TGIF. It's been a week.

The events of this past week in the US has me in a state of exhaustion. The breach of the Capitol, in Washington DC, has left much of the world in disbelief; judgement freely thrown against a nation that was once a shining beacon of freedom and democracy.

For many, the most disturbing thing about what happened in DC - beyond the breach, the failed coup, itself - was how law enforcement reacted. And it was distilled down to one of the most contentious topics this past year: white privilege. 

I’m not going to wax on about it. After all, I’m a person of colour who has been on the receiving end of enough racial slurs and sometimes I’m just sick and tired of trying to convince others that white privilege exists. But January 6 brought it all back up again. Not that it was ever out of the spotlight but this time, even non-persons of colour identified the injustice immediately across news networks and social platforms. 

Baby steps; but steps nonetheless.

Although the events of January 6 and BLM protests happened in America, racism isn’t an American problem. It’s everywhere and it’s also here in Canada. We can’t be lulled into a false sense of security. The small group of Trump supporters who were protesting outside the Trump Hotel in Vancouver are but a tiny fraction of the undercurrent of racism that also exists here in the Great White North.

From the ongoing abuse suffered by Mi’kmaq fishermen in Nova Scotia at the hands of commercial, non-native fishermen; to the verbal abuse of a 37-year-old mother from the Atikamekw nation of Manawanto as she lay dying in a Quebec hospital; to an Asian student in BC being dragged and assaulted by an RCMP officer on a wellness check… these stories are only the ones being reported in the media. Think of the numerous stories that don’t see the light of day. Such horror can, and does, happen here. 

So while we’re watching what’s happening in the US, we can’t get too smug about our own country. It’s far from perfect and we need to hold our various bodies of government and law enforcement to account as well.