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Mono father laments children’s experience with racism

August 1, 2024   ·   1 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS

A father feels his children’s pain in a way many people outside that bond couldn’t ever imagine.

That pain is compounded when the children’s pain is of a racist torment inflicted by classmates. Anthony Hosein of Mono can attest to how it feels seeing his children saddened by the racial taunts of their classmates.

“I get upset,” he said. “I grew up here (in Canada). I’m 41 years old, so I’ve been through the ‘80s, the ‘90s, the 2000s.”

He’s seen much change with respect to diversity throughout his years. His own school as a child was comprised of mainly Caucasian students.

“We all accepted each other,” Hosein said of his childhood in Rexdale. The exposure to different cultures was a benefit, he said.

Hosein’s a man of Trinidadian descent, born and raised in Ontario. He relocated to Mono more than 10 years ago, he said, to give his children the experience of a small town and to take them away from big city issues. They run a little farm, what sounds like a hobby farm, similar to the ones people maintain to supplement the family pantry.

“I wanted my kids to have a better outdoor environment,” he said.

Hosein said he and his family have experienced the unfair, vexing abuse of ignorant racism since they first put down roots in the Dufferin County community. It ranges the gamut from taunts and remarks, the verbal assaults, to being treated differently.

To wit: Hosein said he enters a business in Mono and the proprietors or staff watch him as if he’s a thief.

Each of his three children has experienced racism at their school. Hosein had the school’s principal get involved to address the issue and educate the students about making racist remarks.

“I’m a person of colour,” he said. “I’ve been here all my life. It’s not about I’m new here, I’m just coming into the country. I’ve been raised here. I’ve seen all the changes.”

Hosein says it hurts him to see what his kids are going through.

“They came home crying and letting me know that others are calling them several different names,” he said. “I need to get the message out because it’s continuing to worsen, I would say. Not improving at all.”

Hosein said he’s spoken with town council members about the issue. There’s a council committee dedicated to such matters.

The Mono Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Advisory Committee’s mandate is to advise council. The committee provides a monitoring and measuring role to help ensure council applies a diversity, equity and inclusion lens to its policies, services, programs and practices.

Hosein said he’s approached the council committee in the past and plans to reach out to members again.

“I see it from both angles,” Hosein said. “I understand this town is very tight-knit. There’s a certain culture here, a certain race. I made a choice to move up here for different reasons. But I didn’t make the choice to experience these types of issues here.”

He understands that some Mono residents can’t see the issues faced by his family and other people of colour. In some cases, that’s because some experiences can’t be shared by people of different cultures.

But, in other cases, it could be that more people need to become more socially engaged in the community. To that end, Hosein created the 4,000-member Mono Q&A Facebook group.

“There’s been so many others commenting on this topic (on social media),” he said. Given the number of people who have been commenting lately, it’s more pressing to address the issue of discrimination in Mono.

“You may have not heard about it,” he said. “You may have not seen it yourself, but there is a problem. And this problem is not just in Mono. It’s all over. I’m just using Mono as an example because I live here.”

Changes are happening and communities and individuals have to adjust to those changes or be left behind, Hosein said.

Going to school should be no different for children in Brampton or Mono or other Greater Toronto Area communities. It seems to come down to the fact that, “We’re all human,” Hosein said. “Don’t call them out because they’re a different colour. I had my kids called out a couple of times. I had to go talk to the principal.

“There’s a problem here. My kids are dealing with this. They’re supposed to be going to school, learning. Instead they’re dealing with racism.”

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