I’m going to write a thread that I’ve been considering for some time, about racism I encountered in law school, and by extension, the criminal bar in B.C.

I took part in UVic’s excellent criminal law term, part of which was to bring practitioners from outside the law school as guest speakers. One of these was a ‘K-File’ (domestic violence) Crown from the Fraser Valley.

I took verbatim notes during this lecture, because I was shocked by what was being said and I wanted to ensure I could represent it accurately in the future. I put quotation marks in my written notes to denote direct quotes.

This Crown described the community they worked in as ‘violent and perverse.’

They began discussing their experience in prosecuting intimate partner violence cases, which is when it really started to go off the rails.

They remarked that men in the community ‘beat their women because they spice the food wrong’.
They also commented that getting complaints to testify was difficult, because they would be intimidated by the accused bringing ‘big men with big turbans’ to sit in the courtroom.

And yes, this Crown was white.

This was not at all the fault of the course instructors—on the contrary, we debriefed after the guest lecture and unpacked the shocking racism displayed by the guest. I am immensely thankful for this as an eye-opening window into the profession.

I’ve been careful not to identify this particular Crown, because I don’t think this is an individual problem. This is a systemic racism issue endemic to criminal law. I’m much more worried about lawyers who are self-aware enough about their racism to not say the quiet part loud.