Jeffrey Reodica shooting in Toronto, what do you think? Options

[Diego_Vega]

double post,.... sorry


Admin Edit: Threads merged

[Diego_Vega]

Police Testimony

Racial Incident at Root

Chronology of Events

I know we're supposed to avoid emotional topics here, so my apologies to Matawguro, but I know this issue has been a hot one with our Filipino brothers and sisters overseas. The Toronto Star is a pretty reliable source, so I would tend to believe their accounts over others. Have you guys heard about this incident? What do you think about it?

[dan]

Police Testimony

Racial Incident at Root

Chronology of Events

I know we're supposed to avoid emotional topics here, so my apologies to Matawguro, but I know this issue has been a hot one with our Filipino brothers and sisters overseas.  The Toronto Star is a pretty reliable source, so I would tend to believe their accounts over others.  Have you guys heard about this incident?  What do you think about it?

It is a very tragic incident to see always a young man killed or died senselessly. What would have happen if the outnumbered white youths got caught up by the Fil. youths? would somebody from the white kids could have been killed?

This is what happen when hyper adrenaline takeover people's mind they tend to loose their rational to think straight their old barbaric human instinct takeover.

All I can say are what if..... the Fil. groups should have ceased chasing their rivals as soon as sign that they have got away especially since the incident happen in day light in busy time, they should have already figure out that they have attracted too much attention and it is just a matter of minutes for police to show up.

When ever there is an incident involving different racial groups racism is always the first culprit.

Here is another incident in Vancouver involving an innocent youth who happens to be a Filipino and got caught in a gang war.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/11052006/2/nati....html&printer=1

My advice to youths is to cool down and try to settle what ever differences they have against other ethnic people amicably and be smart, life comes only once there is no reset button, adults mainly parents so get involved more.

Filipinos have a positive reputation of having the ability and character of getting along with other racial groups but sadly with many youths who are at a lost of their "identity" are starting to get aggressive.

Most of the time people who group themselves racially have malicious feeling towards other racial groups we have Vietnamese, East Indians, Koreans, Iranians, Greeks, Italians, Filipinos, Chinese etc.

I like to share a personal expereince: one day my daughter who was at that time 17 yrs old her friends are of different ethnicity white, koreans etc. They usually hang out at the park and at the mall.
One day, one of her friends let call her B got into trouble with another group of kids hanging out and from what I learn it has to do with a boyfriend. The other group threatened to beat her up, B came to our home calling for assistance my daughter started cell phoning their friends.

It was so happen I overheard what was going on, that is where I intervene and told them this is not teh right way to deal with this kind of situation.

I educate them that by law if threatened you should call the police because the police take youth incident like this seriously, let the police handle it they are equiped with proepr training to defuse this kind of situation.

A lot of times kids hide their negative actions and attitude from their parents that is why it is important that we parents should be more involve with our kids and the community.

[malapitan]

The problem is obviously racial and it really brings passions to a boil when that gets into a mix of teen angst and machismo.

the victim's family admit that the victim has a knife exactly like that found at the scene. That's quite significant.

IMHO, I don't blame the cops for shooting the victim. Knives are bad news and cops justificably fear them. If I were a cop in that same situation, and I was arresting a pinoy who is resisting and I see that he pulled a knife, I'd shoot as well. Difficult as it is, the victim's family should see it from the POV of the cop. Knifes are as deadly as guns, probably more at that range. If the cops see a blade drawn, they have to shoot at that range. There's no time for verbal commands to drop the weapon.

But the key question is, did the cops really see a knife or did the knife fall out of the victim's pocket in the altercation with the arresting officer? that's tough to figure out and makes the incident controversial.

[dan]

The problem is obviously racial and it really brings passions to a boil when that gets into a mix of teen angst and machismo.

the victim's family admit that the victim has a knife exactly like that found at the scene. That's quite significant.

