This hockey player left a game in tears after racist fans taunted him and his family.

    
Explore

It's 2019, and horrible, blatant racism is still alive and well—even in Canada.

Anti-racism activists have gone to great lengths to address systemic, institutional racism and unconscious, implicit racial bias in our society. But those subtler forms of racism are not all that's left to tackle. Far too often, racism still presents itself with no veils, no pretense, and no shame.

Take the story of Jonathan Diaby, a 24-year-old Canadian hockey player who left a game early in tears because racists in the crowd kept taunting him and his family. It's a story one might expect to hear from the American south in the 1950s, not from seemingly progressive Canada in 2019. And yet, here we are.

Diaby said he'd faced racism before, but it's never been this bad.

CBC reports the racist abuse from a handful of fans began in the first quarter of the game on February 24. Video shows a spectator taunting Diaby with monkey-like movements and allegedly showing him pictures of primates on his phone.

"I had to put my jersey over my face because I was like, I had teardrops, you know," Diaby told the Canadian news outlet. "They started yelling racist stuff at my parents and my sister and myself. Go negro, baboons, a bunch of stuff.

"My dad was told to go back home," Diaby added. "That he had no business in this country. They were touching his hair, making fun of him. My sister was scared, my girlfriend was scared."

The taunting got so bad that Diaby left the ice and his family left the arena before the end of the game.

Security allowed the racist fans to stay because "nobody threw any punches."

Diaby said that referees did nothing to protect him or his family from the harassment, and security didn't kick any of the taunters out of the arena, reportedly because there was no physical violence.

Diaby's coach Benoit Gratton said, "It's 2019, it's something we shouldn't see anymore. I think it's disgusting."

The league, Ligue Nord-Americaine de Hockey (LNAH), issued a formal apology. League commissioner Jean-Francois Laplante told the CBC that racist, sexist, and homophobic comments are unacceptable, and that if the abusers are identified, they will be banned from LNAH matches.

"This is not hockey," said Diaby. "Nobody should feel threatened to go watch his son play a hockey game."

Racist abuse is unacceptable anywhere, at any time. Even if no one is being physically assaulted, such behavior is harmful. Free speech is one thing, but hate speech and racist taunting is another.

Watch the report from CBC News here:

Capital One

Capital One Impact Initiative

Veterans across the country are struggling to find stable housing. This affordable housing community is ensuring Los Angeles vets have a place to call home.

Courtesy of Creative Commons

True

After years of service as a military nurse in the naval Marine Corps, Los Angeles, California-resident Rhonda Jackson became one of the 37,000 retired veterans in the U.S. who are currently experiencing homelessness — roughly eight percent of the entire homeless population.

"I was living in a one-bedroom apartment with no heat for two years," Jackson said. "The Department of Veterans Affairs was doing everything they could to help but I was not in a good situation."

One day in 2019, Jackson felt a sudden sense of hope for a better living arrangement when she caught wind of the ongoing construction of Veteran's Village in Carson, California — a 51-unit affordable housing development with one, two and three-bedroom apartments and supportive services to residents through a partnership with U.S.VETS.

Her feelings of hope quickly blossomed into a vision for her future when she learned that Veteran's Village was taking applications for residents to move in later that year after construction was complete.

"I was entered into a lottery and I just said to myself, 'Okay, this is going to work out,'" Jackson said. "The next thing I knew, I had won the lottery — in more ways than one."

Keep Reading Show less

veterans

Family

30 things people don't realize you're doing because of your depression.

Do any of these speak to you?

This story was originally published on The Mighty.

Most people imagine depression equals “really sad,” and unless you’ve experienced depression yourself, you might not know it goes so much deeper than that. Depression expresses itself in many different ways, some more obvious than others. While some people have a hard time getting out of bed, others might get to work just fine — it’s different for everyone.

Keep Reading Show less