Quote:
Originally Posted by kevinbottawa
I don't see an issue facing black entrepreneurs in Ottawa that's bigger than racism; if not overt racism, it's prejudice, whether conscious or subsconscious. A lot of people still aren't comfortable around black people. But that's not just Ottawa, it's across Canada. Even in Toronto. You look at the boards of directors and management teams of major companies. They're mostly white. In some cases, it may not be racism. With certain opportunities, people hire from within their networks, so if people's networks are full of people that look like themselves they'll just hire or appoint the people they know. In other cases it's racism.
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When I worked at a big firm in Toronto before moving to Ottawa 15 years ago, the guy that hired me told me that his goal was to hire people like himself. He called it human nature. I don't think that he was thinking race, or had nefarious intent, as he was more referring to background, personality, world view etc. I remember not liking the comment at the time (it stuck with me), but I don't think I consciously connected it to race when he said it.
As you can imagine, the result was a firm full of upper middle class white guys (they were slumming it with me). Also, that guy and his cohort of similar minded individuals controlled hiring in the firm for probably two decades, so it's pretty clear why progress is slow.