The not so Great Racism in Canada Thread

[kwoldtimer]

The CBC thing reminds me that there are, or at least used to be, a dozen or more places in Quebec that carried the "N" word in their name. I don't know if any of them still exist. It wouldn't surprise me if such place names existed elsewhere in Canada, although I don't know of any.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

The CBC thing reminds me that there are, or at least used to be, a dozen or more places in Quebec that carried the "N" word in their name. I don't know if any of them still exist. It wouldn't surprise me if such place names existed elsewhere in Canada, although I don't know of any.

According to this site which is the definitive authority, there are none with the N-word in English or its French equivalent.

http://www.toponymie.gouv.qc.ca

There were several not that long ago, but I seem to recall reading an article saying they had all been changed.

They also existed in other areas of Canada I am sure at some point, though I gather they've all been changed too.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

HBO Max has pulled "Gone with the Wind" from it's platform. How this makes things better is beyond me.

https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/1270542141559910401

GWTW will be returned to HBO Max with a disclaimer similar to what the Looney Tunes cartoons received outlining how they feature racial discrimination.

https://variety.com/2020/film/news/hbo-max-gone-with-the-wind-removed-1234629892/

[LakeLocker]

Originally Posted by Architype

Social justice goals will only be achieved when all economic statistics and quality of life indicators for non white people are the same as for white people. The goal is equality of outcome. There is a long way to go.

It's a religion at this point.

You can show them all the evidence in the world that their views make absolutely no sense and they will just double down on their beliefs.


The simplest way to dispel the entire racial narrative is too look at families of poor whites. You get the same intergenerational economic issues.

You can also look at situations where Indian Americans make up some of the richest Americans, while Indian Canadians make up some of the poorest Canadains. Are we suppose to believe that Canada persecutes its South Asian population at a more intense rate than the Americans?

Race tells you nothing, unless you spend all day staring at a piece of paper.

There are white familes that have been stuck in poverty for ever, there are Nigerian immigrants who are at the top of the food chain.

One of the issues is that people try to reduce class down to hourly wage, but it doesn't work like that.

Fatherlessness is obviously a powerful indicator that gets ignored, because it doesn't fit the narrative.

Another occurs when you indoctrinate people to believe that playing by the rules won't get you ahead. When Italians, Greeks, Russians whoever ignore the rules it turns into the same political issues when blacks etc don't follow the rules. This isn't racial it is about appreciating that buying into a system is part of the system.

The simple fact is social mobility for non immigrants is creeking to a halt.

I blame unions, credit, taxes, regulations, educational waste, auto infrastructure etc.

But whatever the case chasing after Racial narratives is just toxic.

I'd also mention it takes generations to build up a country, a culture, a family or people.

Humans are not plug and play.

[MolsonExport]

In other words, you blame everything else besides racism. Which is precisely why were are where we are.

[Acajack]

If we are being brutally honest the sad reality is probably that the situation in the U.S. is mostly unresolvable in at least the medium term.

As they have been doing for the past half-century, African-Americans as a large, diverse group will nonetheless continue to incrementally rise out of poverty and violence, often one family or one micro-community at a time, into the middle and upper classes, but a pretty large proportion will likely continue to be left out of the "good life".

While there are some parallels in other countries, I would strongly discourage Canadians and other people around the world from importing too seamlessly the U.S. narratives that have created this situation and also keep it alive.

[MolsonExport]

When we do nothing, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Acajack

If we are being brutally honest the sad reality is probably that the situation in the U.S. is mostly unresolvable in at least the medium term.

Unsolvable entirely? Sure. But there's a lot of patently ridiculous shit in the US that can get solved.

When I was on exchange I met African-Americans who thought it was ridiculous that they had major bases named after Confederate generals, who lost. They got to serve at some of them. And be reminded of that history every day on the drive in.

There's also the history of all those statues put up in the 60s to reflect their "history", despite the fact that lead Confederate general (Lee) was expressly opposed to symbols glorifying the Civil War.

Changing some of this stuff may be minor but it is hugely symbolic and emotional for African Americans. And one of many small steps on righting the historical wrongs committed against them. The structural stuff will take time. Generations maybe. But there's no reason the low hanging fruit can't be picked.

