Growing up in Toronto during the late 1970s, early 1980s was challenging.
As a child I had no idea about religious or cultural segregation, and while I was attending St. Nicholas elementary school we were a very diverse group. My fellow kindergartners included kids from so many different countries we looked like members of the United Nations.
But we never understood that we were not supposed to get along; we had no idea how racism worked, we just saw each other as friends, as we all played happily together.
I quickly learned that senior kindergarten was a fallacy and that the real world doesn’t operate like SK.
I received my official first beating in the summer after I finished my first year of SK and was going into Grade 1. I was walking on Rogers Road, just before Gilbert Avenue, when two older boys decided to have fun and trip me while I was coming out of LC video.
I remember the first child asking me if I had a problem with something. I said ‘no’ and tried to walk away – when the second kid tripped me again.
‘Well it looks like you don’t know how to walk,’ the first child laughed out.
This is where and when I got my beating. They slapped, rather than punched, and they scratched me more than anything. But the thing that hurt me the most was when they stamped my face with an ink stamp; the stamp just said PAID. What a stupid thing to stamp a kid’s face with.
But hey, I wasn’t going to criticize them on their style of beating. Mike from Mike’s Barber Shop came out and saved me. The two kids walked away laughing and calling out that they would get me, and as they were walking away one called me a ‘stupid wop’.
I had no idea about racism before this day, but when I got home I started asking questions like ‘what’s a wop’ and ‘why am I stupid’ and ‘why did I just get a beating for no reason’?
Being the younger brother of a guy nicknamed ‘The Tank’ has its perks, and word travelled quickly about my beating. Within no time The Tank found out who it was.
The Tank would not allow me to wash my face; he vowed that the two punks would lick it off me.
‘They hate you because you’re different, they hate you because mom and dad can’t speak English, they hate us because that’s just how it’s supposed to be.’
The Tank had a special way with words, but it wasn’t his fault. He had already gone through what I went through years ago, and it made him tough and it made him hate.
Hate was what divided our community. I started hanging out with only Italian kids and Asian kids hung out with only Asian kids, and white kids only stayed with white kids.
I put the beating I got behind me. I ended up making friends with the UN again, we all hung out on Gilbert Avenue and we all got along just fine.
For people reading this that grew up in the Rogers Road area, you will remember we had some tough times in our neighbourhood. But most of us turned out fine. Growing up, I was called every name in the book from ‘fag’ to ‘wop’ to ‘hey, go back where you belong’.
But none of it ever bothered me; the racists did their worst and I made it. Words can’t kill me and I have kept this policy up to this date. So when I get racist comments slung at me they just bounce right off. Slaps, scratches and stamps might scar me but names will never hurt me.
Written by Paolo Fabrizio