Featured Image: 24 year old defenceman Jonathan Diaby, says he can not stand racial comments targeted at his family. (CBC)

Recently at a Quebec semi-pro hockey game, fans were throwing racial comments toward 24 year old defence man, Jonathan Diaby and his family. Diaby plays for the Marquis de Jonquière, a team in the Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey, where he said he was taunted, called the N-word, and shown pictures of a baboon in the penalty box. The fans who projected these comments to Diaby and his family were not ejected from the arena. Instead, security guards approached his girlfriend and family, asking them to quietly move somewhere else so that the rest of the game could continue without anymore disruption.

Over the years, forms of racism have been seen in National Hockey league and sports in general. Liberal MNA Enrico Ciccone who is a former NHL player, told CBC on Wednesday he was disgusted by the incident.

“Everybody has the right to to feel safe. Everybody has the right to have some dignity,” Ciccone said. Ciccone stated that the fans responsible of the racial slurs should be criminally charged.

Although society is taking some action to prevent events like this from happening, this is a perfect example of how racism is still pervasive within or society. Other spectators, security guards and anyone else who witnessed the event had the right and should have said that this was unacceptable. Hateful acts like this cannot be tolerated in sport. Whether it is a player or spectator, they should be removed from the arena and be immediately penalized.

baileytwebster