A number of racist incidents have gone viral in the days since the Danforth shooting in Toronto.
While most were disturbing to watch, one of them had a fairly satisfying conclusion when a man holding up an Islamophobic sign got pushed into a large water fountain on Friday.
Videos by VICE
Video footage of the incident published by Global News shows a white man approach a crowd of people outside the fountain at Alexander the Great Parkette, not far from where Faisal Hussain, 29, gunned down a crowd of Torontonians on July 22, killing 10-year-old Julianna Kozis and Reese Fallon, 18. The area around the fountain has turned into a memorial for the shooting victims.
In the video, the man holds up a sign that says “C.B.C. presents Little Mosque on the praire (sic) Two dead girls in Greek Town.” (Little Mosque on the Prairie was a CBC sitcom about a Muslim community in small-town Saskatchewan.) One man approaches him to say “not all Muslims are bad people” to which the sign-holder shouts “I don’t know about Muslims, I’m talking about Islam.”
A woman wearing a headscarf the tries to push down the Islamophobic sign as people yell “shame” repeatedly. Finally the man, who appears to be quite tall, is able to hold the sign up high over his head. But that’s when an even taller white man comes up from behind him and starts trying to knock down the sign. He ends up pushing the sign-holder into the water fountain, effectively dunking him.
A few people in the crowd cheer and clap.
The man struggles to get up again—he does a weird pilates style “v-sit” move a couple times before he is finally able to stand up. Soaking in water, he holds up the sign from inside the fountain.
According to Global News, police later escorted the man away from the crowd.
On Friday, a white man in Stoney Creek Ontario was caught on camera screaming at an Indian couple in a WalMart parking lot.
The man admitted he was racist and said “I would kill your children.” He also reportedly hit the Indian woman with his car.
Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.