Brandon Huntley
Last week the story emerged that a white man from South Africa was granted refugee status by the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board. The claimant is Brandon Huntley, a 31 year-old former carnival worker who now lives in Ottawa. Huntly alleges that “whites are targeted by black criminals in South Africa and that the government does nothing to protect them.” He said he was “attacked six or seven times by black South Africans and that those beatings left him with scars on his stomach, right eye, right side of the body and hands.”
William Davis, the chair of the tribunal—which operates independently at an arm’s length from the federal government—says that he believes Huntley would “stand out like a ’sore thumb’ due to his colour in any part of (South Africa)” and that he finds “the claimant was a victim because of his race (white South African) rather than a victim of criminality.” The African National Congress, the current majority party in the South African government, has denounced the ruling as a “racist move.”
I had been holding off on commenting on the situation because I don’t really know enough about the situation in South Africa to make a competent, informed comment and wanted to wait until some other South African citizens (white and black) weighed in to give their perspectives on life in SA and the claims made by Brandon Huntley. The general consensus among the Tweets, blogs and news interviews is that Hurley’s claims are nothing more than race baiting rubbish. To wit:
If white and black South Africans can share prison cells without us hearing reports that whites are being attacked because of their colour, then what makes this guy think he is being targeted because of his skin colour? – Mathapelo Mgodini, 24
One thing aside from the racial issue is that Huntley was in Canada illegally for more than a year before he made his refugee claim. That alone makes the veracity of his claim of persecution a bit suspect in my mind. If he truly felt that persecuted, wouldn’t he have made his claim as soon as he hit Canadian soil?
Invoking the Black “Boogieman”
There is no shortage of incidences where white “victims” have made false allegations against black men (some of which are made up). In the US media, the generic African-American male is the standard go-to fall guy.
Bonnie Sweeten
Take the recent case of Bonnie Sweeten: a 38-year-old white paralegal from Feasterville, a town north-east of Philadelphia, who claimed she and her 9-year-old daughter Julia had been kidnapped by two black men. 100% of the story was a fabrication. A few hours after making her cell phone calls to 9-1-1, claiming she was locked in the trunk of a Cadillac, both were captured on security cameras at Philadelphia International Airport en route to Florida (where she was later arrested). Sweeten was apparently under investigation for stealing $300,000 (USD) from her former employer, an attorney in suburban Philadelphia.
Ashley Todd
Then there is Ashley Todd, a 20-year-old college student from College Station, Texas. While working as a McCain-Palin campaign volunteer, Todd cooked up a politically motivated (not to mention racist) hoax about being robbed by a 6-foot black man, pinned to the ground and having the letter “B” (for Barack) scratched on her face with a knife. The fact that the “B” was backwards was a dead give-away and she soon admitted to making the entire ordeal up.
Charles Stuart of Boston shot and killed his wife, blamed a fictitious black man. Susan Smith drowned her kids, blamed a fictitious black man. The list goes on.
The generic African-American male is the default red herring when someone wants to redirect attention from their own mischief. What Brandon Huntley is doing here is the moral equivalent: he is invoking the specter of the Black Boogieman in the form of a nation. It is a cynical ploy to exploit the misconceptions (at best) or racial bias (at worst) of the members of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board’s tribunal. The really sad thing about this is that it appears to have worked! But then again, perhaps not.
On Thursday, September 3, the Canadian federal government said that they will challenge the ruling in the Federal Court. What good this will do is uncertain. No new evidence will be presented. All that will go before the court is what evidence was presented in the initial tribunal, which means additional facts and context will not be introduced. Is anyone else feeling skeptical?
No one is going to claim that South Africa is without problems. It certainly has issues with violence and crime, but as the South African Institute of Race Relations says, “the vast majority of victims of crime are black.” Furthermore, they find “no evidence that there is a general pattern of racial attacks” where violent crime is concerned. White South Africans are speaking out saying that Huntly’s allegations are false and baseless. Clearly, I’m not the only one that smells a rat.
A History Lesson, Forgotten
The previous examples of race baiting are occurrences within recent history; one more example, from the 1930’s, demands to be brought up.
Scottsboro Boys and Samuel Leibowitz, 1932
1931 Scottsboro, Alabama: nine African-American boys (ages ranging 12-19) were falsely accused of raping two white women. Eight of the nine were convicted and sentenced to death by electrocution, their sentences later commuted by the Supreme Court. The dire lessons of the case of the Scottsboro Boys is obviously lost on those who would callously engage in race baiting, but the injustice and consequences should be remembered by the judicial system when it comes to dealing with those who would so easily perpetrate it.
