Soldiers of Odin defend patrols across B.C.

Metro News spoke with Alnoor Gova, a UBC graduate who wrote his PhD thesis on anti-Muslim racism in Canada, for a story on a B.C. group that has been linked to white supremacists.

Gova said the Soldiers of Odin’s claim to not be racist uses an incorrect definition of racism.

“Folks can also say, ‘Well, Islam is a religion of all races so I am not being racist,’” Gova said. “But racism is deeper than skin colour. [Soldiers of Odin] boasting of people of colour in membership is an old strategy to show a kind of solidarity with the folks so racism doesn’t show overtly. But once their mandate is examined the veneer can’t hold up.”