Thank you Kim Hammond for your wonderful letter to the editor on derogatory cracks against Newfoundlanders Feb. 14 edition of The NEWS.
I am blessed with an Irish accent and am often mistaken for a Newfoundlander, which I find very flattering.
In our area, we are dominated by an age group that includes many people who find racism funny. Fortunately, Canadians under 50 rarely use ethnic stereotyping in their conversation and are generally more enlightened in this respect than previous generations.
There are exceptions of course. Recently, I attended an event at which a person announced a St. Patrick`s Day musical event.
He followed this up with a racist Irish “joke.” The burden of the crack was that Irish people are lazy, unintelligent and dishonest. I have heard this same type of joke at various times about Newfoundlanders, Polish, blacks, natives, East Indians, Mediterraneans and anyone else not “lucky” enough to have the teller’s own ancestry.
Racial, ethnic, national and regional stereotyping is not funny.
Colm Harty
Qualicum Beach