During COVID-19 we have been hearing so many positive stories about neighbours helping neighbours, communities coming together to keep local businesses afloat, and people, organizations and companies sharing innovations. At the same time, unfortunately, members of B.C.’s Chinese and Asian communities have become the targets of an increasing number of racially motivated attacks and acts of violence. This is not acceptable, and deeply troubling. And it’s probably happening even more than we know, because these kinds of crimes tend to be under-reported.

It’s clear that we are all experiencing an unusually high level of anxiety. We are worried about our health, our financial security, and our loved ones. But hate and racism have no place here in Burnaby or anywhere in B.C., and we need to show this in our words and actions every day.

It can be uncomfortable or even scary to challenge racist behaviour when we witness it. But we cannot allow these incidents to become acceptable or normalized. Our government has recently created the Resilience BC Anti-Racism Network, to help communities learn how to respond to and prevent racism safely and effectively. Hate crimes can also be reported to police or the RCMP. And as members of our community, is our duty to call out racism when we see or hear about it.