The Richmond woman who launched a bursary last week to help struggling, single Black moms has received racist hate mail.
La Toya Barrington said she and an employee opened up the email separately on Sunday, which was sent to her company’s address.
The vile and anonymous email references the Richmond News’ story about Barrington’s bursary and questions why she is “taking money from white people” to give to Black women.
The author used the “N” word when addressing Barrington and signs off the brief rant by referring to her, and presumably all Black people, as “vile creatures.”
Barrington, who received the email to her Go2Girl cleaning business address, didn’t respond to it but reported the abuse to Richmond RCMP straight away.
“I was a little numb, but not surprised. My booking manager got the email at the same time as me and she was quite shaken up,” Barrington told the News on Monday morning.
“I’m not shocked at all and I’m OK. It won’t deter me (from what I’m doing). It has people talking. And people still say racism isn’t bad around here.”
Barrington said she was told by the police that, as a crime hasn’t yet been committed, there’s nothing that can be done.
“If the person contacts me again, I’ve to report it again and also, if I fear for my safety, I’ve to report it,” she added.
Richmond RCMP confirmed to the News they’d received a complaint about a racist email, but couldn’t comment further at the moment.
Depending on the circumstances, emails, even though anonymous, can be tracked down to the server and IP addresses used by the sender.
Two weeks ago, the News reported how Barrington and her kids took part in the inaugural and unofficial Black Shirt Day.
And last week, the News told how she kick-started a bursary for Black single mothers to coincide with Black History Month, which started today.
Barrington told the News said she wanted to help because, when times were hard for her as a single mom, her community had her back.
She had the goal of $2,000 by the end of January for the bursary.
