The Growing Problem of Systemic Racism in Canada

 

The Toronto Star has published a piece on why Canada is racist.

 “In a Facebook group, a white woman responds to a post about new government funding for clean water at an Indigenous reserve, complaining that Indigenous people already get too much support and should do a better job of looking after themselves.”

A point worth making. Local government is responsible for clean water. Why are we blaming and billing the federal government, and not condemning or at least investigating the band council?

“At a bar, a man of European descent joins a discussion about police treatment of Black people and insists that racism and racial profiling happens in other countries, but not in Canada.”

It is incumbent on the author to demonstrate that racism and racial profiling is common in police treatment of black people in Canada. Otherwise he is simply begging the question here, assuming what he claims to prove.

The author then cites a survey of 6,601 participants on how they would respond to a white person who was:

• Speaking up when someone tells an insensitive joke;

• Appropriating Indigenous or Black attire;

• Asking where an Indigenous or Black person came from;

• Claiming racism doesn’t exist in Canada;

• Intervening when an Indigenous or Black person is hassled in public;

• Making a derogatory comment on Facebook; or

• Making a racial gesture at a hockey game.

Notice, to begin with, that the survey is interested only in the actions of white people. This is racial discrimination from the start. Can you imagine a survey that asked respondents to judge and condemn the actions of black people?

- Speaking up when someone tells an insensitive joke.

What counts as insensitive in a joke is entirely in the ear of the perceiver. We may simply be measuring the respondent’s lack of a sense of humour.

- Appropriating indigenous or Black attire.

“Cultural appropriation” is civilization. Is it wrong for “Whites” to buy records by black artists? Should Aryans refuse to patronize Jewish doctors? Is it, conversely, cultural appropriation for indigenous people to wear pants instead of loincloths and paint? Ought we to object, and insist on them having to wear distinctive dress? Perhaps for the Jews gabardine, a yellow star?

- Asking where an indigenous or Black person came from.

By definition, if someone is asking an indigenous person where they came from, they are not aware that they are an indigenous person. Therefore, this cannot be evidence of prejudice towards indigenous people.

If a black person is asked where they came from, how do we know this is because of their skin colour, as opposed to their having a foreign accent? To show this to be racial discrimination, you would have to control for this variable.

- Claiming racism does not exist in Canada.

Another perfect example of begging the question. If systemic racism does not exist in Canada, this is a correct observation. The present article claims to demonstrate that systemic racism does exist in Canada.

- Intervening when an Indigenous or Black person is hassled in public.

Surely this is a good thing, and understood to be so here. But to be evidence of racism, this would have to be compared to the likelihood of intervention when a white person is hassled in public, or an Asian person.

- Making a derogatory comment on Facebook

This is moot, because Facebook will block any racially “derogatory” comments. In other words, those who answer yes to this question are simply shown to be unreliable witnesses. Then too, what is “derogatory” has to be clearly defined to make this meaningful—for Facebook or here.

- Making a racial gesture at a hockey game

Bizarre to include this, since hockey is pretty racially homogenous. Why would anyone make a “racial” gesture at a hockey game? What exactly counts as a “racial gesture”?

Further down, the article gives an example: “a vigorous tomahawk gesture with a loud whooping cry.”

This is a traditional fan gesture for the Atlanta Braves and Kansas City Chiefs. Wrong country, wrong sport. Again, anyone answering yes is probably only showing themselves to be unreliable. And, of course, the American fan gesture is not racist—it is meant to express support and solidarity, not condemnation.

On the evidence of this article, racism is indeed a problem in modern Canada. 

Racism against “whites.”