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Front Burner Transcript for September 25, 2024

Host: Joyita Sengupta

JOYITA SENGUPTA: Hi, I'm Joyita Sengupta, a producer here on Front Burner. You see all kinds of crazy, far-fetched claims on the internet. Usually they come and go, or maybe they never make it past the niche forums they came from. But sometimes they catch on.

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DONALD TRUMP: They're eating the dogs. The people that came in, they're eating the cats. They're eating... They're eating the pets of the people...

JS: A rumour about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating local pets has led to weeks of xenophobic discourse, bomb threats and lockdowns. And for some here in Canada, it sounded familiar: an oddly specific and othering story about a group of foreign newcomers. Earlier this summer, a TikTok of a woman claiming that people at Ontario's Wasaga Beach were digging holes in the sand and defecating in them, was making the rounds.

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UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: And it's not locals doing it. It is people coming from out of town, and it is immigrants that think it's okay to dig a hole, pop a squat, and bury their poop where kids play in the sand...

JS: In another video, she was more specific.

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UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yes, there are Indian families that dig holes and put tents and poop. They do it on the beach now and they do it-- they did it off my backyard. There was, like, three different families of maybe 25...

JS: It spread like wildfire.

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REPORTER 1: This and several other videos about people defecating on the beach have garnered hundreds of thousands of views and has been the talk along the beach front.

BEACH GOER: ...if this is something that's happening and people are actually doing this. 'Cause if it is, that seriously shouldn't be happening.

JS: Ontario Premier Doug Ford addressed it.

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DOUG FORD: Folks, don't be pooping on the beach. Simple as that.

JS: Which in turn led to a bit on late night with Stephen Colbert.

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STEPHEN COLBERT: What I particularly love is how defeated he seems at having to say that out loud. [imitating Doug Ford] Folks, don't be pooping on the beach. And I guess you need to hear it, uh, don't be showing your boobs to a moose.

JS: The mayor of Wasaga came out and said there was no evidence that this was happening at all. But still, people were commenting on the original TikTok and others like it, saying that they'd seen similar things. And not just at Wasaga, but at other Ontario beaches: Sauble, Grand Bend, Crystal. This idea that immigrants from India were bringing their alleged outdoor defecating habits to Canada, that's happening in a larger context. Especially online. That South Asians are taking all the jobs...

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COMEDIAN: I'm not racist, you know what I'm saying. But, you are. The, the Punjabs, the Indians, they take it. They have all the [indistinct] right now. The Walmarts, they have it. Other stores, they have it. The McDonald's they have-- Popeye's...

JS: That they're disorderly and hard to be around.

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TIKTOK VOICEOVER: I was on a lineup earlier waiting for a bus, and these group of Indians came out of nowhere and cut the line.

JS: Sometimes it's just videos of groups of South Asians simply existing in public, with sinister-sounding music underneath and captions like: 'Welcome to the new Canada.'

[brief music clip from TikTok video]

JS: It comes at a time when public opinion has started to shift against Canada's immigration levels. In a study conducted by Environics last fall, around 40% of people said there was too much immigration to Canada. And among those newcomers, South Asians make up the largest share. For a long time, Canada's had a reputation for being one of the most immigration friendly countries in the world.

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JASPREET DHALIWAL: So, Canada... Like, back in 2018, like, coming to Canada was actually a really big opportunity. And I remember, like, going to a immigration agent in 2018, and the first country he actually recommended me was Canada.

JS: That's Jaspreet Dhaliwal. He arrived here six years ago as an international student at Sheridan College. And he now works full time for a trucking company based in Mississauga -- as a dispatcher, on a post-graduate work permit. Jaspreet says most of his time here has been overwhelmingly positive. People have been kind. He's found opportunities. And he's had family here to help him settle in. He wants to stay here. But over the last few months, he's noticed a change.

