{"id":50798,"date":"2021-04-19T19:05:47","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T23:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=50798"},"modified":"2021-04-21T21:28:58","modified_gmt":"2021-04-22T01:28:58","slug":"abbotsfordshistoryofhushedracism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/abbotsfordshistoryofhushedracism\/","title":{"rendered":"Abbotsford\u2019s History of Hushed Racism: Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The

A photograph of Trethewey House, a heritage site in Abbotsford.<\/p><\/div>\n

Interviews have been edited for length and clarity. This content might include some explicit language.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Abbotsford, BC is the largest municipality in the Fraser Valley Regional District, an exurban area about an hour east of Vancouver. It\u2019s growing very quickly, with a 2013 City of Abbotsford Official Community Plan expecting 40,000 new residents within 20 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

The citizens of Abbotsford held a well-attended Black Lives Matter protest last spring, but the municipal government routinely denies that racism is a problem in the city. Photos of known KKK members hang on museum walls. There is almost no representation for people of colour on city council. And the white and brown communities in Abbotsford are segregated. As CIVL Radio learned through the production of this show, people of colour in the community don\u2019t feel heard or included.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the accomplishments of known white supremacists are still documented, framed and distributed, both historical and ongoing racism in Abbotsford remains hushed. This creates tension between white and non-white people in the valley and can have dire consequences. Why is nobody talking about it? And what does this silence say about the community?<\/span><\/p>\n

Last July, a business owned by Abbotsford Councillor Brenda Falk and her husband incited controversy when they left an \u201cAll lives matter\u201d comment on a Downtown Abbotsford Instagram post that supported Black lives. The business, Tanglebank Gardens, is a family-owned farm and restaurant in Abbotsford.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s treat people with respect and dignity no matter what colour or gender they are,\u201d read the comment. \u201cTreat people the way you want to be treated and let\u2019s stop the BS.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The comment was quickly challenged by Sharanjit Kaur Sandhra, a sessional instructor in the University of the Fraser Valley History department, co-chair of the Race and Racism Network, and coordinator for the South Asian Studies Institute at the university.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo... supporting people of colour is BS eh?\u201d she tweeted on July 24, mentioning the company, council, and Faulk\u2019s party, <\/span>AbbotsfordFIRST<\/span><\/a>. Over six months later, she\u2019s still not satisfied with the response.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo this day there have been young people speaking out on social media demanding accountability,\u201d she says. \u201cThere have been petitions signed, and there has been nothing but ignoring and deflecting and gaslighting from our mayor and councillors.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll the committees, even councillors and the mayor, it\u2019s a very homogeneous representation of our community, and therefore they can only know what they\u2019ve lived. They only know their communities, their churches, their culture, so how can you even begin to fathom what my lived experience is?\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs a Sikh woman having lived here for 32 years, how can you even begin to understand me if you\u2019re not even willing to listen to me when that includes a critique of you?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Abbotsford News covered the incident, sparking debate in the <\/span>comment section.<\/span><\/a> And this kind of division and racial division within the city is not uncommon. The Tanglebank comment isn\u2019t an isolated incident, says Sandhra.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In reference to another, broader issue, Sandhra is deeply troubled by the \u201csegregation between white Abbotsford and brown Abbotsford.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been told by my white friends that when they first moved to Abbotsford, they were told by their white realtors to not go to a specific part of town, West Abbotsford, because it\u2019s a shithole lived in by a majority South Asian community,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Christina Reid, executive director of Heritage Abbotsford Society,<\/span> says she has heard the same thing. She says there is \u201creally an east-west divide\u201d between the mostly white community in the east and mostly South Asian community in the West.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI know a person who, when they were moving here for a job, were told, \u2018You wouldn\u2019t want to live in West Abbotsford because that\u2019s where <\/span>those people <\/span><\/i>live,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Abbotsford does have one person of colour on council, but that\u2019s not enough to create significant change, says Sandhra.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you are part of a machine and a system of white supremacy, having one brown face, black face, or Indigenous face will not solve the problem. In fact, it\u2019s even more difficult for those people to push back against a machine that\u2019s been there for a century,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kelly Chahal is currently the only person of colour on Abbotsford City Council. She\u2019s Malaysian, but her great grandfather came to Canada 100 years ago and her family has roots in the Fraser Valley.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout my life and my career, I personally have felt that I had to work a little bit harder to get myself noticed. I had to speak a little louder and qualify myself a little bit more,\u201d she says. \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be that way, but we all know that we\u2019ve had a history of systemic oppression, and they continue to be done that way, and things need to change.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She realized at a young age that having cultural and racial diversity in any organization is an asset, and says that the lack of diversity on the board puts its members at a disadvantage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI agree that there needs to be diversity and we need to represent the community, and we don\u2019t right now,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I look at my own South Asian community, there\u2019s so many differences among us, but the nuances and difference is what will help us grow because we have different thoughts and different views and can respectfully discuss those. That way, we\u2019re not only really affecting change, but we\u2019re also sending a message that we represent the community,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Being the only woman of colour in the room isn\u2019t always easy, though. Back in school, she remembers asking to go to a friend\u2019s house only to be told she couldn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe said, \u2018Kelly, no. My dad has a shotgun and he doesn\u2019t like coloured people,\u201d she says. \u201cShe told me the truth, and I have to take her truth, not debate it with her, but form a relationship with her. That\u2019s what she faced at home, but that\u2019s not what she wanted going forward, and oftentimes I find that with the labeling, shaming, blaming\u00a0\u2014 how is somebody going to move forward? How are they going to have a different experience if I shut the door?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another time, she remembers getting a cup of coffee at a board meeting and being asked if she was cleaning staff by another woman in attendance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNow the way that I feel racism and at that time, people would like to actually see me out of the room. And I'm not going out of the room. I want to sit at the table, and that means I had to be assertive. I had to be clear. And, you know, sometimes I just have to suck it up, because things do affect me, but if my goal is that I want to be at that table, I will try to make it work out.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhere I can affect change as a council member is raising my voice and saying, \u2018Where\u2019s the process in this? Where\u2019s the policy that dictates transparency? Where\u2019s the matrix? How are we advertising this? How are we engaging? How are we networking?\u201d she asks. \u201cI think meaningful policy will stay. I could be here today but not here tomorrow.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Providing comprehensive diversity training to councillors and creating responsive, inclusive policies would help, she says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to do more work. We all recognize that, but at least we're getting somewhere.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI have been the token person many times because of my age. They would need that one person, and you wouldn't really be given the respect or the voice. You wouldn't be given the opportunity to express, and I don't believe in that. I don't think just because you're from a different culture that you're going to be a good representative, But at least we should have people from the culture to discern who is and who isn't. We aren't even there yet.\"\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Marc Forcier is the vice president of Black Connections, a club at UFV that he helped start to foster a greater community for Black people in Abbotsford. Forcier is Haitian-Canadian, and growing up, he felt isolated and unrepresented in the valley. Black Connections keeps the Black community strong there, even though the organizers have long since graduated.<\/span><\/p>\n

