Over the past several months, I have heard many people say how blessed they feel to live in such a caring community.
Salmon Arm is a community whose citizens raised $1.5 million in one year for a CT so people would have access to the best in healthcare, donated close to $38,000 in this year’s annual turkey drive for the Salvation Army Food Bank and some $7,000 more to the kettles.
It is a community whose citizens turned out in great numbers recently to look for a missing woman, earning praise from a Shuswap Search and Rescue search manager, and showed overwhelming support for a young couple whose rental home caught fire just before Christmas.
All these are things for which local citizens indeed deserve accolades. It is a response that fosters a sense of belonging and acceptance.
But not every citizen is afforded the same dignity.
More than a year ago, 46-year-old Laura Henderson, a member of the Kitsumkalum First Nation, had the courage to speak about the racism she has faced since high school – a painful reminder that for some, Salmon Arm is not a welcoming place.
It took more than a year to find two other people who were willing to speak to this newspaper about the racism they have been subjected to.
Oh, I heard plenty of ugly stories over the past 12 months, but the people who shared them were too afraid to go public. They are painful stories about being told to get out of town because of race, colour or religion – stories about vicious name-calling in reference to their culture.
While it appears most of our population supports efforts to bring Syrian refugees to the community, one member of the refugee committee offered her basement suite as accommodation. But when she sought agreement from the other members of her strata, every single person said no.
Quite frankly, it astounds me that in most areas of our lives, we value variety – the abundant rainbow of colours of fruits and vegetables, the delightful mix of colours in a flower garden.
How happily we embrace the wide variety of food choices offered in local restaurants, from Italian to Chinese, Indian, Swiss, Thai and more. It is because of the richness of other cultures that we have these delicious choices.
How is it then that when it comes to skin colour, some folks can’t grow beyond the erroneous notion that white is superior? I mean really, it’s only a matter of skin pigmentation, not intelligence, ability, emotion or any other trait.
White supremacists had their day here not all that long ago, and Salmon Arm’s reputation of being a racist community is well-known. Victoria recently coughed up funds to try to deal with the issue.
Not only do we need to welcome and support refugees who are seeking new and safe lives here, we need to be an all-inclusive community to those who choose to make this home.