IMHO, I don't blame the cops for shooting the victim. Knives are bad news and cops justificably fear them. If I were a cop in that same situation, and I was arresting a pinoy who is resisting and I see that he pulled a knife, I'd shoot as well. Difficult as it is, the victim's family should see it from the POV of the cop. Knifes are as deadly as guns, probably more at that range. If the cops see a blade drawn, they have to shoot at that range. There's no time for verbal commands to drop the weapon.

But the key question is, did the cops really see a knife or did the knife fall out of the victim's pocket in the altercation with the arresting officer? that's tough to figure out and makes the incident controversial.

I guess the kid should have not resisted. The more one resist the more cops are going to get aggreesive. A clear examples are the Rodney King and many identical incidents like that.



In the Philippines it is worse, the tactic is always shoot to kill, ask question later.

[Vinzee]

Well..unless they taunted him being a filipino.... if they hate pinoys that is...

[dan]

I notice that lately there has been a growing sense of insecurity in the Filipino community. It seem that all their misfortunes, stress, not getting hired, not getting promoted, not getting good grades etc. etc. they are relating it to racial discrimination.

[bayani]

I think there's more to the story regarding the cops background and his history of not liking Pinoys. I'll check.

[Sinyalan]

I notice that lately there has been a growing sense of insecurity in the Filipino community. It seem that all their misfortunes, stress, not getting hired, not getting promoted, not getting good grades etc. etc. they are relating it to racial discrimination.

I hope not Dan, because in US some pinoys are very successful in their lives living in America. In Pilipinas, chances of getting hired there now is slim. New college grads has a low percentage of getting hired. If mearried, old, sinlge parent, from province going to the big City - chances of making it successful, almost nil... what I don't like is that the age factor in 'pinas is bit discriminating.

The case of Reodica, could be racial or something else that makes the LEOs shoot. Scared? maybe. Trigger happy? Maybe. If there are disparity to the investigations and it obviously racial driven incident then that's the time we can say it's RACIAL. Now, how is the government in Canada treat other race? Not just pinoys.

[dan]

http://www.asianpacificpost.com/portal2/ff...r_Lanot.do.html

This is just the tip of the ice burg. Authorities are trying very hard to make multiculturalism work. But because of the growing aggressivenss and phantom threat that are being imagine by youths racial riots is becoming more and more a reality.

Adults just like the authorities have a responsibility to make multiculturalism work.

One Pinoy who trains in FMA once told me that he wanted to train more Filipino youths so that they can be better fighters and was hinting if I want to teach them as well.

I explain, that this is not the right approach we will only create more burning bushes.

What we should teach is proper self defense and community awareness.

And part of self defense awareness is to know how to use your cell phone. I believe that Jomar and his friends must have cell phones since 99% of youths have cell phones. They could have easily call 911.

And if they do not have a cell phone, I guess that wil be a different story.

The problem is, the Pinoy community was quick to blame racial discrimination against them. And I believe they were acting out of anger and vengeance deep down in their hearts and discrimination is always the first offensive tactic to use.

As far as the justice system is concern here, discrimination has little to do with it it is more of the system. A clear example is the Air India bombing back in the 1985, up to this date no clear justice for the victims and the people involved are Hindus, how can one blame discrimination here?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/airindia/

The problem is when ever an incident, any incident be it a trafiic altercation, parking, employment etc. that involves two different ethnic groups it always become racial. But if it is of the same race it hardly become racial althought the incident or crime maybe indentical.

[Hierophant]

I think the increasing numbers of Filipino immigrants to Canada is causing a backlash among the white majority, simply because we don't look as 'white enough' as the Chinese.

Is the story about the Filipino kid who was punished in school for eating with fork and spoon a true story?

[Diego_Vega]

There are racist individuals everywhere. As someone who's lived for over 31 years in Canada, I don't see it as a racist country. In fact, I see Canada as a country that's always naval gazing to see how it can improve itself morally, ethically and socially. The "Conservative" government they've recent electred is actually further left and more progressive than any American liberal democrat from Massachusetts can ever aspire to be. Toronto is probably the most culturally diverse city in the world and one that really goes out of its way not only to be racially tolerant, but indeed celebrate its racial diversity.

