The Canadian town that still bans interracial marriage
Local Input~ A family in Kahnawake woke up to graffiti on their house and car on Saturday as a May 1, 2015, deadline passed for them to leave. The deadline had been set by a group of residents of the Mohawk territory on Montreal’s South Shore that says it’s enforcing a 1981 law prohibiting non-native residence in Kahnawake. Signs placed at the home said: “Marry out get out” and “Mohawk land for Mohawks.” (Photo credit: Kahnawake resident) ORG XMIT: POS1505031659208716
0519 city kahnawake
The Canadian town that still bans interracial marriage
In Canada, in 2015, a couple is forced to leave their home because their relationship is interracial.
Amanda Deer is native. Her boyfriend is not. Most places in Canada, their relationship wouldn’t attract a second glance. But it was enough to provoke an angry mob in Kahnawake, Que., over the weekend, who drove the pair from their home on the Mohawk reserve near Montreal. “They were trying to break my front door down. They started handling the handle, banging on the door, banging on the porch,” Deer told CBC News.
Deer said she wasn’t sure whether the mob wanted her boyfriend to leave because he is not native, or because he has a criminal record; some Kahnawake residents, including Deer’s neighbour, have cited the latter reason. There would be more ambiguity about the mob’s motivation, were it not for the case of Cheryl Diabo, from the same reserve, whose home and car were vandalized last year — her garbage bin affixed with a sign that read “Kwe! My name is Cheryl and I live with a WHITE MAN” — because she was living with her white boyfriend.
Nor was there much ambiguity in the campaign of intimidation against Marvin and Terry McComber, whose house and daughter’s car were spray-painted with graffiti by protesters gathered outside their home in a “marry out, stay out” demonstration. Marvin, who is native, and Terry, who is not, eventually moved off the reserve. So did Barry and Sandy Stacey. And Waneek Horn-Miller and her non-native partner. There’s a common thread in all of these stories, and it’s not that all of these Mohawk residents happen to be living with partners with criminal records.
The most galling part of all of this is not just that — in Canada, in 2015 — mixed-raced couples are intimidated out of their homes by angry mobs, but that those mobs can actually quote the law on their behalf.
Indeed, the law in Kahnawake, on the books since 1981, plainly states that Mohawk residents who marry non-Mohawk partners must move off reserve. The law’s defenders contend it is necessary to maintaining native control of native land; it does not preclude its members from having relationships with non-native partners, they point out, just so long as they refrain from blighting native land with their miscegeny.
How very tolerant. We’re going to go out on a limb here and suggest that a law that dictates where a person may live based on his or her race has no place on the statute books of any community in Canada, as the Charter of Rights surely implies. Indeed, a group of Kahnawake’s former residents — some of whom were evicted for breaching the rule — have launched a suit against the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake, though the case is not expected to be settled until 2017.
But meanwhile there is the attendant problem of mob rule. It is intolerable that residents should be bullied out of their homes by angry mobs emboldened by an unjust and discriminatory law. In Canada, in 2015, consenting adults should be able to take up residence with whomever they please, even if that residence happens to be on reserve.
It is understandable that the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake should be concerned to preserve control over their land. But intimidation and eviction of interracial couples is not the way to do that. Not in Canada, not in 2015.