Vancouver School Board says racism charges are “illogical”
Fri, June 09 2006
Jomar Lanot
The Vancouver School Board is describing charges by a Filipino youth group that it is systemically racist as illogical and ludicrous.
The charges were leveled by the Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance during the recent sentencing hearing for Jomar Lanot's killer.
“In November 2003, 17 year-old Mao Jomar Lanot was beaten outside of Sir Charles Tupper Secondary School
“The tragic death of Mao Jomar Lanot is a concrete example of systemic racism in Canadian institutions such as the Vancouver School Board which puts up barriers to the genuine equality and development of Filipino and other youth of colour.”
“One of these barriers is the Vancouver School Board and other institutions’ severe lack of understanding about the realities of Filipino and youth of colour,” the alliance said.
Responding to the allegations on radio, the school’s board’s Yvonne Eamor said while she understands members of the alliance are emotional, she refutes their stance as illogical, "Some of the allegations they're making are absolutely ludicrous. The Vancouver School District
The protesters say they want to sit down and talk with the VSB; Eamor says she hasn't seen an application from them to do so.
The Alliance said the majority of Filipino students in Vancouver
“This traumatic experience of separation, migration, and family re-unification takes a toll on our youth.”
“It is therefore not surprising that Filipino youth have the 2nd highest drop out rate from Vancouver
At the sentencing hearing in the B.C. Supreme Court, a crown prosecutor said Lanot and his friends just happened to be walking through the grounds of their Vancouver
"This was a predatory situation," Henry Reiner told a judge considering the sentence of the 19-year-old who admitted his role in the swarming.
"This group congregated for the express purpose of assaulting someone with weapons."
Justice Lance Bernard, who will hand down his sentence on July 12, has to decide whether the teen will go to adult prison or a youth facility.
The teenager cannot be named because he was a youth at the time of the offence.
Lanot, 17, and some of his friends were walking through the school grounds on their way home from playing basketball in November, 2003.
Charges against two other young men were stayed when witnesses changed their testimony.
Reiner said a harsh sentence is needed for a crime that has appalled society and devastated the Lanot family.
"When there are group attacks on individuals such as this, when weapons are used and there is no explicable motive, other than mob mentality," the court must send a message, the prosecutor said.
The defendant's lawyer, Deanne Gaffar, told the sentencing hearing earlier that her client would be vulnerable to victimization if he was given a long sentence in adult prison.
Gaffar said the teen, who was 16 at the time of the swarming, should spend two years in a youth prison and three years on probation.
During the hearing last month, Lanot's mother wept as she told the court that losing her son was like the end of the world.
The loss was also felt by Reiner as he talked about the victim with the media at the end of the hearing.
"Everything we know about [Jomar is] he was a very sweet young kid. It's just absolutely horrible that his has happened to him," the lawyer said.
"It's particularly poignant, when it happens to a completely innocent young man with his whole life ahead of him."
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