Identity-based privilege manifests itself in myriad ways in adults. All things being equal it shows up in whether you are deemed authoritative or arrogant, whether you are judged for your record or your potential, whether your hair is considered quirky or unkempt, whether your accent is taken as classy or backward. And whether your skin colour translates into danger or innocence.

Notice, the opposite of racial innocence is not guilt, but danger. Threat.

Among children, privilege manifests itself chiefly in this ominous measure of innocence.

Exhibit A is what is now labelled the “hijab hoax” story from January in which an 11-year-old girl alleged that a man ran up behind her, when she was on her way to school with her little brother, and cut her hijab. Police investigated and said this did not happen.

Newspapers demanded an apology from the girl’s family (which was given.) Some people wanted the girl’s mother to be criminally charged.

The man alleged to have committed the crime was described as young, and Asian.

“Asian” somehow became Chinese became racial insult became threat. How quickly that child’s entitlement to innocence was snatched away. There were protests by Chinese Canadians across Canada in Montreal and Toronto and Calgary and Regina and Edmonton where the hoax was conflated with the spectre of terrorism. “Hoax Today, Horror Tomorrow” blared posters at some of these protests.

All of this quickly ballooned into a political rally in Ottawa on Feb. 18, where the usual far-right suspects also jumped in. La Meute, Storm Alliance, the Northern Guard, Proud Boys. Together they demanded Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resign and apologize to the Chinese Canadian community for tweeting his sympathy to the girl after the story first broke.

The outrage suggests fake reports by kids are an aberration that belongs to the domain of deviants.

In August last year, a 10-year-old girl reported being sexually assaulted in the Flemingdon Park area by a man described as “brown.” Police investigated and found it did not happen.

In March last year, an 11-year-old girl told police she was walking in the Beaches when a man in a black ski mask, driving a minivan, attempted to pull her into the vehicle. She said she bit the man’s hand and he drove off. Toronto police investigated and determined it was a hoax.

In April 2014, police said reports of a schoolyard assault in the Beaches were false.

There were more. Some were reported in the media, others not. The information is based on Toronto police press releases. Anyone recall hyperventilation about the nation being insulted and calls for apologies and protests? No big deal, eh? Kids lie. Kids learn.

Whether those other kids are white is not known, but they were not identified as Muslim. That identifier impacted the innocence accorded to the hijabi kid.

Despite what the Chinese Canadian demonstrations suggest, Chinese and Muslim are not mutually exclusive identities. Rick Sin, an incoming chair of the Asian Canadian Labour Alliance (ACLA), says “Chinese” is an umbrella ethnic label, of which “Muslim” is the fourth largest ethnic group.

He doesn’t see Islamophobia as unique to those communities but rather as an extension of Canadian cultural and electoral politics. These “divisive narratives are driven by two major forces — partisan politics (especially rivalry between the Conservatives and the Liberals) and (the) fundamentalist Christian church,” he says.

On Feb. 22, Chinese and Asian Canadian and Québec organizations, including the ACLA, issued a joint statement “against hate and fascism,” expressing alarm about those demonstrations.

That joint statement was made, Sin says, to dispute any homogenizing claim of representation of the Chinese community by the protesters and to reinstate progressive voices and ideals that are also shared by people in that ethnic community.

“It was not that long ago that, similar to today’s Muslim Canadians, Chinese in Canada were regarded as social pariahs. Labelled as the ‘yellow peril,’” the statement said.

“One lesson learned … is that by targeting legislation against one group of people, the government creates an atmosphere of hate in the larger society for all.”

The withholding of innocence from children has already been shown to be deeply harmful. In the 1940s and ’50s, the government saw fit to conduct food experiments on already malnourished Indigenous children — either feeding them an experimental flour mixture that was illegal elsewhere or intentionally withholding food.

A survey last yearfound Americans view Black girls aged 5 to 14 as less innocent and more mature for their age, in need of less nurturing, less protection, less support and less comfort.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

In Canadian schools, Black youth face heightened surveillance and disciplinary measures at massively and disproportionately high rates compared to their white peers, writes Robyn Maynard, author of Policing Black Lives. They are often treated as suspects instead of children.

Teaching children about racism is often touted as a tool to make things better for future generations. Why don’t we begin by at least viewing kids as equally innocent?

Shree Paradkar writes about discrimination and identity. You can follow her @shreeparadkar