The not so Great Racism in Canada Thread

[dleung]

The last couple pages illustrate a few of the strawman arguments always coming from those pushing to keep the status quo. No one is saying that the government is conspiring to keep minorities down. They did back in the day, not anymore, yet those minorities are still living with inherited disadvantages (poverty, broken families, crappy schools), as well as ongoing discrimination (profiling by a percentage of racist cops/judges/employers etc). Social justice advocates want to do something to offset those disadvantages, but then you get people trying to undermine that effort with "look at the Asians! see? there's no systemic racism", or "minorities discriminate against darker minorities, hence it's all ok and part of the natural order", or some other red herring.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

And yes, I have seen the video where the teacher lines up all his students on a starting line before the "race of life", then asks them a bunch of questions about them, their families and their background, and they either move forward or back based on their answers.

Those were good questions.

I can't resist pointing out that a lot of "white trash" individuals who would be the — of jokes, including on TV, would have taken 0 steps forward in that video.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by dleung

They did back in the day, not anymore, but those minorities are still living with inherited disadvantages. Social justice advocates want to do something to offset those disadvantages, but then you get people trying to hold onto their advantages with "look at the Asians! see? there's no systemic racism", or some other red herring

I completely agree. There are undeniably minorities living with inherited disadvantages.

However I wonder if it is better to focus on the race or on the disadvantage. For example do you create the "rural black person" payment or do you just have a UBI that pays out to anybody who earns under $30,000 a year?

If we have a problem with pointless criminal convictions holding people back, do we follow the CHAZ/CHOP Seattle approach of new trials for POCs or do we just drop the war on drugs and issue pardons to everybody who has an old drug possession conviction?

I think a robust social safety net and good education system makes up for a lot of these problems, and explains some of the differences between Canada and the US. Our public schools tend to be better overall for example.

There may be minority-specific social challenges that require special interventions but I think those require more evidence than only pointing out different outcomes by race which may be caused only by different concentrations of problems that are addressed by consistent policies like UBI.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by someone123

Could it be that this area was more likely to be bulldozed partially because it was a convenient place for a viaduct while also being mostly semi-abandoned industrial land with low property values? Low property values can also explain why a poorer than average minority would tend to live there.

Another part of the Hogan's Alley story that's usually mentioned is that many black residents of Vancouver worked in the railway industry as porters. This site is near Pacific Central Station.

A part I don't usually hear is what happened to the people who lived in Hogan's Alley. Were they tenants or owners (tenants tend to be screwed over much more frequently; the owner gets bought out and the tenant simply has to find a new place to live)? Were they offered public housing or did they just move someplace else? Somewhere else in Vancouver or somewhere else entirely?

Dunno how it all happened, but it's typical for North American cities to blow away the "ghetto" and put a freeway through it.

Regardless of the income status of the residents, that was their home.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogan%27s_Alley,_Vancouver

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Surely you're intelligent and informed enough to know what he meant by "systemic racism".

But of course, you already knew all of this. You just choose to ignore it because it takes away from your bombast.

Bombast?

Here, I'll let Ben and Jerry's explain it for you

https://www.benjerry.com/whats-new/2016/systemic-racism-is-real

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by dleung

The last couple pages illustrate a few of the strawman arguments always coming from those pushing to keep the status quo. No one is saying that the government is conspiring to keep minorities down. They did back in the day, not anymore, yet those minorities are still living with inherited disadvantages (poverty, broken families, crappy schools), as well as ongoing discrimination (profiling by a percentage of racist cops/judges/employers etc). Social justice advocates want to do something to offset those disadvantages, but then you get people trying to undermine that effort with "look at the Asians! see? there's no systemic racism", or "minorities discriminate against darker minorities, hence it's all ok and part of the natural order", or some other red herring.

Well said!

[someone123]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Dunno how it all happened, but it's typical for North American cities to blow away the "ghetto" and put a freeway through it.

Regardless of the income status of the residents, that was their home.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogan%27s_Alley,_Vancouver

Yes but one of my questions was about how many people agreed to sell their home and whether they got a new home or not as part of the deal. You don't seem to know the answer to that one, but it makes a big difference to how bad the situation was.

It seems odd to be outraged by a historical event when you are missing very basic details of how it happened.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by dleung

Slavery was part of the "natural order" some time ago. Do you believe that there needs to be a racial hierarchy?

You can't elide the one with the other. 99.99% of slaves in the past and now have been the same skin colour as their masters.

[dleung]

^^That's a weird way of cropping that quote. Acajack was saying that if a black guy killed your relative it's unrealistic to not to be prejudiced against blacks after that. I was arguing that we do this for white people all the time, so why not with other races? The mention of slavery was only to say that society has evolved for the better and can continue to evolve.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by dleung

...but then you get people trying to undermine that effort with "look at the Asians! see? there's no systemic racism"...