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JASPREET DHALIWAL: I mean, there's a lot of, like, alarming posts that I've seen on, like, Twitter, or like other, other online platforms as well. Which are actually highlighting the racism against mostly the immigrants and, as you said, the South Asian community in Canada. I actually came across a lot of them, like, recently. I mean, back then, like in 2018, '19, it was nothing like this before. But I mean, since last, like, I would say three to four months, it's keep increasing. It's, it's dangerous too, right.

JS: As a practicing Sikh, Jaspreet says he's started to feel more unsafe and aware of the way he might stand out because of his turban, even though it hasn't been an issue before. And last month, his fears came true.

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JASPREET DHALIWAL: Me and my friend, we visited a park in Caledon, and we encountered a strange situation, right. So, what happened is we were standing in the park. We noticed a woman who was, who was actually recording us without our consent. Like videotaping us. We approached her to ask, like, why, why is she recording us? And instead of giving us any reason, she started saying, these group of, like, immigrants, these group of Indian people is standing here. Blah, blah, blah. I mean, her remarks led us confuse and, like, uncomfortable. Because we couldn't, couldn't understand, like, why our background or where we came from is relevant simply standing in a public park. You know what I mean? And this experience raised important questions, like about our privacy. And, I mean, if people go to public spaces, they are not feeling safe. Like, as I said myself, I don't feel safe anymore just to, like, go out in the, in the late night or early mornings. So that is, that is what I mean when I say it's actually a dangerous.

JS: According to StatsCan, hate crimes against South Asians in Canada increased by 143% between 2019 and 2022. There isn't data out yet about what's been happening over the last couple years.

[Music: Theme]

JS: Rumneek Johal, a reporter with Press Progress, has been reporting on online content targeting South Asians in Canada. Hi, Rumneek. Thanks for joining me.

RUMNEEK JOHAL: Hi, thank you so much for having me.

JS: In August, the World Sikh Organization put out a statement about rising hate. And they mentioned three incidents -- all of them happened to be in Ontario. Can you take me through them and, and what happened?

RUMNEEK JOHAL: Yeah. So we're seeing a spike in hate crimes, specifically against visible minorities. And in these three cases, against turbaned Sikh men. So, one of them was reported to police in Peterborough, Ontario, after a man had his turban knocked off and stepped on. And in others, allegedly a man had-- was attacked and had his turban removed and stolen. And in Sudbury, Ontario, there was a man who was attacked and threatened to be run over for wearing a Kirpan, a Sikh article of faith. And so, again, it is these visible minorities who are being targeted for their, their visible differences.

JS: And I want to get into what's driving this. Because when you go online, it definitely feels like we're seeing more hateful or negative posts about South Asians. But in your reporting, you've come across some data showing that there's been an actual surge, right?

RUMNEEK JOHAL: Yes, absolutely. And we're seeing online, specifically. There's an organization called the Global Project Against Hate and Racism, and they track transnational hate and far-right extremism. And there is a very large and visible increase in hate and slurs directed towards South Asians globally since January 2023. And so, we're seeing this as a result of anxieties around losing jobs or the cost of housing. We're seeing posts about cleanliness and immigrants being unclean or making this country unclean. We're seeing a lot of posts essentially calling for them to go back home. And so, on platforms and Donald Trump's Truth Social, hate speech and slurs against South Asian, uh, South Asians increased over 250% in the same time span. And so, again, we're seeing this very large and very evident spike over the last year or so.

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JS: You sort of touched on the uncleanliness thing. I guess that sort of also kind of connects to this ongoing theme of poop being associated with, with South Asians. Like, I'm sure you-- like you've probably seen, like, those AI images, and it's always, like, sinister looking Indians. And for some reason, they're always covered in poop.

RUMNEEK JOHAL: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the fact that this is even a conversation we have to have.

JS: Yeah.

RUMNEEK JOHAL: At one point I was talking to my editor because there were-- the influx of poop-related content on my social media was abnormal. And I said, the fact that I'm reading and sifting through this much poop, quite literally, makes me want to pull my hair out. You know, the origins of this is that in rural India, some people don't have access to toilets. It's become a meme, and again, it's, it's just to have some sort of imagery again to point to of Indians being unclean or not belonging or not conforming to Canadian society, as another justification for why they should leave, essentially.

