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HALIFAX — Muyu Lyu, an international student from China, was on a bus on the way to his internship in downtown Halifax when he said he heard racist comments directed at him.

“People said something to me, that I’m Asian or I’m Chinese, so I may have coronavirus and I should get off the bus,” Lyu recalled from an incident that occurred in late February.

“That was my last stop. I had to get off the bus because I was going to work ... but I should’ve said something or (done) something.”

He said the incident made him feel like he doesn't belong in Halifax, adding he switched bus routes shortly thereafter and has since limited his time out in public to grocery shopping a few times a month in order to avoid running into a similar situation, as he does not feel safe.

It’s also made him fearful of wearing a mask out in public because that could draw draw dirty looks from others, he said.

A member of the Dalhousie International Students’ Association, Lyu noted instances of hate speech and racism like these have become “pretty common” from what he’s heard from other members of the Asian community in Halifax.

"If you are Asian-looking or if you look East Asian, (some people) just don’t like you," he said.

“No one wants to be sick, and China has also been suffering from this quite seriously, and COVID-19 is part of nature, you should not name it a ‘Chinese virus.' What we need to do is work together to fight that, no matter where you’re from, or how you look. And at this point, we need to unite with each other because the hate or misconceptions are more dangerous than the virus.”

Dalhousie University associate professor OmiSoore Dryden echoed those remarks.

“I’m profoundly tired by it and saddened by it and enraged by it and frightened by it,” said Dryden, who is the James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies in the Faculty of Medicine at Dal.

Speak out against racism

Dryden noted that Canadians have been having conversations about discrimination and racism in the context of public health outbreaks since the start of the HIV/AIDS pandemic that gave rise to homophobia, followed by the SARS outbreak and the 2009 swine flu pandemic that gave rise to anti-Asian sentiments.

“It wears on my soul and my spirit to know that we are still having these conversations about racism, whether it’s anti-Chinese racism, anti-Black racism, anti-Indigenous racism, that we’re still having these conversations around racism, health, pandemics and healthcare.”

She said the best way that people living in Nova Scotia can support those who are victims of racism is by standing up and calling racist sentiments out.

“If you’re on the bus, I think what you need to do is you need to raise your voice and be like, ‘That’s not true,’ because your silence suggests that you also believe these racist things that are coming out of somebody else’s mouth,” said Dryden.

“And it’s not easy to do that. If we are truly committed to involving all members of our community, then we need to stand up when they are being treated poorly.”

Const. John MacLeod, public information officer with the Halifax Regional Police, said in an email he encourages people to report incidents such as the one Lyu experienced to police.

“What I can say is that we take incidents that are motivated by hate towards a specific group very seriously. If someone finds themselves exposed to behaviour that is offensive, threatening or intimidating, we encourage them to report it to police to investigate so we can determine if criminal offences have occurred,” said MacLeod.

He added that even if an investigation does not find criminal wrongdoing occurred in a specific incident, "it is important to have it on record.”