Visitor to B.C. village calls out restaurant for racist stickers<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018It\u2019s OK to be white\u2019 on stickers displayed in Keremeos bar<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Courtney Dickson<\/a> \u00b7 CBC News \u00b7 Posted: Aug 13, 2020 6:42 AM PT | Last Updated: August 13<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Vancouver man is speaking out against a pair of stickers with racist messaging displayed at a B.C. bar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tom\n Kato, who is Japanese-Canadian, was travelling with friends through \nKeremeos, 100 kilometres south of Kelowna, when they stopped at a local \nbar for something to eat. They noticed a sticker near an emergency exit \nthat said, “It’s OK to be white” paired with an image of a hand giving \nthe OK sign, which, the Anti-Defamation League<\/a> says, has been used to express white supremacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “When I saw the first sticker everybody kind of went a little quiet and it was a little uncomfortable for us,” Kato said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, they saw another sticker behind the bar, which made him think they were put up by bar staff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He said he thought about the stickers the whole time he was in the restaurant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “It’s\n not right,” Kato said. “As a visible minority, people in that situation\n shouldn’t feel uncomfortable over the colour of your skin or your \nculture or anything like that.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Branding Iron Bar & Grill owner Karl Schorb said he doesn’t think the stickers are racist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I’m\n not a racist. I have nothing against anybody. I love everybody, I’m a \nhappy person and that’s all that counts for me,” he said, encouraging \nanyone who takes issue with the stickers to talk to him about it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He\n said someone questioned him about the sticker more than a year ago, but\n otherwise, the stickers have been up for three years and no one else \nhas complained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Schorb said he was unaware of the \nsticker’s racist undertones, but when asked if he would take it down, he\n said he would only do so if forced to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “If the law forces me to take it down, I’ll take it down, but it has to be by the law, not by me,” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kato said he and the owner had a conversation about the meaning behind the sticker while he was in the restaurant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The\n fact that he’s putting it up and he knows that it’s offensive to other \npeople \u2026 he doesn’t really care about it. [It] kind of just shows a \nlittle bit of his character,” Kato said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Keremeos Mayor Manfred \nBauer said he would like to see the stickers removed \u2014 and he has asked \nSchorb to remove them \u2014 but the village can’t take any further action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It’s not like we can just pull a business licence because someone has a sticker like that in their restaurant,” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “I\n would prefer if any kind of racial comments, whether it’s in writing, a\n picture, or a rhetoric is not in this community and I’m pretty sure \nthat the vast majority of people do not approve of that kind of thing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kato\n said that in the current political climate, with Black Lives Matter and\n other anti-discrimination messaging making headlines, it’s hard to \nbelieve someone would be unaware of the meaning of those stickers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Even if he was to take down the sticker, it’s not going to change what he thinks,” Kato said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “I’m\n a realistic person. I know there’s tons of people out there that think \nthe way he does, and you know there’s nothing that you can really do but\n just speak out.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [What a snowflake society. A traveller from Vancouver visited a bar in the village of Keremeos and took offence at two stickers, one saying “It’s OK to be White”, the other proclaiming “White Lives Matter”. It’s hard to see how … Continue reading ![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/i.cbc.ca\/1.5684438.1597281593!\/fileImage\/httpImage\/image.jpg_gen\/derivatives\/16x9_780\/its-okay-to-be-white.jpg\")
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/i.cbc.ca\/1.5684443.1597281724!\/fileImage\/httpImage\/image.jpg_gen\/derivatives\/original_780\/sticker-number-2.jpg\")
Mayor wants stickers removed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n