I see far more racism here in the Philippines than I ever experienced in Canada. Walk through SM Shoemart sometime and count the number of posters with "pinoy" looking models in them. Almost all of them have white models. The only one I saw who's "pinay" was Charlene Gonzales and she's whiter than a lot of my caucasian friends. The only times you see small, dark skinned, curly haired people on tv here is when they're the object of ridicule on noon-time tv shows, or as either the victim or perpetrator of crimes. You think the portrayal of African-Americans in bad in COPS and other reality based American tv shows, you should see how we portray the vast majority of our own population. Racism seems to go in every direction here. There've been times when I've had to leave the dining table to get away from the ridiculously racist things my cousins say about Chinese Filipinos. With my Tsinoy friends, there are times when they would forget that I'm not Tsinoy and their feelings of superiority over the natives makes itself very evident. I'm not even going to get into our Spanish mestizo brethren who seems to get lighter skinned with each succeeding generation as they send their kids to Spain and other ports overseas to seek out spouses and avoid breeding with the Indios.

Filipinos are desirable immigrants precisely because we work so hard to fit in. We don't have our own ethnic neighbourhoods like Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Tokyo, Little Italy, Little Portugal, Little Saigon, etc. In fact many of us avoid contact with other Filipinos. If there is a community that wouldn't suffer from any kind of backlash, it would be the Filipino-Canadian community. (BTW, I wouldn't know how to define the "white" population in Canada. They certainly don't see themselves as homogenous as Irish, Scottish, Italian, Ukranian, Lithuanian, Latino, etc groups all see themselves as a distinct group in Canada's cultural mosaic -- to be differentiated from the United States' melting pot.)

[malapitan]

There are racist individuals everywhere.  As someone who's lived for over 31 years in Canada, I don't see it as a racist country.  In fact, I see Canada as a country that's always naval gazing to see how it can improve itself morally, ethically and socially.  The "Conservative" government they've recent electred is actually further left and more progressive than any American liberal democrat from Massachusetts can ever aspire to be.  Toronto is probably the most culturally diverse city in the world and one that really goes out of its way not only to be racially tolerant, but indeed celebrate its racial diversity. 

I see far more racism here in the Philippines than I ever experienced in Canada.  Walk through SM Shoemart sometime and count the number of posters with "pinoy" looking models in them.  Almost all of them have white models.  The only one I saw who's "pinay" was Charlene Gonzales and she's whiter than a lot of my caucasian friends.  The only times you see small, dark skinned, curly haired people on tv here is when they're the object of ridicule on noon-time tv shows, or as either the victim or perpetrator of crimes.  You think the portrayal of African-Americans in bad in COPS and other reality based American tv shows, you should see how we portray the vast majority of our own population.  Racism seems to go in every direction here.  There've been times when I've had to leave the dining table to get away from the ridiculously racist things my cousins say about Chinese Filipinos.  With my Tsinoy friends, there are times when they would forget that I'm not Tsinoy and their feelings of superiority over the natives makes itself very evident. I'm not even going to get into our Spanish mestizo brethren who seems to get lighter skinned with each succeeding generation as they send their kids to Spain and other ports overseas to seek out spouses and avoid breeding with the Indios. 

Filipinos are desirable immigrants precisely because we work so hard to fit in.  We don't have our own ethnic neighbourhoods like Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Tokyo, Little Italy, Little Portugal, Little Saigon, etc.  In fact many of us avoid contact with other Filipinos.  If there is a community that wouldn't suffer from any kind of backlash, it would be the Filipino-Canadian community.  (BTW, I wouldn't know how to define the "white" population in Canada. They certainly don't see themselves as homogenous as Irish, Scottish, Italian, Ukranian, Lithuanian, Latino, etc groups all see themselves as a distinct group in Canada's cultural mosaic -- to be differentiated from the United States' melting pot.)

I absolutely agree. We are terribly racist. We look down on "egoys" and "nognogs", often the darker and more ethnic looking. The bottom of our racist society are the indigenous people. The average pinoy considers them nothing more than savages, and struggle to put as much distance between them and our tribal brothers.

