31 years later, White Canadians are still racist and learned nothing from 1979.

In Maclean’s Magazine revisits old fears with ‘Too Asian?’ article at Racialicious, Arturo R. García blogs:

As one reader noted via e-mail, these fears are nothing new: In 1979, the CTV network aired a news piece called “Campus Giveaway,” that misrepresented Chinese Canadian students as foreigners, and inflated enrollment statistics. The story led to protests against both the network and W5, the program on which the story aired. The controversy was cited as the impetus for the formation of the Chinese Canadian National Council.

Chinese Canadians protested the perpetual foreigner stereotype in 1979. This happened before I was born.

31 years later in 2010, we, the next generation of Chinese Canadians, are still considered perpetual foreigners who do not deserve to be in university as much as White Canadians. How many generations will it take for White Canadians to recognize that they do not deserve Canadian privileges more than other Canadians? Will White Canadians forget their racist history and repeat the cycle again in the year 2041?

Toronto Fail (Link Round-up): Shame, Not Pride, Toronto.

Here is a link round-up of some bad news in Toronto.

• An Everyday Epic Battle: Pride Toronto, Blackness Yes, Israeli Apartheid and Sticking Together by Thea Lim (June 23, 2010):
  

  Long story short: Pride Toronto, which is an internationally famous week-long celebration of queer and trans pride, has made conscious or unconscious attempts to curtail the wholehearted participation of queer and trans folks of colour and their allies in Pride. They have attempted to relocate and shrink black-identified spaces, and they [had] banned [Queers Against Israeli Apartheid] from participation in Pride 2010.

• Photos and Videos of Police Brutality June 26 and 27 2010 by Maysie (June 27, 2010):

  (In this video, G20 protesters finish singing the Canadian national anthem, “O Canada”, and immediately after, a line of riot police charge at them.)

• The 20th anniversary of Oka and the continuation of unearthing human rights at the G8/G20 by Jessica Yee (June 29, 2010):
  

  Video after video, photo after photo, story after story came pouring in this weekend telling us about another friend or another relative who had been unlawfully arrested, beaten, spit on, psychologically, physically, and emotionally abused and relentlessly harassed by the police in Toronto.

Chinese Canadians protested the perpetual foreigner stereotype in 1979.

In 1979, some White Canadians believed that Chinese Canadian university students were “foreign” students taking the places of “Canadians” in Canadian universities. They produced a program about it, called, Campus Giveaway, which aired on CTV’s W5.

However, in 1979 and 1980, a group of Chinese Canadians formed an ad hoc Council of Chinese Canadians, rallied and marched against the Campus Giveaway program, and took legal action against CTV. The protesters chanted, “Red, brown, black, yellow, and white! All Canadians must unite!” outside CTV’s offices.

Here is a transcript of Protesting racism on TV, a CBC News clip from 1980 covering the W5 incident:

Reporter: A protest movement is gaining momentum in metro against the CTV television network and its public affairs program, W5. Last September, W5 aired a program called Campus Giveaway, which focused on “foreign” students in Canadian universities. Protesters say the show implies that foreign students, and Chinese students in particular, are taking the places of “Canadian” students in universities, an implication they say “smacks of racism”.

Tamil Eelam flag vs. Tamil Tiger flag

On the left is the flag of the Tamil Eelam. On the right is the flag of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a.k.a., the Tamil Tigers.

Flag of Tamil Eelam

Flag of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

Tamil Canadians chant, march, and block a Toronto highway in protest.

The video below was captured by a biker who was close to the demonstration. The protesters flew large, bright-red Tamil Eelam flags with some Canadian flags interspersed. Some of the protesters marched ahead with a banner that said, “SRI LANKA, STOP THE GENOCIDE”. Police stood by, and the chanting of the protesters alternated with the sound of the police siren. Later in the video, the protesters started running and shouting down the street with flags flying.