Racism at a Young Age

       With hockey season pushing into full gear, a dad from Nova Scotia must  recall an extremely unfortunate situation involving racism.  According to a recent article on a Nova Scotian news website, Peter-Paul was forced to deal with certain acts of racism after his son had become the target of racial slurs and bullying.  Although the incident occurred a few years ago, he is forced to relive the scarring memories every year at this time.  Peter-Paul's son was a member of a youth hockey team.  Unfortunately, because he was black, his teammates would constantly bully him.  Much of this bullying consisted of racist comments.  This behavior is most likely due to the fact that, out of the roughly 700 active players in the NHL, only about 30 of them are black as of September 2014.  This lack of color makes it seem that Peter-Pauls son does not belong, leading to this discriminatory situation.
       

       During one particular game, Peter-Paul was sitting in the stands with the other parents watching his sons game.  He felt that his son was not being given enough playing time and decided to voice his opinion.  Another parent reacted to Peter-Pauls input by grabbing him by his jacket and yelling at him in front of all the kids and parents.  Instead of reacting with more violence, Peter-Paul decided to call the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) so he could press charges against the man for assault.  Shockingly, the officer seemed to completely write off Peter-Paul due to his race.  According to Peter-Paul, "The senior officer comes to us, and we were the ones that called the RCMP in the first place. And the senior officer just looks at us and says 'I'm going to go find out what the real thing that happened [was],' and he walked right by us and walked inside rink and he goes and sides with the other side right away.".  As one can see, this is a case of racial profiling.  The officer immediately believes the white parent and pins the black parent as a liar.  What makes the situation worse is the fact that all the other parents who had witnessed the altercation and knew what had truly happened decided to keep quiet about it.

      
       Like most other sports, hockey broke the color barrier many years ago.  The only difference is that while most sports are now mostly mixed with no totally dominant race, hockey is still predominantly white.  Willie O'Ree is considered the "Jackie Robinson of ice hockey" because of his status as the first black hockey player to perform in the NHL.  Unfortunately, this feat accomplished by Willy is the only progression the NHL has made towards total racial integration in the past sixty years.  Every year, the NHL continues to consist of less than nine percent of black players while maintaining a percentage of white players consistently over fifty percent.