THE response to last week’s lead story on Asian business owners in Limerick being subjected to racist abuse was overwhelmingly positive and resulted in immediate action from An Garda Síochána and immigrant rights group, Doras Luimní.
Anyone who loves Limerick would have been rightfully angered and ashamed by the deeds of these small-minded Neanderthals. The pain and hurt Asian business owners in the city centre have been subjected to in recent months is simply vile.
We do not take well to the ugly side of our city being put under the microscope.
This is all well and good but Limerick’s wonderful hardworking Asian community, or any other ethnic minority who call our city home, should not have to ask to be treated with the dignity and respect that should be a given.
People should not have to fear being physically attacked or abused in their workplace because of their colour or creed. In a city many of these fine people have called home for generations, they should not have to fear for their children’s safety.
There is a very worrying blasé attitude to this kind of casual racism; an eagerness to sweep it under the carpet and deny the reality of what is taking place on our city’s streets.
In December of last year, iReport, an online database managed by the European Network Against Racism, revealed that Limerick had the second highest level of racist incidents in the country after Dublin with 12 attacks in the first ten weeks of 2013.
Comments on social media about recent racist attacks in the city should raise alarm bells for us all. This idea that migrants are here to screw a society only coming out of a recession is just wrong and laced with fear.
Where’s the empathy?
Has Ireland of the ‘céad míle fáilte’ forgotten how our own ancestors were welcomed in countries across the globe to make new lives for themselves and generations of Irishmen and women?
Please don’t turn a blind eye to racism.