And the racism comes from everyone, the chinese, the conyos, the average pinoys who bleach their hair blond and snap up the latest skin whitening lotions. My wife is finding it more and more difficult to buy any skin care products without skin whitening solutions added to them. But then again the craze to get whiter is also common to the chinese and other asian countries as well. We just happen to add the ugly stigma of racist superiority to skin color.

Hell, we even discriminate against each other based on dialects. We consider some dialects and accents subjects of ridicule.

Yes, the spanish and the american occupations did teach us a lot...

[dan]

I think the increasing numbers of Filipino immigrants to Canada is causing a backlash among the white majority, simply because we don't look as 'white enough' as the Chinese.

Is the story about the Filipino kid who was punished in school for eating with fork and spoon a true story?

It is that very kind of perception that is creating tension among our young Pinoys who tend to believe that that is the case, there is no truth in it. East Indian (Bombay) are the second largest immigrants and they are darker then Pinoys.

Those kind of attitude are just attitude of fustration, insecurity, and in some degree envy.

Diego_Vega you hit the nail, I totally agree. In the Philippines racism is a lot stronger that is why poverty level is very high.

The story about the fork is another incident that was blown out of proportion.

One of the problem is that some Pinoys tend to bring their dirty laundry with them to Canada.

[Hierophant]

I agree with Diego's perception about the ads. I am disgusted myself when I see new TV and print ads with models who are practically pure Caucasian. And I smile whenever I see those few ads (mostly laundry and instant noodle ones) which feature normal looking people.

Actually, if you will read up on Canadian immigration history prior to the 1960s, you will see that they were as racist as the Australians prior to the 60s or 70s.

Canada's Secret Past: A History of Discrimination

Our secret past: Canada's history of discrimination has been kept so well hidden that a 1994 Canadian Civil Liberties Assn survey found that 91% of high school graduates didn't know that blacks had been refused entry to Canada on the basis of race and ethnicity
Canada and the World Backgrounder,  Apr 1996 

There's a stain beneath the gloss that Canada has painted over its race relations. Gary Yee knows about it. In 1917, his grandfather came to Canada as an immigrant. But, Mr. Yee's grandfather was Chinese, so the government forced him to pay a head tax of $500. This amounted to about two years' wages at the time. Only Chinese immigrants were forced to pay this tax.

Six years later, and before Gary's grandfather could bring his wife here, the Canadian government passed a law which banned any further Chinese immigration. In 1947, the exclusion law was repealed, but it was another five years before Mr. Yee's grandfather could get his wife into Canada, and another 17 years before the last of his children was allowed in. He was an immigrant in good standing, but he was denied the rights all other immigrants enjoyed simply because he was Chinese.

But, Mr. Yee's grandfather was not alone in suffering from the official racism of Canadian governments. East Indians would understand.

In 1914, a businessman, Gurdit Singh, chartered a Japanese ship, the Komagata Maru. He loaded up with 376 Indian passengers and headed for Canada. The vessel arrived at Victoria on 21 May, where everyone on board was vaccinated. They then sailed for Vancouver, where the harbour was lined with angry citizens. They were concerned that the Komagata Maru was carrying the advance guard of what would become a flood of East Indian immigrants.

I first read about historical Canadian discrimination in some history books. This website is but an example of how well it has been swept under the rug since the 1960s and 70s. In Yale and U.P. we have a course called "Legal History". We learned in law school that laws reflect the general attitudes of the society at the time they were enacted and enforced. Hence, if racism existed in laws years ago, the repeal of such laws would not necessarily indicate that the society that enacted those laws beforehand would instantly change the attitude behind the previous enactment of such laws. There's a demonstrable 'inertia effect'--take note how many southerner Americans are still racist 50 years after Brown vs. Board of Education and 40 years after the Civil Rights Act. Take note of how neo-Nazis still exist in Germany and how extreme politicians like Jurg Haider of Austria and Jean Marie Le Pen made it to prominence, 50 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I myself experienced racism about 5 years ago at a Makati restaurant along Jupiter Street, where my girlfriend and I were covering a Chinese-Filipino website grand eyeball (EB) cum anniversary party for a local magazine.

