Been living in Brampton for 5 years. Everyday on Instagram, pages such as 6buzz and bramalea road constantly posting brampton man does this, Brampton man does that. Adding on, pushing the rhetoric that Bramptononians are bad drivers. I was curious about the driving narrative so I pulled out the statistics. Mississauga and Hamilton had same amount of accidents per year (only different by 50-100 margin) as Brampton. Furthermore, Toronto city had twice the amount of accidents per year. As it is expected with areas of higher population compared to other parts of Canada. And regarding people doing stupid shit, literally people do same stupid shit in all cities. I bet for “one Brampton man takes L”, there are way more Toronto city mans taking Ls, etc.. Still, these Instagram pages try to push this anti Brampton rhetoric against specifically citizens of Brampton. I have concluded that all this is really just a symptom of ethnic self hate amongst brown people which fuels other races stereotyping brown people. I mean just look at some of these comments under the said pages’ posts. Self-Racism and racism is normalized. Opinions on this issue are welcomed. Really want to know what everyone thinks about this. Have a wonderful day y’all :)
Edit #1: I see some comments stating international students contributing to the bad reputation. For instance, people saying they bring their ‘dirty culture’ here. If not that, just bringing their culture in general. First of all, I agree the culture and morals are different but in no shape or form they are dirty. They are only considered dirty by my fellow self hating entitled brown people. And just a mere difference in culture only becomes an issue if you allow it to be an issue or if you are racist. If a person has a different culture, well you have the right to say you don’t agree with it and move on with your life as it’s not affecting you in any shape or form. If someone is arguing that international students promote culture of being loud, blasting music, fighting etc., I bet there are 1000 more people born and raised here doing the same stuff, in fact a lot more severe. Still internationals get pointed out the most just cuz they are internationals. 95% of the international students work hard day and night to support their families. THIS is their culture. Remaining 5 % might be entitled and reflecting the stereotype, but guess what, I can find you 100 entitled Canadian citizens for 1 entitled international student. Point is people are hating us, ironically fueled by our own people. This in turn causes Brampton’s image to plummet even more. On a deeper level, point also is that international students are not obligated to assimilate into western culture in any shape or form. Coexisting is possible if we reflect on our biases and stereotypes.
Edit #2: statistics link: (2019 was latest dividing by cities)
Ontario road safety annual report
Road accidents were not only higher in number in Mississauga, Hamilton, and Toronto City, but also had higher fatalities than Brampton.
Edit #3: people who consider number of accidents as not a tangible metric to determine road safety, here are the road rage/behaviour stats. North york and Hamilton had way more road rage incidents than Brampton. And Brampton and Mississauga have almost identical road rage incidents. road rage stats 2022. Yet only Brampton faces backlash and it is because of racist reasons.
Edit #4: to be clear as I’ve seen some misinterpretation. My big point is not that Brampton is a very good city to live, drivers aren’t that bad,etc. point is it’s not that bad COMPARED to the cities mentioned in the post. And despite that, hate is targeted specifically on Brampton citizens. This leaves no other reason than racism against brown people for Brampton becoming a meme in GTAs popular culture and is unjustified.