[Acajack]

I wasn't in any way suggesting that nothing should be done in the U.S. That's pretty clear in my message. We are mostly in agreement.

I still stand by my word of caution for Canada and other countries.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I wasn't in any way suggesting that nothing should be done in the U.S. That's pretty clear in my message. We are mostly in agreement.

I still stand by my word of caution for Canada and other countries.

I would agree except that Canadians don't really seem to care when it's a genuinely Canadian cause. How many folks were listening to the Idle No More protestors or to the FN blockades earlier this year? For better or worse, visibility only seems to come when tacked to movements that originate in the US.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by dleung

Come to the Current Events section of the skybar! You'll be amazed at the lengths Lio45 goes to defend every deplorable action by Trump

He always invokes Trudeau in his responses too... strange.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by lio45

What other possible takeaway is there?

I guess I'll have to remind myself again that I'm engaging with people who are perfectly fine with an ethnicity-based apartheid in 2020 - I shouldn't be surprised that the concept of having only one single type of citizen feels weird to you guys. To me it's the other way around - this constant obsession with race, and this idea of having one school or one entity serving one race exclusively, feels completely alien and/or 19th century.

You're delusional.

Perhaps admit that other worldviews exist and your all knowing experience, skills, and assets, that you parrot in every post, don't qualify you to speak about something you've never dealt with personally or bothered to learn anything about.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by molsonexport

in other words, you blame everything else besides racism. Which is precisely why were are where we are.

bingo

[someone123]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

In other words, you blame everything else besides racism. Which is precisely why were are where we are.

Racism as an isolated force for evil isn't a very deep explanation of what's going on though. I am not sure it even has much explanatory power with police.

There's a spectrum of structural problems with police departments with some being overly militarized and some lacking in accountability. And then on the other side there are a bunch of factors that lead to disproportionate police encounters with some minorities.

A while ago there used to be a theory that police forces would change if they had a more mixed racial composition, i.e. a big problem was that a bunch of racist white guys were going around terrorizing minorities they didn't sympathize with. The theory was that this would be fixed by either having them learn to get along with other minority officers or because the minority officers would handle situations better, without the same prejudices. I remember being on board with this idea.

That theory didn't really pan out. My impression is a black officer is about as likely to shoot a black civilian as a white officer is. And the 4 officers being personally punished for the George Floyd incident don't all seem to be white (I don't really know who counts but Tou Thao probably does not).

That doesn't mean more racially integrated or diverse police departments are bad but they ended up being a lot less of a solution than people hoped they'd be. I suspect that if you have a rotten system it doesn't really matter what people's skin colours are. You will have problems.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I would agree except that Canadians don't really seem to care when it's a genuinely Canadian cause. How many folks were listening to the Idle No More protestors or to the FN blockades earlier this year? For better or worse, visibility only seems to come when tacked to movements that originate in the US.

Unfortunately though that will lead us to being "off target" more often than not.

For all of their problems and challenges, Americans are at least tackling the issues as they exist within their own country, not based on the standards of another.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

For all of their problems and challenges, Americans are at least tackling the issues as they exist within their own country, not based on the standards of another.

I find that in addition to being overly focused on the US, Canadians tend to be passive-aggressive and there's a shortage of straightforward or data-focused discussion when it comes to race. Statistics Canada doesn't seem to provide many complete breakdowns by race. They provide breakdowns by sex more frequently.

Example of the kind of data that rarely surfaces in Canada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income

(The median household income in the US in 2016 was $57,000, so Cuban American is right around the median. 2/3 of those minorities listed are above the median.)

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

Racism as an isolated force for evil isn't a very deep explanation of what's going on though. I am not sure it even has much explanatory power with police.

There's a spectrum of structural problems with police departments with some being overly militarized and some lacking in accountability. And then on the other side there are a bunch of factors that lead to disproportionate police encounters with some minorities.

A while ago there used to be a theory that police forces would change if they had a more mixed racial composition, i.e. a big problem was that a bunch of racist white guys were going around terrorizing minorities they didn't sympathize with. The theory was that this would be fixed by either having them learn to get along with other minority officers or because the minority officers would handle situations better, without the same prejudices. I remember being on board with this idea.

