A fellow South Asian recently directed the following statement towards me: “If you want to spread some love in this world stopping acting like a gora (whitey), when you are brown.” Gora means “white” in Punjabi. The truth is, love has no colour or boundaries. It’s this kind of divisive outlook that only adds insult to the growing cultural divide in the Lower Mainland and across the country. This mentality forces us to go backwards and is not how we address and work towards understanding diversity issues.
By Ken Herar
It’s important to look beyond our skin colour and cultural differences in order to develop inclusive communities across our nation. The cultural divide in Canada is an ongoing concern and has been with us for some time now. I receive emails on a weekly basis that reflect on some of these cultural and racial stigmatisms. We have a lot of challenges to address as we continue to grow and build inclusive communities. On a positive note, there are a lot of people and organizations that recognize these challenges and are working diligently to bring awareness and change.
What I’m realizing every time I sit down to write, is the best way to celebrate diversity and continue to promote it is through community partnerships and individual participation. We need to raise the bar and challenge ourselves individually and collectively as a community to develop new ideas and strategies to address these issues. The foundation of our diverse society is based upon the family structure. When our families function in a healthy and productive manner, our communities prosper on many levels. However, our families have been under a great deal of pressure over the last few decades, and as a result our communities have suffered. Our local community is like a house, in which we all live as family members. So the question is, what kind of home do we want to live in? Do we want everyone in our family to be healthy happy, productive and caring? Do we all want to get along or will we allow differences and strife to divide us? What does it take to raise a unified family?
These are some of the questions that all of us should be engaged in. Family members are not all the same. Each is an individual with their own personality, likes, dislikes, hopes and dreams. Sometimes differences get in the way resulting in disagreements. However, because we are all of the same family and love one another, we look past our differences and seek reconciliation. Our local community is also a family consisting of many differences that may include, religion, opinion, colour and tradition, but we too are all members of the same family – the human race. Consequently, as family members we too should look past our differences so that we can get along and support one another to fulfill our aspirations.
You don’t have to abandon your own culture to relate or be kind to someone from another culture.
A fellow South Asian recently directed the following statement towards me: “If you want to spread some love in this world stopping acting like a gora (whitey), when you are brown.” Gora means “white” in Punjabi. The truth is, love has no colour or boundaries. It’s this kind of divisive outlook that only adds insult to the growing cultural divide in the Lower Mainland and across the country. This mentality forces us to go backwards and is not how we address and work towards understanding diversity issues.
On a different note, the first South Asian female is seeking public office in the District of Mission in this month’s civic election. Kerm Gill, a long-time resident of Mission wants to serve the community. Mission has a unique political history. In 1950, Naranjan Grewall was the first South Asian to be elected to public office in Canada. He later served as the Mayor of Mission in 1954.
Ken “Kulwinder” Herar is a Mission-based writer and a winner of the champions of diversity award for his columns in the LINK newspaper and other Fraser Valley newspapers. Herar can be reached at [email protected] or view his blog at http://www.kenherar.blogspot.com
