SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - In Wednesday's edition of Yellowknifer, a man of aboriginal descent questioned whether he and his family were evicted from a Fred Henne campsite based, at least in part, on their race.

Yellowknife resident Aydarus Warsame says he hasn't experienced much racism in the city. - Taylor Lambert/NNSL photo

Yellowknifer decided to examine the issue by speaking to minorities in the city.

Bill Erasmus, national chief of the Dene Nation, did not speak specifically to the camper's complaint, but he says he believes there's generally a stronger degree of racism directed toward aboriginals than to new immigrants, which he attributes to stereotypes.

"People think our people are on the streets, looking for handouts. But immigrants often have two or three jobs and are seen as hard-working."

Erasmus says things have gotten better since his childhood days in Yellowknife, and that there is more racism in the south than in the North.

"I think generations before were racist without even realizing it," he says. With time, he adds, "the redneck attitude erodes."

Aydarns Warsame emigrated from Somalia to Edmonton, coming to Yellowknife soon after in 1994. He has lived in both Canadian cities for periods since then, and has no complaints about Yellowknifers' attitudes to race.

"I've never noticed anything," he says. "Not in Yellowknife. In Edmonton there's some (racism)."

Working as a taxi driver, Warsame finds himself exposed to a broad cross-section of Yellowknife residents. The vast majority of his passengers don't give him trouble, but once in a while he'll have an intoxicated fare, some of whom tell him "Get back to your country," or shout slurs at him, he says.

But Warsame doesn't let it bother him.

"When they're drunk, I don't think it counts," he says with a smile. "If he uses those words when he's sober, that's different. Then he's thinking."

Besides, adds the soft-spoken Warsame, it doesn't do much good to react to the narrow-minded.

"He said those things to hurt me, so if I get hurt, he wins."

When Gloria Reyes first arrived in Canada, she feared racism more than she experienced it.

"I felt at the very beginning that I wasn't good enough, that my English wasn't good enough," she says. "But if you're a hard-working person, there's no problem."

Reyes has been living in Yellowknife for 37 years. She arrived in the North after immigrating to Canada from the Philippines in 1970. She says she has heard some racist remarks from the occasional person, often based on the stereotype that immigrants come and steal jobs.

"There's a few people that think that," says Reyes. "I've heard them swearing at us that we took all the jobs, that we should go home."

Erasmus points out that racism itself is colour-blind.

"Our people are probably just as racist (as non-aboriginals), but we might not see it that way," he says.

But Reyes, president of Yellowknife Filipino Association, says, on the whole, Yellowknifers are very accepting of visible minorities. She suggests that those trying to ingrain themselves into society start by joining community causes.

"Volunteering, it doesn't matter who you are or what you look like. If you say, 'I want to help,' they will want you to help."

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