JS: Yeah. And like, I guess it's just a newer sort of theme that I've been seeing in this, like, recent wave of online hate towards South Asians. Another thing that I've been seeing is, I guess they have a new slur for us. Uh, ‘Pajeets’?

RUMNEEK JOHAL: Yeah. 'Jeet' or 'Pajeet.' Um. This, this kind of originated to make fun of Indian names -- which often have suffixes, '-jeet' being one of them -- but it then became, like, this trope of a quintessential Indian man. And again, like you said, some of these AI images or memes paint, paint them as very sinister, very scary looking, very unclean, very dirty. Often I've seen, even on social media, of saying the 'Jeets' or the 'Pajeets' need to go home. Or in, in a more horrible scenario I've seen even, you know, a news article be posted where a South Asian or Sikh man has died in a car crash or something. And the replies on social media are horrible. And we see, again, almost just a vocal and visible, bold celebration of this. And again, this deployment of the term 'Jeets' and 'Pajeets.' The theme is, is othering. It's to other these South Asian and Sikh immigrants, and to say, you know, we have these terms or these images for them because they are so different from us. They are other, and they just do not belong here.

[music]

JS: In your reporting, you make a connection between this uptick in anti-South Asian hate and content from far-right Canadian influencers. Can you tell me more about that? Who are they and what kind of reach do they have?

RUMNEEK JOHAL: Yeah. So, the organization I mentioned earlier, the Global Project Against Hate and Racism, they actually did a whole report on a Canadian white supremacist organization, Diagolon, led by Canadian far-right influencer Jeremy MacKenzie. And this group has very vocally and very visibly ramped up their hate speech and racism towards South Asians, advocating for the deportation of Indian immigrants from Canada. Um, and kind of calling for re-emigration, which argues for ethnically cleansing the continent of non-Europeans through forced deportations. And that's something that Diagolon is also calling for.

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JEREMY MACKENZIE: The only real option you have, um... is to be, you know, try and make these invaders' lives as miserable as possible.

RUMNEEK JOHAL: They're not just out there harassing immigrants online and in real life. They're encouraging others to, to do the same, because they believe that if they do, they may be successful in their ultimate goal of removing these people from this country.

JS: And what exactly does Diagolon's campaign, specifically, look like? Like, where does it take place? Can you describe it a bit more for me?

RUMNEEK JOHAL: Yeah. So, Diagolon functions a lot through online groups -- online either video chats or podcasting. But more specifically through Telegram, which is a private messaging chat. And so they have these private chats where, you know, their names are all visible, but you're only able to see the messages if you are approved to be in that conversation. And their community has thousands and thousands of members. And they speak with impunity. They really don't care about what they say. They are not shying away from calling for, for these people to leave this country or, again, in-- not shying away from explicitly calling for the harassment of these groups.

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JS: I mentioned earlier that StatsCan has tracked, you know, an increase in hate crimes targeting South Asians in recent years. But a couple of my CBC colleagues -- Rajpreet Sahota and Josiah Sinanan -- have both done stories on this, in Sudbury and Windsor respectively. And Rajpreet was told by Sudbury police that hate crimes against South Asians were extremely underreported. While Josiah, he found that there were no reported hate crimes against South Asians where he was reporting, which was in Windsor. Even though newcomers there were expressing concerns about hate there. And add to that the fact that there hasn't been a ton of mainstream media coverage about this specifically. Why do you think there's a reluctance to, to call out or report anti-South Asian hate?

