Regina teacher shares story of racial profiling online to spark dialogue

A Regina teacher is hoping people will pay attention to examples of racism on their own streets and communities after a photo of him opening his car was shared on social media with a warning for people to lock their doors against thieves.

Christian Mbanza was going for a bike ride in the Greens on Gardiner neighbourhood when he stopped to pick something up from his car parked on the street.

The app he uses to lock and unlock his car took a few minutes to work but once it did, he picked up his belongings and continued his bike ride. He had no idea someone was taking pictures of him from across the street and would later post to the neighbourhood Facebook group with a warning for people to lock their doors.

Mbanza’s friends started sending him messages asking if it was his picture and that’s when he first saw the post and all of the comments with it.

“To be honest, when I first saw it and realized what was happening, it was kind of embarrassing, I was a little ashamed and  honestly I was very thankful for the people that were defending me because there were a lot of people in that Facebook chat who were screenshooting and sending messages about how the racial profiling was wrong,” Mbanza said.

While he was embarrassed at first, Mbanza said as time went on, he became overwhelmed with support and comments from many people saying it opened their eyes to racial injustice in their own community. For him, a simple Facebook post didn’t seem that serious because it was definitely not an isolated incident.

“I think if you talk to any person of colour, they can tell you a similar story of something like that that has happened to them,” Mbanza said. “For me, no it’s not the first time. Funny enough this time I didn’t get the police called on me.”

Mbanza said people have called the police on him a few times before for no good reason.

“Being in the wrong neighbourhood, not looking like I fit in or, you know, the excuse they give is, ‘It doesn’t look like he’s from around here,’ whatever that means,” Mbanza said.

Mbanza knows he is not alone and this is not isolated to the black community either, pointing out Indigenous people often face the same kind of racial discrimination all the time.

He realized the timing of this incident would give them all a platform to speak out because it’s on the heels of Black Lives Matter protests across the U.S., after the death of George Floyd.

“Everybody should realize that we all have racial biases that impact our rational judgment so we should all check our biases,” Mbanza said.

Mbanza also encourages people to get to know their neighbours and listen to each other’s stories in order to prevent these kinds of things from happening.

“I think it takes more than just one person’s story to stop racism. I think it takes more than that. It takes an entire community. It has to be a full hands-on effort in order to stop racism that happens everywhere,” Mbanza said.

Mbanza was very excited to see the Black Lives Matter solidarity rally in Regina on Tuesday because people of colour had a platform to share their experiences to a crowd of people who were listening and paying attention to the realities of systemic and sometimes subtle racism.

“I think that was one of the big issues in Canada with covert racism. It was kind of swept under the rug and made to be subtle or that it doesn’t exist, but in reality there is an entire group of people (who) feel unheard,” Mbanza said.

Mbanza hopes this will be a turning point to create real change and improve representation for people of colour in all areas of society.