Looking for Refugee Status in Canada? Invoking the Black Boogieman Seems to Work
Brandon Huntley
Last week the story emerged that a white man from South Africa was granted refugee status by the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board. The claimant is Brandon Huntley, a 31 year-old former carnival worker who now lives in Ottawa. Huntly alleges that “whites are targeted by black criminals in South Africa and that the government does nothing to protect them.” He said he was “attacked six or seven times by black South Africans and that those beatings left him with scars on his stomach, right eye, right side of the body and hands.”
William Davis, the chair of the tribunal—which operates independently at an arm’s length from the federal government—says that he believes Huntley would “stand out like a ’sore thumb’ due to his colour in any part of (South Africa)” and that he finds “the claimant was a victim because of his race (white South African) rather than a victim of criminality.” The African National Congress, the current majority party in the South African government, has denounced the ruling as a “racist move.”
I had been holding off on commenting on the situation because I don’t really know enough about the situation in South Africa to make a competent, informed comment and wanted to wait until some other South African citizens (white and black) weighed in to give their perspectives on life in SA and the claims made by Brandon Huntley. The general consensus among the Tweets, blogs and news interviews is that Hurley’s claims are nothing more than race baiting rubbish. To wit:
One thing aside from the racial issue is that Huntley was in Canada illegally for more than a year before he made his refugee claim. That alone makes the veracity of his claim of persecution a bit suspect in my mind. If he truly felt that persecuted, wouldn’t he have made his claim as soon as he hit Canadian soil?
Invoking the Black “Boogieman”
There is no shortage of incidences where white “victims” have made false allegations against black men (some of which are made up). In the US media, the generic African-American male is the standard go-to fall guy.
Bonnie Sweeten
Take the recent case of Bonnie Sweeten: a 38-year-old white paralegal from Feasterville, a town north-east of Philadelphia, who claimed she and her 9-year-old daughter Julia had been kidnapped by two black men. 100% of the story was a fabrication. A few hours after making her cell phone calls to 9-1-1, claiming she was locked in the trunk of a Cadillac, both were captured on security cameras at Philadelphia International Airport en route to Florida (where she was later arrested). Sweeten was apparently under investigation for stealing $300,000 (USD) from her former employer, an attorney in suburban Philadelphia.
Ashley Todd
Then there is Ashley Todd, a 20-year-old college student from College Station, Texas. While working as a McCain-Palin campaign volunteer, Todd cooked up a politically motivated (not to mention racist) hoax about being robbed by a 6-foot black man, pinned to the ground and having the letter “B” (for Barack) scratched on her face with a knife. The fact that the “B” was backwards was a dead give-away and she soon admitted to making the entire ordeal up.
Charles Stuart of Boston shot and killed his wife, blamed a fictitious black man. Susan Smith drowned her kids, blamed a fictitious black man. The list goes on.
The generic African-American male is the default red herring when someone wants to redirect attention from their own mischief. What Brandon Huntley is doing here is the moral equivalent: he is invoking the specter of the Black Boogieman in the form of a nation. It is a cynical ploy to exploit the misconceptions (at best) or racial bias (at worst) of the members of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board’s tribunal. The really sad thing about this is that it appears to have worked! But then again, perhaps not.
On Thursday, September 3, the Canadian federal government said that they will challenge the ruling in the Federal Court. What good this will do is uncertain. No new evidence will be presented. All that will go before the court is what evidence was presented in the initial tribunal, which means additional facts and context will not be introduced. Is anyone else feeling skeptical?
No one is going to claim that South Africa is without problems. It certainly has issues with violence and crime, but as the South African Institute of Race Relations says, “the vast majority of victims of crime are black.” Furthermore, they find “no evidence that there is a general pattern of racial attacks” where violent crime is concerned. White South Africans are speaking out saying that Huntly’s allegations are false and baseless. Clearly, I’m not the only one that smells a rat.
A History Lesson, Forgotten
The previous examples of race baiting are occurrences within recent history; one more example, from the 1930’s, demands to be brought up.
Scottsboro Boys and Samuel Leibowitz, 1932
1931 Scottsboro, Alabama: nine African-American boys (ages ranging 12-19) were falsely accused of raping two white women. Eight of the nine were convicted and sentenced to death by electrocution, their sentences later commuted by the Supreme Court. The dire lessons of the case of the Scottsboro Boys is obviously lost on those who would callously engage in race baiting, but the injustice and consequences should be remembered by the judicial system when it comes to dealing with those who would so easily perpetrate it.
Tags: Alabama, Ashley Todd, Bonnie Sweeten, Brandon Huntley, Canada, Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board, Charles Stuart, immigration, race baiting, racism, refugees, Scottsboro, Scottsboro Nine, South Africa, Susan Smith