Reports of racism are ongoing in Kamloops.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Kamloops Immigrant Services

A Kamloops family is the victim of a racist incident that took place over the weekend.

Malicious, racist words were written on their fence in large print with a felt pen.

“It proved that racism is alive and doing well in our neighbourhood,” said the mom who will not be identified to protect her children.

The Caucasian mother has two adopted children with different skin tones. Her son is Black and her daughter is Indigenous. This is not the first time her kids have been the targets of racist behaviour. After living in Lillooet and Cache Creek, the mom said the family has endured the most racism in Kamloops.

“My son gets followed when he’s shopping in a store,” she said. “He has been stopped going into a hockey game with his white friends and he is the only one who gets his bag checked. My daughter walked to the gas station to get a slushie and a guy loudly told his dog ‘she’s brown and if you bite her you will be poisoned’.”

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The mom said most of the hurtful attacks are coming from kids who attend the middle school beside her house.

“My son came home from lunch one day and there was a large group of kids forming in our yard,” the mom said. “They started throwing stuff at him, including racial slurs. They drew racial slurs and swastikas in the dust on our vehicle.”

The daughter had been attending The Sk’elep School of Excellence, which focuses on aboriginal tradition and academics, up until this year when she went into Grade 8.

“She hadn’t experienced racism before,” the mom said. “Within the first couple of weeks she had racial slurs thrown at her, kids telling her to go back to residential school. The onus is on the victim to identify the perpetrators but I don’t agree with that. There is a problem in the school and the administration needs to address it.”

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The mom said watching her kids getting hurt by racist attacks is heartbreaking, and it has been going on for years.

“My son has been facing racism playing hockey since he was eight,” she said. “As a rule, when the other team has been informed the coaches had a team meeting and offered a team apology. I’m certain there are other attacks my son doesn’t tell me about.”

The mom encourages her children to talk about racial incidents when they happen, to not engage with the negative behaviour and to be strong.

“People say they didn’t know things like this are still happening but they are,” the mom said. “They happen to little kids and it’s not just kids doing it, it is adults. My daughter and I were at a hockey game and organizers did a land acknowledgement. The couple behind me complained and were swearing about it.”

She said it isn’t good enough for people to not be racist, more people need to be anti-racist and stand up when racism happens.

“If it is happening to my kids it is happening to others,” she said. “My kids are proud of their skin tone, but because of their skin tone they shouldn’t be followed in a store.”

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France Lamontagne is the executive director of Kamloops Immigrant Services.

“We would like to think that we are a welcoming city, we would like the place we call home to be a place where everyone is respected,” she said. “However, racism incidents are being reported on an ongoing basis. They happen on the street, at the grocery store, in our schools, and we must address this systematically.”

Lamontagne said Kamloops has been welcoming people from around the globe for decades and it is clear that immigrants and people of color have helped make our region a vibrant, dynamic place where everyone can prosper.

“So why? Why are people still afraid of a brown colour or a black colour skin tone, why afraid of a different English accent, why afraid? Because it can only be fear based. It can only be due to ignorance passed on from generation to generation. And we must do something about it, especially in our schools, with our children.”

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