Forcier attended the March Against Systemic Silence demonstration in Abbotsford last summer and was \u201cvery surprised by the turnout of people.\u201d He hopes that means people in the area are waking up to the realities of racism in their own communities. Black Connections has noticed more local groups asking to collaborate and consult with Black leaders, but Forcier says he has seen \u201cno change at all\u201d in terms of infrastructure.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHere's what they'll say: \u2018Vote. Run. This is Democracy. That's what you gotta do,\u2019 but it's hard to run in a race that's already rigged, though I don't want to. I don't have the tools for it. Not to say I don't have the education for it. I can definitely learn, but at least when it's explained to me what it would take, it's like, \u2018Oh, that's beyond my means\u2019 \u2014 financially, team wise, time wise, and all that stuff.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Eliminating those barriers and providing more support for people of colour to break into politics could be one solution, Forcier says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/b>I would like to see changes at all levels in terms of representation. At the highest level here for us within city hall, I'd like to see that. We have a council that represents the people and what the makeup of Abbotsford is, or even the hopes of what they want Abbotsford to look like, especially as we're becoming this hub of development.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Chahal says engagement with people of colour needs to be respectful before it can be meaningful. That\u2019s true in Abbotsford too, where she hopes there will be more people of colour on council soon.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This series is by no means an exhaustive list of every incident that has contributed to that history. Instead, it is a reflection led by community experts in relevant areas of expertise, meant to be part of CIVL\u2019s ongoing dedication to anti-racist coverage.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Interviews have been edited for length and clarity. This content might include some explicit language.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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