Dave Feschuk: Georges Laraque knows all too well that racism is a problem — ‘We need a solution,’ he says

The year 2020 will be remembered for a couple of devastating plagues, and Georges Laraque, the former NHL enforcer, has endured a battle with both.

One of the scourges, he hopes, is forever in his rearview. In late April, when Laraque was otherwise occupied training for this third marathon and delivering groceries to vulnerable people in the Montreal area, among other passions, he tested positive for the coronavirus. He was diagnosed with pneumonia in both lungs, a condition that wasn’t helped by a pre-existing case of asthma and a genetic lung defect. He was administered oxygen through a tube in his nose as he suffered with fever and the chills. And though he’d previously been running about 10 kilometres a day in preparation for his race, suddenly, he said, “it was a workout to go to the bathroom.”

Still, about a week after he was checked into hospital, where he shared a room with patients in far worse shape, he was released. More than a month later, he’s fit and healthy and back to grinding out the marathon mileage.

As for the other plague commanding headlines of late — as a Black man who rose to fame playing a predominantly white sport, Laraque experienced racism’s raw sting from his formative days on a rink. As early as age eight, as a child of Haitian immigrants raising the only Black family in small-town Sorel-Tracy, Que., Laraque remembers his parents urging him to quit hockey. They’d stopped coming to his games, he says, because “too many people were calling me the N-word.” And the cruelty of hateful humans would give him plenty of reasons to hang up his skates in the years ahead.

“My entire upbringing, there was racism,” said Laraque, 43. “And today, in 2020, there’s still racism.”

So you’ll excuse Laraque if he expresses skepticism at the notion that, in the high-alert wake of the murder of George Floyd, we’ve arrived at a moment of actual, substantive change in the matter of race relations. Acknowledging there’s a problem with the way Black people are treated by police and by others is one thing, and never a bad one. But for Laraque, the acknowledgment alone hardly qualifies as a news flash.

“I’m sick and tired of having people recognize that there is a problem,” Laraque said. “We need a solution.”

It’s been more than 10 years since Laraque last played in an NHL game, and he’s lived a busy and varied life in retirement. He’s a serial entrepreneur with interests in real estate, a clothing line, and a brand of kombucha, among many things. He’s a public speaker, a spokesperson for Save the Children and Shriner’s Hospital, and he’s been a contestant on CBC’s Battle of the Blades. For a few years he ventured into the political arena as deputy leader of the federal Green Party. And yet Laraque says he’s “not a political person”; he was drawn to the party because of its commitment to environmental causes, and because he’s a committed vegan.

Still, Laraque is of the belief that fighting racism requires a political solution, specifically stiffer laws to punish racist behaviour, including a zero-tolerance policy for members of the public service such as police officers and government workers.

“One proven case of racism, you’re fired. No second chances,” Laraque said. “People that are racist, they’re sick. And there’s no vaccine for them. You can’t change them. But what you can do is you can force them to be respectful. What you can do is make sure they shut up.”

Laraque, for his part, said his notoriety now often shields him from the racially motivated abuse of his youth, the kind still experienced by so many. But he says his early days as a pro, when he was a relatively anonymous second-round draft pick of the Edmonton Oilers, exposed him to the sort of attention from police that is so often cited as an eternal reality of Black life.

“I got arrested many times,” he said. “I was stupid. I got the big truck. I spent $15,000 on a stereo system. You could hear my music from probably five kilometres away. I was putting earplugs in my ears, because it was so loud. I liked driving downtown blasting the music, with the sunglasses, so that everyone looked at you.”

Since he made the NHL, and since he partook in more than 130 regular-season NHL fights, carving out a reputation as probably the toughest customer of his era, he says the way people look at him has changed. The traffic stops have become less frequent. Maybe that’s got something to do with how, having seen the financial downside of the tricked-out vehicles of his youth, he now prefers to travel in used trucks. He suspects it’s got more to do with the power of hockey-related fame.

“This is the biggest insult I get from people. People come up to me and say, ‘Georges, we like you. You’re not like the other ones,’” he said. “It’s unbelievable. Some people are viewing me as a white man because I played a white man’s sport. That’s why I don’t suffer as much racism as my cousins, as my friends, and I know that. I know that because I played hockey people don’t treat me the same.”

Which is not to suggest Laraque is labelling the situation as futile. Just like his tête-à-tête with COVID-19 has seen him emerge motivated to train for another marathon — a four-hour tour of the 42.2-kilometre distance is the goal — Laraque said his childhood run-ins with racists fuelled his unlikely rise to the big league. So did an early-life reading of a kids’ version of the autobiography of Jackie Robinson, the first Black player in Major League Baseball, which convinced Laraque he wasn’t alone in his struggle.

“When I read that, I said, ‘What I’m going through, with everybody calling me the N-word, is normal because Jackie went through it, too,’” Laraque said.

More than 70 years since Robinson broke baseball’s colour barrier, and more than 35 years since Laraque’s parents urged him to quit trying to make it in a white man’s game, barriers remain. Such is the nature of the plague for which there is no impending vaccine: Acknowledging its presence isn’t the same as fighting its malevolence.

“It’s like (actor) Will Smith said on social media. Racism isn’t getting better or worse. It’s getting filmed. Racism has been the same for 30 years,” Laraque said. “Unless we work on ways to fix it, unless we hold people accountable, in 10 years you’re going to call me to do an article about how it’s still the same.”