OTTAWA -- A group of people making racist remarks interrupted an Inter-Faith Zoom gathering hosted by Ottawa’s religious leaders to renounce racism.
Rabbi Reuven Bulka hosted the Tuesday evening event, and Rev. Anthony Bailey of Parkdale United Church provided the keynote statement. Other speakers included Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly, Archbishop Terrance Prendergast, Rabbi Idan Scher and Bishop Shane Parker.
As Rev. Jim Pot of Knox Presbyterian Church was speaking, a group of people interrupted the Zoom gathering and yelled racist words for approximately one minute.
The Inter-Faith Zoom gathering was muted, with Pot then saying, “That’s why we’re here tonight, everybody.”
“That’s why I’m so thankful for conversations like tonight. Wholesome, respectful, loving. People from various streams of our culture and different faiths - listening, listening to each other. There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”
Rabbi Bulka apologized to Rev. Pot for being interrupted with “that garbage.”
Police Chief Sloly spoke to the gathering a few minutes later, saying, “I’m so sorry that we all had to listen to some hate in order to move forward as a society, but that is a challenge for all of us.”
Ottawa’s religious leaders organized the Zoom Solidarity gathering to express their outrage at the murder of George Floyd and solidarity and unity in heart with Ottawa’s Black community.
Rabbi Bulka told CTV News Ottawa on Wednesday, “I don’t live in a delusionary world, I know there is hatred out there and the fact that it manifested last night shows everyone that we are not living with an abstraction, or something that we are just imagining.”
“This is actually real. So I would have preferred it didn’t happen, but once it did happen I think there are messages here that are very meaningful and impactful.”
Incident highlights the need to come together to denounce racism
Speaking on CTV Morning Live Wednesday morning, Rev. Bailey said the racist language used during the Inter-Faith Zoom gathering was “very disturbing.”
“Ironically, it was very disturbing and upsetting for a number of people, but in a sense what we were doing last night was various faith leaders coming together to denounce racism and systemic racism in particular,” said Rev. Bailey.
“Here we had an example, sort of a laboratory experiment right there in the midst of it. So it was disturbing, but afterwards we were reflecting that this just highlights the need for the very things we are doing.”
Rev. Bailey added racism is a “reality in our society, it’s a reality that people are committed to perpetrating and therefore we stood in solidarity to bear witness to support each other.”
Rev. Bailey said he would like to sit down with the group that interrupted the Inter-Faith Zoom meeting to “understand what brings them to the place of hatefulness and the way in which they see the world.”
“I would not demonize them, I would not hate them. I would want to see and understand why is it they’re doing what they’re doing and see if we can have a constructive conversation about their views, their ideologies and so forth.”
