The not so Great Racism in Canada Thread

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Sarah89

I'm really ashamed at the behavior of black Canadians. Just because something is going on in the U.S they TOO have to pretend it's happening here. Black people in Canada encounter less racism than other groups. We know how Muslims are treated here sometimes. Even Asians have gotten huge levels of discrimination with Covid-19 lately - and some of them (here, in this country) have been beaten up.

I never hear anyone speaking negatively about black people in Ontario.

What is this behaviour of which you speak?

The small but real black community in Vancouver has some grievances with how their community was bulldozed for a freeway. They have been protesting peacefully here in recent days.

[Sarah89]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

What is this behaviour of which you speak?

The small but real black community in Vancouver has some grievances with how their community was bulldozed for a freeway. They have been protesting peacefully here in recent days.

You mean the black Jamaican or African immigrants?

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by Sarah89

I'm really ashamed at the behavior of black Canadians. Just because something is going on in the U.S they TOO have to pretend it's happening here. Black people in Canada encounter less racism than other groups. We know how Muslims are treated here sometimes. Even Asians have gotten huge levels of discrimination with Covid-19 lately - and some of them (here, in this country) have been beaten up.

I never hear anyone speaking negatively about black people in Ontario.

I'm sure the Black Canadians who were living in Halifax's Africville would strongly disagree with your sentiments.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Sarah89

I'm really ashamed at the behavior of black Canadians. Just because something is going on in the U.S they TOO have to pretend it's happening here. Black people in Canada encounter less racism than other groups. We know how Muslims are treated here sometimes. Even Asians have gotten huge levels of discrimination with Covid-19 lately - and some of them (here, in this country) have been beaten up.

I never hear anyone speaking negatively about black people in Ontario.

That doesn't seem to match the OP's experience at all...

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Sarah89

You mean the black Jamaican or African immigrants?

You tell me, this was your post about "black Canadians".

[someone123]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

You tell me, this was your post about "black Canadians".

The bottom line is that regardless of the cultural norms as far as racism being more or less prevalent or the protests, it is wrong to single out a group of people by skin colour and then judge them collectively.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by someone123

The bottom line is that regardless of the cultural norms as far as racism being more or less prevalent or the protests, it is wrong to single out a group of people by skin colour and then judge them collectively.

I certainly hope we can agree on this!

[lio45]

It's been interesting to observe that some immigrants of color on this forum (I can name a few) have been quite unsympathetic to the issues raised by African-Americans, displaying a general "we're colored too but don't wallow in self-pity and wait on reparation handouts, we get to work and build our futures" attitude.

I wonder if the blacks I'm most intimate with (successful and hardworking businessmen who immigrated to Quebec not that long ago) would think like that too. I would guess so... I've never asked nor even discussed anything close to it.

And it's natural too - I'm the same: I feel WAY less sympathy for a Québécois Bougon / lazy parasitic welfare abuser despite them being my fellow man culturally than I would for a brand new immigrant who's totally foreign to me in culture and habits and looks but who's smart and shares my work ethic. "This person looks like me and talks like me and grew up in the same place as me" is not much of a factor for me when it comes to judging someone, it is dwarfed by other more important things.

I'll also point out that the more I hear that blacks should only patronize black businesses, be taught black stuff at black schools, etc. the more it would subconsciously push me to do the equivalent. Very counter-productive, IMO.

[ssiguy]

There is another problem with racial profiling that is very much self-inflicted by racial minorities themselves..........colourism.

Racial minorities have a long history of putting a price tag on the the tone of their own skin. The lighter your skin, the more accepted you are and this is entrenched in their own value systems. Anyone who thinks otherwise should go to Latin America, India, Africa or African Americans cities and see for themselves how darker skinned people {especially women} are treated by their own racial/ethnic groups. In fact this is vastly more prevalent in racial minorities than it is with Caucasians who often view darker skin tones as somewhat exotic like how European men get hot and bothered over Spanish and Italian women.

How can these racial groups scream racism when their own societies/communities openly discriminate against their own people due to the colour of their skin?

[someone123]

Originally Posted by lio45

It's been interesting to observe that some immigrants of color on this forum (I can name a few) have been quite unsympathetic to the issues raised by African-Americans, displaying a general "we're colored too but don't wallow in self-pity and wait on reparation handouts, we get to work and build our futures" attitude.

