Video from CBC News/Youtube
I don't know about you but I have been hearing a lot recently about Black bodies being assaulted and abused especially by police in the United States. With the Chauvin trial ending and the subsequent police shootings of at least three more Black people in the states, it has just been an overload of Black people losing their lives unnecessarily.
From a Canadian perspective, we sometimes would like to believe that the type of racial violence we see from the U.S. is isolated to them and that somehow despite all the customs and traditions that crisscross the border it is Anti-Black racism that gets stopped by Immigration Canada. No, despite what a lot of Canadians believe about race relations we have a problem which we are not seeing daily like they do in the U.S. but the issues of race exist here whether it be students using the N-Word or teachers using it or whether it's police profiling a Black driver, we have a problem that we are not confronting.
A story posted on CBC News on April 24th describes an attack suffered by a 14 year Black teen that CBC identified as "Pazo". The family of the teen believes that the attack that happened on April 14th in a schoolyard was racially motivated because Pazo was assaulted verbally with racial taunts from his attackers. You can see some of the attack in the video attached to the CBC story. Pazo was treated for a concussion afterward and now his family is rightfully asking for his attackers who were all themselves only teens to be charged criminally.
As of right now, there has not been word on any charges in regards to the attack and we will have to watch and see what happens. According to the story, the attackers may be expelled from the schools they attend but that is it and that cannot be all that happens so hopefully, Edmonton Police do something so that this incident isn't just thrown under a rug. However, when the police initially arrived on the scene after this young man was beaten and thought he initiated the fight, I'm not sure what the police will or can do here.
It is something though that we have not heard this story much in mainstream Canadian news, the same Canadian news channels that would spend hours talking about the George Floyd murder and Chauvin Trial, even having reporters on the ground in Minneapolis. Canadian news stations always bring us stories about racial incidents south of the border yet right here in our back yard Canadian media fails to shine light and tell stories about what is happening here. This is why we have people like Quebec Premier Francois Legault who deny that systemic racism exists, why would he? There is hardly any race-based reporting and stats that are published about what we all know exists. I wonder if Alberta Premier Jason Kenny even has heard of this incident in his province.
I am hoping that we hear more updates about this story because it needs to be out there. We should not be left in the dark about these incidents or else it becomes easy for the general public to say that there is no problem with racism. More importantly, we hope that this young man is not forever affected by the trauma of this incident.
You can follow Thandiwe Konguavi· CBC News on Twitter for more on this story if updates become available.
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