That theory didn't really pan out. My impression is a black officer is about as likely to shoot a black civilian as a white officer is. And the 4 officers being personally punished for the George Floyd incident don't all seem to be white (I don't really know who counts but Tou Thao probably does not).

That doesn't mean more racially integrated or diverse police departments are bad but they ended up being a lot less of a solution than people hoped they'd be. I suspect that if you have a rotten system it doesn't really matter what people's skin colours are. You will have problems.

Hence the classic line which goes something like "even black police recruits become prejudiced against black youths after being on the force for a while".

It's never been clear to me whether that's an indictment of police culture or of the the character of (many) young African-American males. I guess it depends who is saying it.

If you look at the recent unrest, though, cities with high black representation on their police forces have been relatively quiet (Detroit, Atlanta, Baltimore, etc.) and these are also cities where African-Americans are a larger share of the population - of a majority or close to it.

But outside of the current crisis, a high African-American presence in the police generally has not led to lower violent crime rates. Most of these cities, even though blacks control and run the police force to a large degree, have sky-high murder rates.

And in terms of police brutality, there have been cases involving black officers for sure. The Freddie Gray death in Baltimore involved 3 or 4 black officers if I recall.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by someone123

Racism as an isolated force for evil isn't a very deep explanation of what's going on though. I am not sure it even has much explanatory power with police.

There's a spectrum of structural problems with police departments with some being overly militarized and some lacking in accountability. And then on the other side there are a bunch of factors that lead to disproportionate police encounters with some minorities.

A while ago there used to be a theory that police forces would change if they had a more mixed racial composition, i.e. a big problem was that a bunch of racist white guys were going around terrorizing minorities they didn't sympathize with. The theory was that this would be fixed by either having them learn to get along with other minority officers or because the minority officers would handle situations better, without the same prejudices. I remember being on board with this idea.

That theory didn't really pan out. My impression is a black officer is about as likely to shoot a black civilian as a white officer is. And the 4 officers being personally punished for the George Floyd incident don't all seem to be white (I don't really know who counts but Tou Thao probably does not).

That doesn't mean more racially integrated or diverse police departments are bad but they ended up being a lot less of a solution than people hoped they'd be. I suspect that if you have a rotten system it doesn't really matter what people's skin colours are. You will have problems.

Racism is a catch-all term for the obstacles faced by groups of people, based on their physical appearance (which could be expanded more broadly to incorporate costumes, hairstyles, that distinguish these groups etc.), that people in the mainstream, or dominant group or groups do not face, and that these obstacles are perpetuated by those in the mainstream, or dominant group, but sometimes also by people in non-dominant groups. The most prominent aspects being a preference for avoiding, disliking or feelings of outright hostility towards that group simply because of these physical characteristics. A milder version is applying stereotyping to any individuals from such groups (as I see people doing here, with references to black on black violence or other crime statistics).

Conceptually, it is on a similar level to the systemic barriers faced by women in a world that still has much misogyny, and to those faced by gay people in a world that has much homophobia.

To deny the prominent role of racism in explaining the situation facing minority groups (especially particular groups like African Americans, and First Nations' peoples) is similar to denying the prominent role of misogyny that keeps many women from realizing (or even dreaming of reaching) their full potential. Society as a whole suffers from the sheer weight of these cumulative latent lost opportunities.

Listen to James Baldwin talking (in 1965) about the lived experience of African Americans. For sure, things have improved since 1965, and of course, the arguments made are in reference to the American experience. But the stain of racism is still apparent, and going back to the examples cited by the OP and others in the earliest pages of this thread, some things haven't changed enough.

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[someone123]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

A milder version is applying stereotyping to any individuals from such groups (as I see people doing here, with references to black on black violence or other crime statistics).

Crime statistics are not stereotyping. They represent objective fact to the extent that the data's complete and accurate. It's difficult to see how you can evaluate policing at all without them.

[Truenorth00]

This man is a 4-star general. He's the new Chief of the US Air Force. His anecdotes were disturbing. You can't have a strong fighting force if any member of your team feels put up on like this.

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Gotta give Trump credit here for nominating the first African-American USAF Chief of Staff.