I wonder if the blacks I'm most intimate with (successful and hardworking businessmen who immigrated to Quebec not that long ago) would think like that too. I would guess so...

And it's natural too - I feel WAY less sympathy for a Québécois Bougon / lazy parasitic welfare abuser despite them being my fellow man culturally than I would for a brand new immigrant who's totally foreign to me in culture and habits and looks but who's smart and shares my work ethic.

I think this is a real effect. I don't believe there truly is a unified "people of colour" lobby group. I don't think immigrants are generally aligned with BLM-style activists or First Nations. This spells trouble for First Nations issues in the long run.

One of the ironies is that a stereotyping "old stock" white Canadian may be more receptive to claims based on historical wrongs than somebody who immigrated to Canada 5 years ago.

However I don't think it's accurate or helpful to view groups like those living in reserves, in public housing, or in isolated predominantly black towns or villages as bums. I think there are legitimate social welfare problems that likely do require government involvement to solve. And it is not fair or sensible to compare the outcomes of immigrants selected by a points system to minority communities in Canada.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by someone123

I think this is a real effect. I don't believe there truly is a unified "people of colour" lobby group. I don't think immigrants are generally aligned with BLM-style activists or First Nations. This spells trouble for First Nations issues in the long run.

One of the ironies is that a stereotyping "old stock" white Canadian may be more receptive to claims based on historical wrongs than somebody who immigrated to Canada 5 years ago.

However I don't think it's accurate or helpful to view groups like those living in reserves, in public housing, or in isolated predominantly black towns or villages as bums. I think there are legitimate social welfare problems that likely do require government involvement to solve.

FNs would be a separate line of discussion but on that, I do have clearly-defined ideas on how to terminate our apartheid (which I outlined already on this forum previously).

I don't mind that much the fact that a remote area with no jobs will be a financial drain (we shouldn't incentivize it too much, obviously, but I wouldn't go as far as forcing deportations). I would like a situation where "a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian" and a remote Newfoundland outport with no jobs and 500 (white!) people is treated the same as a remote Canadian Shield boreal forest FN reserve with no jobs and 500 people. (And in any case, we should still be encouraging these people to eventually relocate to where the jobs and economy are, and hopefully achieve that eventually.)

I already elaborated on how some of these special rights, instead of being ethnicity/ancestry based as they are right now, could be based on remoteness of current living, in a way that would make them accessible to anyone. You'd have special hunting rights not because you have the right ethnicity, but because you live in the middle of nowhere in the Canadian Shield, regardless of your genetics. In practice, it wouldn't change too many things, but it would at least get us out of the 19th century.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by lio45

I would like a situation where "a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian" and a remote Newfoundland outport with no jobs and 500 (white!) people is treated the same as a remote Canadian Shield boreal forest FN reserve with no jobs and 500 people.

One problem we have is we tend to track outcome by place, not by individual.

For example somebody brought up Lincolnville NS, an isolated village that looks like it has about 15 houses. I would guess its population is well below its peak (the county it's in, Guysborough, had 16,555 people in 1871 and 7,625 in 2016).

If a person moves from Lincolnville to Halifax or Toronto or New York, the improvement to their standard of living isn't really tracked. All we do is look at the people who are left behind. It is most likely that the typical descendant of Lincolnville NS has a much higher standard of living than what statistics of the area suggest, with migration being a big part of their economic opportunity.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

It's been interesting to observe that some immigrants of color on this forum (I can name a few) have been quite unsympathetic to the issues raised by African-Americans, displaying a general "we're colored too but don't wallow in self-pity and wait on reparation handouts, we get to work and build our futures" attitude.

I wonder if the blacks I'm most intimate with (successful and hardworking businessmen who immigrated to Quebec not that long ago) would think like that too. I would guess so... I've never asked nor even discussed anything close to it.

.

I think if you could measure it there would probably be a fairly significant difference between these immigrants and their kids.

Militancy beyond organzing within their community to help each other out seems fairly rare among people who were born and raised abroad and came here as adults by choice.

Without things being perfect my experience is that these people are generally quite content with their new country.

