We in Canada are fortunate to live in a relatively less prejudiced society.

There is less prejudice directed towards visible minorities in Canada than that which manifests itself in the treatment of lower castes in India.

Nevertheless, when there is a case of overt prejudice that shows up in Canada people react to it with shock and awe. They can’t believe what they have borne witness to. It is almost as if prejudice is alien to this society.

What is so shocking about prejudice in Canada? We remind ourselves that “the lower than humankind’ treatment meted out to Chinese immigrants who came to build the railroad in the later part of the nineteenth century and for the next four decades is still a lasting tattoo- like blemish in the history of Canada.

The other day you tube shocked us with an unbelievable display of cowardice in prejudice: three white teenagers attacking a colored youth in Courtney, British Columbia that was caught graphically on amateur video. It came to us as a shock. But to my fourth generation Japanese-Canadian friend it came as no surprise.

“ There are a lot of red necks up there on the Island!” he noted.

And so what if there is some prejudice in isolated cases. What is it we minorities expect? Do we expect some utopian world where black, white, yellow and pink all hold hands and stick daffodils in the guns of armored tanks? That can happen like it once did on the wide screen, but why go through all the bother when it possibly never will in our lifetimes.

Just as well- Canada is referred to as a multi-cultural society.  If on the other hand it were touted as a “melting pot” some of us minorities might have quipped sardonically: “ Get real!”

Prejudice is a tragedy for human kind, but then, time will surely be the healer.  With the passing of generations this carcinogen will become antiquated, it will vanish. Prejudice is a luxury- as was the war in Iraq. The world paid the price indirectly for an offshoot of prejudice and ultimately we now inhabit a planet with many more hungry people than before.

Maybe we ought to stop worrying about others and just do our bit to bring prejudice to an abrupt end. I think we can do this  by looking inward. 

At sometime in our lifetimes most of us have been perpetrators of prejudice in some form or the other. If we realize that aspect of our hypocritical selves, we might come nearer to living in harmony.