blevkog

Actually, I think Colbert is looking for a "new" black friend. Alan (his old black friend) was spotted at an immigration rally, so he got ditched.

ah, Red you are right. I remember when that happened a couple of weeks ago now that you mention it. I hope he finds a new black friend soon - how is he going to be able to speak free of racial prejuidice without one?

I guess when someone speaks the truth, they are demonized. Have you been to downtown Toronto and seen the Jamacain gangs or Vancouver and seen the Asian gangs? Lets not tackle the problem head on. Lets pretend that everyone coming here do so with the best intentions. He only said what every single cop in Canada already knows.

or in Montreal and Toronto and see those white biker gangs? Oh those honkies, always joining those bike gangs!

Don't be such an idiot - I'm not saying there are no gangs and I'm not saying that they don't form among immigrant communities, as well as others. If you can't see that the problem with his statement and your comments are that they define entire ethnic groups based on the behaviour of the worst of them, then I don't know that you're worth the time to type this comment.

Hey, while we're being biggotted idiots, lets assume all Conservatives are red-necked retards.

The organized crime and gang busting units of the police in Edmonton have basically said exactly the same thing about our Asian gang problem.

They charge them - but they cannot deport them - and then the swinging door justice system puts them back on the street and they murder, steal, deal drugs and create chaos while being protected as "refugees".

Sometimes telling the truth and facing reality takes more moral courage than trying to be piolitically correct and dishonest.

David,

I'd be willing to bet that any official statement of the police force would be more tactful and carefully phrased than:

"Immigration has a social side as well as an economic one. The social side is all too evident with the runaway violence driven mainly by Jamaican immigrants in Toronto, or the all too-frequent violence between Asian and other ethnic gangs right here in Calgary"

I don't think that anyone on that committee would disagree that there is a problem with gangs in this country, and gangs form around some commonality, and that sometimes (though not always) this commonality is cultural. However, Morgan's statement that the social impact of immigration is violence, not "violence and something else", just violence, is racist without question.

This is *not* telling the truth and facing reality.

Curious as to what kind of Statements NDp Peggy Nash made when she was running for the COMMUNIST Party some years ago.

Attacks on democracy? Just goes to show sometimes interpretation depends on the mindset of the audience.

David,

I wouldn't know anything about that and I'm not sure about why it's relevent or why you capitalize "communist". Oh yeah, if we aren't blindly devoted to a market economy and market society, then we're the enemy.

Got it.

The truth is, many of the immigrants from ethnic minorities find acceptance in Canada difficult, so they naturally associate with people that come from the same cultural origins. Unfortunately, the difficulties of assimilation often lead to un- or under-employment, as anyone who has an interest in foreign credential recognition can tell you. This leads to poverty, and poverty is the inevitable precursor to violence, as those who feel they have no voice commit violent acts either to be heard at all or to validate themselves as 'real men'.

Flash,

I hope that nothing that I've said here leads you (or anyone) to believe that I deny the existence of ethnic gangs. They are a fact for the very reason you mention. However, Morgan's remarks seem to indicate that all these ethnic groups do is provide gang fodder.

That is racist, no question about it.

You're both right - ethnic gangs do exist and they've always existed - it's just that the particular group has changed - years ago, the ethnic makeup of gangs was Irish, and the original Mafia owed just as much Jewish membership as it did Sicilian. It's as Flash said, difficulties in assimilation naturally lead to a tendency towards crime - poverty is a factor, but I think you have to account for the feeling of being marginalized by the host society - the original Hells Angels for example, were mostly made up of American Servicemen who had difficulties making the transition back to civilian life after World War II. And it's hardly confined to the North American continent nor is it recent - after the Norman Conquest the criminals in England mostly consisted of the same Saxons that I'm sure are lurking in Gynn Morgan's family tree. In truth, Robin Hood and his Band of Merry Men are actually an ethnic gang that's had the benefit of a good PR firm.