Thursday, June 11, 2009

Political Correctness At The Montreal Gazette

On Tuesday, The Montreal Gazette ran a story- '95 arrested in huge drug sweep' about a huge drug sweep carried out by the Montreal Police. The writer PAUL CHERRY went to great pains to intimate that those arrested were of Vietnamese background, yet never came out and said so flatly.
"Several of the accused required the services of a Vietnamese interpreter"
Until I read an article in Le Journal de Montreal later that day, I didn't realize that almost every single person arrested was Vietnamese and in fact that the operation had targeted marijuana production and sale by members of organized groups in the Vietnamese community.
'La police frappe le crime organisé asiatique'
It seems there are two different attitudes between the papers, with the Gazette clearly omitting the fact that the organized crime rings were Vietnamese in order to remain politically correct.

Is it relevant to mention that the group was Vietnamese? I think so.

We often read stories of the Mafia, the Russian mob and Caribbean and Asian street gangs, so why gloss over the fact that the above crime was committed by an organized (albeit loosely) group of Vietnamese.

In fact, the police should be doubly congratulated for their good work, considering how difficult it is to penetrate criminal enterprises that are made up of closed communities that speak a foreign language.

1 comment:

  1. Last week I attended a panel on racial profiling.
    The speakers demonstrated that while (to adapt their example to your posting:even if 96% of this gang was VietNamese (alleged gang at this point, since guilt is still a post-trial determination), only ).0004% of local VietNamese have any connection to criminals.

    This didn't stop most of the papers from running pictures of those arrested. Also presumed innocent.

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