Hate crime against Chinese realtors in Nanaimo. A spillover from Vancouver’s housing problems?
One Pacific News Editor June 23, 2015 0 COMMENTSNanaimo City. Photo source: Coast Realty Group
OnePacificNews, June 23 2015, Tuesday
Check out the excerpts from two stories below from the Nanaimo Daily.
Over the last two years, Vancouver’s mainstream media has taken to blaming Chinese demand for singlehandedly creating the city’s housing problems.
Lacking balance and shorn of detailed investigative reporting to uncover other possible causes, their stories have ended up directing public anger at the Chinese over the city’s rising housing cost. In a recent Angus Reid survey, about 64 percent of respondents said foreign buying (aka Chinese) was responsible for causing Vancouver’s housing affordability crisis. How and where did they get that conclusion from? The media, of course.
It was a matter of time before a hate crime was committed. Why the crime’s happened in Nanaimo and not elsewhere is worthy of a separate investigation.
Just as interesting is that major Chinese community leaders have not spoken out against this hate crime. Could this be one reason why it’s so convenient to target the Chinese?
Groups band together to combat racism
Spencer Anderson / Daily News, June 19, 2015
A large number of Nanaimo’s education, government and business groups have banded together on a new campaign to condemn a recent string of racist slurs against Asian realtors in the city.
The group of organizations is responding to the defacement of several bus stop advertisements on Hammond Bay Road last weekend. The advertisements featured the faces of local real estate agents with printing in both English and Chinese.
The signs were spray painted with messages including “go away,” and “not welcome.”
Swastikas were also branded onto some of the signs and police are now investigating.
Vancouver Island University has launched an online petition at www.change.org stating the city’s openness and tolerance as well as its opposition to “intolerance, racism and hate.” …..
Racist graffiti targeting Asian realtors in Nanaimo investigated as hate crime
By Julie Chadwick, Nanaimo Daily News June 17, 2015
Messages like ‘go away’ and ‘not welcome’ were spray-painted over several bus stop bench ads in Nanaimo recently. RCMP are investigating the graffiti as a hate crime.
NANAIMO, B.C. — Nanaimo RCMP say the defacement of signs along Hammond Bay Road over the weekend appears to be a racially motivated attack and is under investigation as a hate crime.
Bus stop real estate signs were sprayed with black paint, with only Asian realtors targeted.
Some signs were spray-painted with slogans like “go away” and “not welcome,” as well as swastikas.
“My family is a little concerned about my safety, because as a realtor sometimes you have to meet strangers,” said Coast Realty realtor Sophia Chen, whose sign was defaced.
Chen has lived in Nanaimo for 10 years and said she received a hate email message once before.
“It’s extremely disturbing, that individuals would go to this extent, targeting visible ethnic groups in our community. It is unacceptable,” said Const. Gary O’Brien, spokesman for the Nanaimo RCMP.
“The RCMP is investigating each of these incidents.”
They are considered hate crimes because a group is being targeted for their ethnicity, said O’Brien….