RUMNEEK JOHAL: I think on the part of new immigrants, I think -- or just immigrants in general -- I think there is just a general reluctance or fear of, of engaging with police and reporting crimes. So I think that that-- And also, I think when you're being faced with this onslaught of hate or this-- these repeated kind of tropes or slurs or online messages, you don't even recount it and a lot of these folks don't even recount it as a criminal offense. Because if you think about it, a lot of immigrants dating back decades have had their turbans knocked off, have had their articles of faith, you know, removed or stolen, or have been tormented or made fun of for being different. This obviously isn't something that's new. And I think this idea that this, this is a crime and you should report it and that you should be able to talk about what you've experienced is, in some ways, very new to a lot of these immigrants. But I think on the other side of the conversation, what really surprises me is that this has been missing from the mainstream Canadian media to a large extent. It's a conversation that for some reason isn't being touched on. And sometimes I wonder if it's, you know, that conundrum where, well, we don't want to talk about it because we don't want to feed into it. I feel like often when we don't talk about these things, what we're really doing is allowing these groups to continue unchecked, and really strengthening their ability to spread their messages because there isn't anything countering it.

JS: You know, one of the things that maybe might be more difficult to talk about is the fact that, like, sometimes you see South Asians themselves join in on anti-South Asian immigrant discourse.

RUMNEEK JOHAL: We really do see that a lot. And I think what happens is, often older immigrants, children of immigrants who were born in Canada, like to kind of juxtapose themselves from newer immigrants to, to kind of say, Oh, we're not, well, we're not like them. We're different. We're, quote unquote, "better." We're more civilized. And, and I think this really goes back to this internalization of the 'model minority' myth for a lot of South Asians. That, you know, we have to be, quote unquote, "perfect" to, to make it in this country. And that's, that's something that many immigrants for a very long time built their lives upon or built their livelihood upon. It's, [JS: Mm-hmm.] well, maybe if we are the, quote unquote, "perfect immigrant," we won't have to deal with racists or people won't be racist against us.

[music]

JS: You know, seeing all of this, I'm just reminded that Canada is no stranger to hate-motivated violence. In just the last decade, we saw the Quebec City mosque attack.

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REPORTER 2: The shots rang out during the sacred evening prayers at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre, with 50 worshipers inside. Six were killed, more than a dozen injured. Five, critically.

JS: There was the Pakistani-Canadian family in London, Ontario, who were attacked with a van.

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REPORTER 3: Mourners came to pay tribute to a family of five, run down while out for a walk. A nine-year-old boy was the sole survivor....

JS: You know, that's just off the top of my head. What do you think needs to be done to help stop that from happening?

RUMNEEK JOHAL: Yeah. I think, again, conversations like these are very important and a good first step. I think getting community members to report these crimes are important. But I also think that social media companies need to crack down on hate speech on their platforms. Because what often happens is these influencers are able to post their content, most of the time unchecked. Or if they are reported, they'll remake their accounts and continue doing the same thing. And so I think there needs to be, 1: Greater, you know, a greater impetus on these big tech companies to, to act and to work with governments to kind of crack down on online hate speech. As well as, you know, either campaigns or targeting or conversations about these real-life hate crimes. And it's very important to name them for what they are and to talk about them for what they are, to highlight the fact that they are trending upwards right now and that it is a common theme for, for South Asians or Sikhs to be targeted in this country. And I think that these conversations need to be brought to the forefront, because if we continue to look at them as isolated incidents -- like even the examples that you mentioned. If we continue to say that these are horrible, you know, things that happened, we're ignoring the context in which these things happened. We're ignoring the fact that these, these ideas, these ideologies, these thoughts, feelings and opinions about immigrants were not born overnight. And if anything, they're being actively fostered and amplified right now. And so, we cannot look at all of these incidents as isolated because they're not. They're a part of a greater context. And we really need to acknowledge that if we're going to make any kind of leeway in addressing them.

JS: All right. Rumneek, thank you so much for this.

RUMNEEK JOHAL: Thank you so much for having me.

[Music: Theme]

JS: That's all for today. I'm Joyita Sengupta. Thanks so much for listening to Front Burner. Jayme will be back tomorrow.

The rise of anti-South Asian content online - Transcript

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