Person who took the photo:
As an immigrant of Indian descent who routinely strolls past this walkway with my family, I feel hurt by racism like this. The Canada I chose to immigrate to had a reputation of being a country of the nicest people on God’s green earth.
But in my 3 years of being here, I have had so many incidents of racism that I have lost count. If I’m shopping at a superstore, Canadian(always white) ‘mistakenly’ assume I work at the store. (Store dress is Blue. I’m wearing baby pink.) On 3 separate occasions, restaurants have ‘mistakenly’ assumed I’m there to collect Uber Eats delivery. Basic stores like Walmart have on multiple occasions stopped me for a ‘random’ check on my shopping cart.
At first I ignored all these incidents as innocent mistakes, or justified it to myself as profiling since so many brown folks work these jobs, but over time I’m starting to realize that it’s racism. It was subtle, but now this? This is right next to a children’s park. What did I even do to not deserve a respectful life here?
In the 3 years I have been here, I have paid 100k in taxes, 100k in rents and another 100k in spending on cars, uber, restaurants, groceries, flights, hotels, airbnbs, and what not. I’m sure I have generated significant economic benefits for Canada, and I got a long 30-40 years of productive life ahead of me. I did my part, and I’m still committed to keep doing my part. Can Canadian do theirs? If not, can we at least adhere to basic social decency?
Btw, as a side note: Racism only hurts Canada. Top talent will leave. Canada will be left holding the bag with mediocre talent who came here because floodgates were opened by the government. HOLD THE GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABLE. Venting out in the form of racism is neither productive nor healthy.""