Three Incidents in Canada Show Why People Record Racism to Expose It

Last week, the world watched in horror as headlines detailing Joyce Echaquan’s final moments started pouring out of Canada. The 37-year-old Atikamekw mother of seven pulled out her phone and started livestreaming on Facebook as she cried out for help from her hospital bed and two nurses made racist comments about her. Echaquan died shortly after.

“Indigenous people across the country have been decrying their treatment in public institutions that are supposed to be there to help you in a time of need. It shouldn’t take a livestreaming on Facebook for someone to be believed,” Jennifer Brazeau, executive director of the Native Friendship Centre of Lanaudiere in Joliette, told VICE News previously.

Echaquan isn’t the only Indigenous or Black person to instinctively record racism in recent weeks. In Calgary, Alberta, a video that surfaced late Tuesday shows a white woman, allegedly a substitute teacher at Bishop McNally High School, using the N-word—shortly after Black kids at a different Calgary Catholic school, St. Michael, recorded their white principal saying the N-word.

Back in May, there was the now infamous “birding while Black” incident in New York. Christian Cooper, a Black man living in New York, filmed as a white woman threatened him, saying: “I'm going to tell them there's an African American man threatening my life.” The encounter happened after Cooper asked the woman to put her dog on a leash.

Most notably, the brutal killing of George Floyd by police officers reverberated internationally and inspired mass anti-racism protests as videos captured by security cameras and onlookers were released via social media.

Now, recording racism has become such a widespread tactic that conservative legislators in France are even trying to outlaw recordings that identify police.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that people of colour, mostly Black and Indigenous, are taking matters into their own hands. Courtney Walcott, a Black Calgary-based teacher, pointed to the Calgary Catholic School District’s response to the St. Michael principal using the N-word last week, which he called “condescending,” as a case in point.

The white principal was not reprimanded as of yet. But the Black students were suspended, because their recording violated the district’s code of conduct. “That was the response (the district) gave with proof,” Walcott told VICE News. “What would have happened if (the students) went to the school board without proof?”

The same can be asked of several racist situations that have been recorded, he said.

Systems like education, policing, and healthcare, don’t serve people of colour, but white people don’t understand that, Walcott said. “Our systems are not built to recognize and criminalize bias and prejudice…if you want to accuse someone of racism with no proof, then nothing will happen.”

“We’re in a generation that knows hard proof is the only currency.”

Walcott said he’s in full support of Black and Indigenous students learning how to protect themselves, but it’s unfortunate that doing so can put them at risk—like the St. Michael students who were suspended.

“Learning to record things is students learning to interact within these systems that don’t service them,” Walcott said.

Social media and smartphones equipped with cameras and voice recording apps have provided racialized people with tools to expose racism in ways they couldn’t before, said Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, a University of Toronto sociology professor who specializes in anti-racism and policing.

Owusu-Bempah pointed to Rodney King as an early example of police brutality caught on camera well before smartphones existed. In 1991, LAPD officers violently beat King after a high-speed chase. A nearby civilian managed to record the scene and sent it to a local news station and the footage eventually sparked international outrage.

“It was only luck that there was someone in their house recording with a handheld video camera,” Owusu-Bempah said.

Today, most people have smartphones and social media, which have brought important conversations about racism to the fore, especially for people who haven’t experienced racism and don’t realize how commonplace it is, Owusu-Bempah said.

He added it’s a long time coming, considering “Black and Indigenous communities know full well of the extent of police abuse.”

According to Owusu-Bempah, Canada also suffers from too little race-based data that highlights how Black and Indigenous peoples are disproportionately harmed by police, healthcare workers, and more, so recorded evidence shows people just how bad things are when crucial information is lacking.

And while it’s a good sign that these viral videos are making racism more transparent, there are still concerns around accountability, because perpetrators aren’t necessarily facing more consequences than before, he said.

In Quebec, authorities have launched an investigation into Echaquan’s death and one nurse was fired—but the order of nurses of Quebec said the nurse still has the right to practice.

It’s unknown whether the officers involved in Floyd’s death will be found guilty. When asked about the latest recording that shows a white teacher using the N-word, Calgary Catholic said it’s investigating but its code of conduct, which prohibits audio and video recordings in school, stands.

As calls to defund the police mounted this year, politicians promised to strap cops with more body cams, even though research doesn’t show that the strategy will decrease police brutality.

“I don't want to see more of us dying. I want the police to stop killing us,” said Toronto Black Lives Matter co-founder, Sandy Hudson, at the time.

Owusu-Bempah said it’s important for people to realize how traumatic posting and circulating accounts of racism can be for Black, Indigenous, and people of colour.

The main takeaway, however, is that transparency around racism is increasing when those affected pull out their phones, he said.

“There have been segments of our society that are trying to bring this to the attention of the public for years and years,” Owusu-Bempah said. “But if you just hear about these things it doesn’t have the same impact on people who are very far removed.”

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