Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/10/cops-handcuff-man-and-his-12-y.html
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7 Likes
They could take a hint from Snowcrash. Have the CEO go there to apologize in person.
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I’ve never seen a statement of apology that so diligently worked to sidestep all the bad-apology traps while still managing to distance itself completely from the incident. It’s a masterwork in not taking ownership.
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I did the same with my boy when he became 12 a few months ago. He was showered with cheap trinkets and free cinema tickets, in the expectation that they can fleece him for years and decades with exorbitant fees. I am really glad that at Swiss banks at least, greed trumps any racism that might be there.
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I’ve had similar experiences here in Canada. The main difference is I’m white. There’s a really deep, really ugly racism against indigenous people here that’s conveniently ignored when talking about how ‘nice’ Canadians are.
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It is still so difficult to understand for me as Swiss. In the end, pecunia non olet, and a bank should understand that.
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It’s really insidious and deep racism. I live in one of the cities infamous for the police picking up indigenous people and dropping them outside of town, often in extreme cold. You’d think this would be universally condemned, but I’ve actually had people tell me that was justified.
I’ve even had a coworker I thought was a decent raise objections about construction plans for an aboriginal student center because the bathrooms were individually locking, and the ‘natives would shoot up in there and make a mess’. For a sizable portion of the population, ‘indigenous’ is synonymous with ‘criminal’, and I’d be willing to bet the bank employee who called the cops was one of those.
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Uhu, this was a learning opportunity for the pair that was profiled as well. Also what consequence does this bank face for treating these two people like shit?
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Right before Target here in Canada went to clearance before shutting down, I was in line and a native family was ahead of me. The maybe 9 year old girl was watching things, with money in hand, she was given the money but also given the chance to do the buying. Something we all probably get to do for the first time.
But she noticed the conveyor belt, and realized she could control it by blocking the sensor. So my bottle of soda kept moving and stopping, me moving it back every time it moved forward. Then the cashier turned the conveyor off. The girl waved her hand around in other places, trying to turn it back on.
It made me laugh in happiness, this is something every kid goes through, the world open to them but still a new thing. She had her family, not a rare thing but too many stories are about the bad. It was about six months after Tina Fontaine’s body had been pulled out of the Red River, and Rinelle Harper had fought, fought, fought hard to avoid a similar situation. If tgey can’t be safe in Winnipeg, with streets named after my family, the children of a native woman, where can they be safe? I think that day I’d reread the article about my great, great grandmother Henrietta and her sibling’s ambivalence about having a Syilx mother. That girl’s adventure is way more important than the bad stories.
I’ve had the same BMO account since I was 8 or 9, nkw a bit over fifty years in the last. It was a big thing getting the account back then, not that I had much money to go in it. The bank has changed the account once or twice, never informing me, but I stuck with them. I do now wonder if I should move to a different bank, though I’m not sure they are really that different. I should write the bank, leveraging those fifty years, and my relatives who were in the provisiinal government during the Red River Resistance.
It’s hard enough dealing with authority when you’re young, even when you have no reason to be discriminated against. I always worried going to the bank, before there were bank machines, that I’d be told my signature didn’t match or challenged about my identity, and that was just me. It probably didn’t help, all those times the cops stopped me on busy streets to ask for ID withiut any justification. Even now when I see a police car I kind of expect to be stopped, and last month when I fell on the sidewalk, weak legs from being in the hospital too long, when a cop stopped to help me, I felt like I’d done something wrong.
I assume this is much more amplified when it happens to the distant cousins. I never had the identity to explain being stopped, but it leaves you feeling like you’ve done something wrong, even if you have no idea what. It colors a lot of what you do, avoiding some things to avoid the questions.
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They should start by opening an account for the girl with a large balance - like 50K or so. Then match it to the grandfathers. To start.
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must be this
special relationship
with the Indigenous communitie the bank is whining about
well, in my opinion it does. in every possible way I may add.
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Well, this sucks. If it helps, though, it’s better than what a POC in the US might face: shot dead by the arriving police. Can’t be too careful, after all.
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I work in the financial industry, and I do not fully share, but understand your sentiment. I find it problematic when access to financial services is being limited. At first sight, it might seem a good thing to freeze out drug dealers and criminals when they bring their money. But soon it will be investors from the entertainment sector (eg. prostitutes who find it difficult to obain credit cards), those we a bad social rating scores, and in the end - seeing to where the world is drifting to - the Jews. But I agree, sometimes it is a clear-cut case. I wouldn’t take money from a warlord with child soldiers, and I also refuse some Middle Eastern basket-cases with death penalties for atheists and homosexuals.
But a world without money and plenty for all would surely be preferable.
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SMGDH
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WTF, Canada?
I mean, let’s just suppose for a minute there was evidence of fraud, do you really need to handcuff a 12 year old? You think she is going to John Wick out of the place or something?
Now, add the fact that there wasn’t any evidence of fraud, don’t you feel fucking stupid? You should.
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A perfect nonpology.
(Alternates - antipology, A-pology, or fauxpology.)
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And the small satisfaction he gets when he transfers it out to his new bank.
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It’s as if it was written by a machine, which it probably was.
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You can never be too careful, she could have been carrying scissors:
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“Administrators say the steps are needed to regain control over a notoriously unruly school system”
Do I need to guess the SES and racial makeup of the school in question? Gotta keep them in their place, amirite? 
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