Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance
Press Statement

Police Fanning Racial Violence Instead of Solving It

October 26, 2005

With media and police attention surrounding recent incidents of violence between youth of the Filipino and Vietnamese communities and the beginning of the trial around the death of Mao Jomar Lanot in 2003, we as progressive Filipino youth in Vancouver take objection to statements of the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) regarding this issue.

Despite our analysis that the violence is merely a result of systemic racism that youth of colour face, the VPD continues to deny that there is systemic prejudice in the police department.

Instead of solving the problem, they are a part of it. As an institution in Canadian society, the police along with the Vancouver School Board and even our own local governments have consistently refused to dialogue with our community around the issue of systemic racism. They prefer to keep the issue of violence and racism on a personal level saying the problem is parenting or “male bravado.”

We say the problem is systematic. Despite being the third largest visible minority community in BC and the fourth in Canada numbering close to 500,000, we are severely marginalized and economically segregated into low-income and service sector work. Our youth hold the second-highest high school drop out rate in Vancouver. We have no voice in a society that only addresses the issue of diversity on a superficial level. The only thing we learn about our history and culture through the public education system is that being Filipino means eating pansit or dancing the Tinikling.

The situation is similar for Filipino youth in cities across Canada.

Last March the federal government announced they would spend $2.2 million over the next five years to promote “bias-free policing.” This announcement along with the VPD’s plans to talk to the parents of the youth and have their School Liaison Units “let them know that this behaviour will not be tolerated,” are merely band-aid solutions that will not work to solve the problem.

Solutions can only come by addressing the issue of systemic racism head on. Institutions such as the VPD, VSB and local government can do so if they have genuine political will to solve the problem, instead of being a part of it.

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