An everyday transaction

Several weeks ago, my husband and I walked into our bank in Montreal with our daughter to make some changes to her bank accounts.  Studies completed and career launched, it was time for our daughter’s accounts to reflect her newfound independence.  We were there to support the transaction.

Last week, Maxwell Johnson walked into a bank in downtown Vancouver with his 12-year-old granddaughter.  He wanted to open an account for his granddaughter so that he could transfer money to her when she was on the road with her basketball team.

Two families trying to do right for their children.  But whereas our trip to the local bank was a routine affair, for Mr. Johnson, a Heiltsuk Nation man from the Campbell Island community of Bella Bella, the experience was anything but routine.

Mr. Johnson and his granddaughter were arrested by local police and led away in handcuffs when the bank official rejected their government-issued documentation, purportedly suspecting fraud. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/indigenous-girl-grandfather-handcuffed-bank-1.5419519

Children in handcuffs?

Try as I might, I can’t get my head around this story. That Indigenous people and other people of color are subject to racial profiling is hardly news to me, and it shouldn’t be news to any conscious person in this country.  But a man with his 12-year-old granddaughter simply trying to open an account and presenting documentation to support his request?  Seriously?

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that there was something confusing – even incriminating – about the documentation presented.  What would possess a bank official to believe that Maxwell Johnson and his young granddaughter posed such an imminent threat that they needed to be led away by police?  Were there no other steps that could have been taken to resolve any documentary confusion?

And by what right or logic did Vancouver police decide to arrest this man, whose only fault lay in wanting to do something responsible for his grandchild?  Where was the 5-alarm fire?  What physical threat did this man and this child pose warranting an arrest, with handcuffs no less?  Even more baffling, the officers in question – according to the Vancouver Police Department – had taken cultural competency training.

Mr. Maxwell and his granddaughter were released shortly after the incident. The police and bank have since apologized, and outrage has been duly expressed by media outlets, on social media, and through street protests.  Meanwhile, Indigenous leaders are calling for better staff training, while Mr. Maxwell considers a human rights complaint. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/senator-calls-for-staff-training-after-indigenous-grandfather-12-year-old-wrongfully-arrested-at-b-c-bank-1.5422796

What happened to common sense?

Training is all well and good, but where was plain old common sense?  Where was the basic human instinct to be gentle with a 12-year old child, who was no doubt traumatized by the experience?

It’s been days and I’m still rattled by this story.  Maybe it’s because it drove home, in a very personal way, that I can go about my daily business never worried that I may be viewed with suspicion, called out, insulted, arrested – or worse – simply because of the color of my skin.  This is the essence of “white privilege”. And while the term can sometimes be divisive, it also serves to underscore the dramatically different lived realities of people of color. The next time I go to the bank I will remember Maxwell Johnson and his granddaughter.

Zero tolerance for racial profiling

Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart is outraged and is holding the bank accountable, while the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner has ordered an investigation into the detention and arrest of Mr. Johnson and his granddaughter. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-mayor-bmo-arrest-indigenous-1.5426247

But Canadians across this land should also be outraged.  Because this incident was, sadly, not an aberration.  Because it’s 2020 and long past time for a zero-tolerance policy for racial profiling in Canada. And because Reconciliation means bending Martin Luther King’s “arc of the moral universe” more speedily toward justice.