They sat us next to the non-Chinoys and to 2 Koreans, whom they treated condescendingly, in English. The 2 poor Koreans, not knowing much English, and very much willing to fit in and have a good time, allowed themselves to be the subject of a few laughs (as to why one of them had the nickname 'Fly' and other things). There was no effort to mingle, except for the Chinoys (all composed of young professionals and college students) to do so among themselves.

I could feel the condescension or air of superiority in the air. I told my girlfriend I was getting bored and told her how I felt after we had exited. She excitedly said "You felt it too?" and we both agreed how racist some Chinoys could be.

Back in law school I also witnessed first hand while handling pro bono cases as part of the Law Student Practice Rule, how Chinoy factory owners paid their native workers less than minimum wage, and tried hard to avoid paying SSS and the then Medicare benefits. I also learned from my best friend (a pure Chinoy, half Chinese-half Filipino) that he was not taught Praying Mantis kungfu and another style by 2 uncles who came over from China because he wasn't "pure".

You can't really blame most Pinoys for their resentment, for even hardworking and educated middle class Filipinos can feel the condescending airs of SOME of our ethnic Chinese countrymen.

Finally, racism is a fact of life. You just have to expect it and be glad if it doesn't happen. Just treat people fairly and thank God we belong to a more progressive generation. Some people even just make jokes about it, like comedian Carlos Mencias:

Carlos Mencias' WETBACK MOUNTAIN (humor)

[dan]

That is why we move to other countries we want to seek new places (for me anyway) to escape all these racial crap, to seek a new life and to escape the dirty traditional past.

Canada true, historically and not only Canada but all countries the USA, NZ, Australia, Europe, etc. all have racist past and still some form of racism still exist.

The difference is that for Canada they are atoning for the past mistakes and have took great efforts to make all people welcome.

Chinoys, Pinoys, Mestizos, etc. all have racist attitude. Me as a Tsinoy who born in Manila & grew up in the 60s and 70s have expereince heavy racist attacks from local Pinoys because of my kinky eyes.

My father who came to Manila in the late 1920s carry a deep resentment against locals and Japanese. The locals just treated him cruelly and the Japanese my father expereince the cruelty of WWII were he lost love ones and friends to the Japanese.

But like many of the early arrivals who came to Manila poor they struggle and kept all the racial attacks to themselves and have not fought back, they concentrated on their life mission and that is to build a good future for their children. But deep down inside them they have suffer mentally the psychological truama has build up in them.

That is why it is very important that we and the new generation must not repeat the mistakes of our forefathers instead learn to respect one another. But, I know that this world is an imperfect world and injustices will always be around.

The important thing is we at least know that somebody is doing something to make this world a better place and it start with us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5FeqFEF2Zw


If people start to group themselves base on race, then they are no different from the KKK, NAzi, White Supremacist groups or the Skin heads.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?search=racial...s&v=KKvX27xiyhQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04PM43oCoKc...=racial%20jokes

[Hierophant]

I guess deep down inside we all are racist. We all fall back on our own security blankets and find comfort in our own communities when we feel prejudiced by other 'unfamiliar' ethnic groups. That is part of the undesirable dark side we all possess and yet do well in conquering or at least controlling.

If people start to group themselves base on race, then they are no different from the KKK, NAzi, White Supremacist groups or the Skin heads.

Very true!

Oftentimes, we just end unfortunately end up on different camps, although having the same dreams, fears, emotions, urges, and ideals.

I have nothing against Chinese people. I like Chinese kungfu, have Chinoy friends, and identify with them when they are prejudiced. I also don't like it when ignorant non-Chinoy Filipinos tell stories about Chinese Filipinos that are obviously tall tales or wild imaginings. And like most Pinoys, I'm a fan of the great Bruce Lee.

[Matawguro]

Everyone's a Little Bit Racist (from Avenue Q)

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