article written by Jasmine Miller called “Running from the Inevitable” (More, Summer 2007). Jasmine, a black woman living in Toronto, has a 16-year-old son who was stopped by the police one evening around midnight. It seems that, because he was running in order to not miss his curfew, he drew attention to himself and was therefore stopped and questioned. According to the Police Department, running down the street at night constitutes suspicious behaviour. Does this apply to everyone? Or is the subtext really that if you are black, it’s best for you not to run anywhere because it will be construed as “unusual behaviour” warranting police investigation?
Miller describes in detail how she coached her son from a young age in how to protect himself should he be stopped by the police. She knew that being black meant that her son would be called upon “to explain his presence in a public place or rationalize some common behaviour that from him became suspicious because of his skin.” (p. 154) This woman’s encounter with systemic racism in the police department was particularly disturbing to me, and I wondered about how she supported her son in coping with the indignities that he had already experienced and would likely continue to encounter in the future.
When we hear about young people joining gangs and engaging in criminal behaviour, we usually feel disgust and contempt for their “bad” choices. Instead, we should be exploring the ways in which these youth, particularly those from ethnic minorities, are disengaged from mainstream society and then work towards re-engaging them. I think youth in general feel this alienation (I remember my own kids talking about how old ladies would cross the street when they saw them coming) but for minority youth, it is compounded by more explicit messages that they are not welcome. Miller’s story is a perfect example of this. She worries about how there is “no undoing the anger that’s been ignited in his heart” but hopes that “the shame and sense of impotence can be tempered with speed and a refusal to fully surrender” (p. 165).
For me, the story of the murder trial hits close to home ... Bruk Abera was a friend of my daughters. His family had emigrated from Ethiopia under very trying circumstances and they assumed that they would be safer in Canada. Bruk was only 20 years old. My girls and their friends were deeply saddened and affected by this senseless act of violence. They describe Bruk as a kind and caring young man who struggled with being black in a predominately white community, but he was making his way in the world. He could be quite shy, but was engaging and funny when he was with people with whom he felt comfortable. His attacker has been convicted of second degree murder and is now awaiting sentencing. Never in the month-long trial was it ever mentioned that the three victims of this assault were African immigrants and refugees while the assailant was white. The all-white jury was expected to draw their own conclusions while race or racism was never once addressed. It was deemed irrelevant to the case.
My purpose in writing about the subject of racism is to invite all of us to examine the racialized nature of media stories and the level of “subtle” systemic racism that exists in this country. If we are genuine in wanting to be a multicultural country that embraces differences and ethnic minorities as legitimate contributors to the fabric of Canadian society, then we need to start by challenging the dominant discourse that perpetuates racism, ethnocentrism, and stereotypes, especially within ourselves.
MICHELLE KOROLL
Koroll, M. (2007). Victim in the dock. Relational
Child and Youth Care Practice, 20, 4. pp. 72-73
REFERENCE
Miller, J. (Summer, 2007). “Running from the inevitable:
One swift moment validates a mother’s cynicism and unleashes her son’s
silent fury.” (p. 154—156) MORE Magazine: New York.