Their children (who were born or at least grew up here) tend to be a feistier, more demanding ("revendicateur" in French) and less willing to let stuff slide.

It's not all of the kids who are like that, but when compared to the people who actually immigrated, there is definitely an uptick in militancy on stuff like BLM.

If you look at the BLM protests in Canadian cities, the people who are part of minorities who speak on camera almost all have Canadian accents.

Of course, all of this is normal. For most of them this is the only home they've ever known... so they're going to react when (some) people make them feel like they're not at home simply based on how they look.

[saffronleaf]

I'm more concerned about the broader trends socially and politically.

The small picture is addressing systemic racism, which I don't think actually exists in any material sense in Canada or the US, but many would disagree.

The big picture is how this feels like some cultural revolution. The cyber mob lynchings on social media for even the slightest dissent. Professors being fired. People being forced to recite the mantras fed to them. The justifying of rioting, looting.

The bizarre rituals, like the white people washing black people's feet and groveling for forgiveness.

It's scary and cult like.

[Sarah89]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

I'm more concerned about the broader trends socially and politically.

The small picture is addressing systemic racism, which I don't think actually exists in any material sense in Canada or the US, but many would disagree.

The big picture is how this feels like some cultural revolution. The cyber mob lynchings on social media for even the slightest dissent. Professors being fired. People being forced to recite the mantras fed to them. The justifying of rioting, looting.

The bizarre rituals, like the white people washing black people's feet and groveling for forgiveness.

It's scary and cult like.

Canada never had slavery or Ronald Reagan so....

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Sarah89

Canada never had slavery or Ronald Reagan so....

Actually slavery existed in Nova Scotia up until the time of it's abolition in the British Empire in 1833. There weren't a lot of slaves, and I'm sure they were outnumbered by free blacks, but it did exist.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Actually slavery existed in Nova Scotia up until the time of it's abolition in the British Empire in 1833. There weren't a lot of slaves, and I'm sure they were outnumbered by free blacks, but it did exist.

Wikipedia summarizes the history well:

Led by Richard John Uniacke, in 1787, 1789 and again on January 11, 1808, the Nova Scotian legislature refused to legalize slavery.[70][71] Similar to the judiciary in Massachusetts, two chief justices, Thomas Andrew Lumisden Strange (1790–1796) and Sampson Salter Blowers (1797–1832) waged "judicial war" in their efforts to free slaves from their owners in Nova Scotia.[72][73][74] They were held in high regard in the colony. Justice Alexander Croke (1801–1815) also impounded American slave ships during this time period (the most famous being the Liverpool Packet). During the war, Nova Scotian Sir William Winniett served as a crew on board HMS Tonnant in the effort to free slaves from America. (As the Governor of the Gold Coast, Winniett would later also work to end the slave trade in Western Africa.) By the end of the War of 1812 and the arrival of the Black Refugees, there were few slaves left in Nova Scotia.[63][75] (The Slave Trade Act outlawed the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807 and the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 outlawed slavery all together.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Nova...%20total%20Black%20Canadian%20population.

It was in no way unique to Nova Scotia. Any part of North America that developed sufficiently early on had some amount of slavery. The old French settlements had slavery too. However, we are talking about a phenomenon that was in serious decline 200 years ago.

[Dr Awesomesauce]

Originally Posted by Sarah89

Canada never had slavery or Ronald Reagan so....

Was old Ronnie a slave trader or a closet member of the KKK? I can't remember which...

[Architype]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

What is this behaviour of which you speak?

The small but real black community in Vancouver has some grievances with how their community was bulldozed for a freeway. They have been protesting peacefully here in recent days.

The referenced community was not entirely black, and was bulldozed for construction of a freeway/viaduct (the 20th century freeway mania phase), like such communities elsewhere for similar reasons, not because it was black. This was an alley of only two or three blocks. There is not much in the history of BC for African Canadians to protest about specifically. The protests here are more in support of the real problems elsewhere.

[Sarah89]

Originally Posted by Dr Awesomesauce

Was old Ronnie a slave trader or a closet member of the KKK? I can't remember which...

He scapegoated blacks as welfare queen's and tried to destroy them with crack, AIDS and mass incarceration.