With the unrest in the United States due to racial tensions, one Regina man is reminding people that racism exists here too.
Christian Mbanza is a grade seven teacher, but was recently filmed trying to get into his own car, with pictures from the video appearing in a private Facebook group accusing him of breaking into the vehicle.
Mbanza, who is a former Regina Thunder player, described the situation on 620 CKRM’s the Sportscage Tuesday night.
“I use this app to unlock and lock my car, and I was waiting for the app to work — for whatever reason it wasn’t working so I was just kind of standing there — and eventually I just dug into my backpack and got my keys and unlocked it from the keys, and then I took off on my bike,” Mbanza said. “Literally three hours later, I got a couple messages with those pictures.”
Mbanza said he believes the post was made based off of racial discrimination.
“That as kind of the point of my post; I wanted to bring awareness to people that there are people in Canada, in Regina, Saskatchewan today, who who feel that they go through racial profiling, but things like that are kind of swept under the rug.”
Mbanza said this has allowed people to have an important conversation about racism in Regina.
“This isn’t an isolated incident for me, it’s something that’s happened to me before, so I was able to kind of roll with the punches,” Mbanza said. “I think if you talk to any person of colour in Canada, they’re able to tell you a story like that.”
While he originally wasn’t going to make his Facebook post, Mbanza says he was encouraged by others to do so because of the racial tension right now in the United States and to prove racism exists here. Mbanza adds the support he has received since this incident has made him proud to be part of this community.
