Lynching Black People

Isn't that a great way to distinguish themselves? Win a Halloween-event costume contest by a truly innovative costume design. One that must have taken great creative skills to put together. Are there closet racists alive and well in Campbellford, Ontario? In Ontario? Hardly, let's get real. Canadians aren't bigots and racists. Are they?

In the heart of Ontario? Multicultural Canada? Not a chance.

"A guy in a Ku Klux Klan uniform, Confederate flag attached to the back, with a hood on, was holding a rope. And on the end of the rope was a guy in blackface, and the rope was really a noose around his neck. You know when you look at something and you can't believe what you see? That was my reaction." Mark Andrade

Mr. Andrade clearly got the shock of his life. Mr. Andrade, a proud citizen of Campbellford, Ontario, owner of the Rubbs Barbecue Bistro, down the street from the Campbellford Legion Hall, which he visits on occasion to share a beer with his friends and neighbours, would never have imagined that he would ever be exposed to anything quite like it.

It represents a nightmare experience he will not soon forget. One that will most certainly colour the way he looks at his friends and neighbours. He left the Legion Hall in shock and disgust, and was informed later by people who came by his restaurant from the Legion Hall that the brilliant costuming had taken away first prize in the competition.

Mr. Andrade had previously felt that nothing like that blatant display of racism could ever occur in his town. He'd lived there for over a decade, after all, and never experienced anything he could remotely consider to be racist. The formal apology that came his way, expressed through the Legion branch's president, somehow rings hollow to Mr. Andrade.

"Their members, their executive members, are the ones that organized this party, are the ones that hosted this party, are the ones that allowed those people to come in and then judged them to win first prize. For them to say that this is not the opinion of our members, that's wrong. Apparently it is the opinion of some of their members."

It may make him feel slightly better that the president of the Legion branch informed him that she had received hundreds of complaints. After the fact. He heard no one objecting, however, at the time of the occurrence.

"If they thought that was in good humour and funny enough to win a prize, that's disgusting. If that's their opinion, and they think there's nothing wrong with lynching black people, that's totally disgusting. Either way, there's nothing right about what happened."

He's perfectly correct.

partygoers at the Campbellford, Ont. Legion, one wearing a Ku Klux Klan costume and leading another in blackface by a noose, won first place in the night’s costume competition.">

Outraged witnesses say these two Halloween partygoers at the Campbellford, Ont. Legion, one wearing a Ku Klux Klan costume and leading another in blackface by a noose, won first place in the night’s costume competition.