Not all minorities perform the same in the various metrics related to financial status and educational achievement. Clearly that suggests the lack of systemic racism, or perhaps systemic racism against only certain racial/minority groups.

If the former, then the answers are necessarily cultural, and I have yet to hear any reasonable arguments against that. If the latter, then you can't lump all minorities into one big pot and boil up a struggle against "white supremacy" (well, unless you characterize this as the white overlords having deigned to accept only certain minorities into the fold).

The former is plausible. The latter is just idiotic.

Originally Posted by dleung

...or "minorities discriminate against darker minorities, hence it's all ok and part of the natural order", or some other red herring...

The SJW game is set up for white people to lose. "Don't be racist!" we are told. Okay then, I won't let a person's skin colour affect my interaction with him. But then: "Don't say you don't see skin colour or that you're 'post-racist,' that means you're in denial of the inevitability of racism!" Uh, so you're saying it's like original sin then?

Christ, I'm starting to think that religion is just like power when it comes to vacuums. The SJW theology, dogma and identification of heresy are looking strikingly like "meet the new boss, same as the old boss," but in a very pre-Reformation sort of way.

[goodgrowth]

Originally Posted by dleung

The last couple pages illustrate a few of the strawman arguments always coming from those pushing to keep the status quo. No one is saying that the government is conspiring to keep minorities down. They did back in the day, not anymore, yet those minorities are still living with inherited disadvantages (poverty, broken families, crappy schools), as well as ongoing discrimination (profiling by a percentage of racist cops/judges/employers etc). Social justice advocates want to do something to offset those disadvantages, but then you get people trying to undermine that effort with "look at the Asians! see? there's no systemic racism", or "minorities discriminate against darker minorities, hence it's all ok and part of the natural order", or some other red herring.

I think it's because a lot of the solutions proposed to fix/offset "systemic racism" end up much seeming much more racist to a lot of people because it's much more blatant(ie. double standards based on race like diversity quotas, affirmative action).

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by someone123

Yes but one of my questions was about how many people agreed to sell their home and whether they got a new home or not as part of the deal. You don't seem to know the answer to that one, but it makes a big difference to how bad the situation was.

It seems odd to be outraged by a historical event when you are missing very basic details of how it happened.

Because I trust the people who've made this a huge concern? Why is it on me to find out all of this stuff?

Start here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-8lgpvj0Hg

Why you're stuck on how/if they were compensated I'll never know.

[saffronleaf]

Originally Posted by dleung

The last couple pages illustrate a few of the strawman arguments always coming from those pushing to keep the status quo. No one is saying that the government is conspiring to keep minorities down. They did back in the day, not anymore, yet those minorities are still living with inherited disadvantages (poverty, broken families, crappy schools), as well as ongoing discrimination (profiling by a percentage of racist cops/judges/employers etc). Social justice advocates want to do something to offset those disadvantages, but then you get people trying to undermine that effort with "look at the Asians! see? there's no systemic racism", or "minorities discriminate against darker minorities, hence it's all ok and part of the natural order", or some other red herring.

I think we need to do a lot of work to ensure that we have a high "floor" or minimum standard of living. I think programs like UBI can help us get there.

But you can't just look at disparate outcomes between groups and conclude that it is because of discrimination or the inherited disadvantages you note, although the latter does play some role (but could be significantly addressed through race-neutral social programs).

Even within this broad and rather useless classification of race that we use you find incredible diversity within each 'race', in part because our common conception of race doesn't map well to biological population groups. But such groups exist and vary in outcomes, both within other people with the same level of pigmentation and without.

Anyone struggling should be helped, but this whole systemic racism / white man's burden type stuff is obfuscating the deep economic issues that are at the root of many people's struggles.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

Even within this broad and rather useless classification of race that we use you find incredible diversity within each 'race', in part because our common conception of race doesn't map well to biological population groups. But such groups exist and vary in outcomes, both within other people with the same level of pigmentation and without.

Let's say you are 100% devoted to helping out Canada's historical black communities, and you use statistics broken down by race to make your point that they are worse off than most Canadians.

You may run into problems because racial statistics are not broken down by community group. If Canada admits 100,000 wealthy African or Caribbean immigrants using the points system this may shift up the average metric for black people in Canada while not helping the historical black communities at all.

Let's say you do this for First Nations. But there is a push for more people to be given Indian status over time, or simply self-identify. Gradually the FN-specific metrics may appear to converge on the Canadian average even if nothing is changing up in Rankin Inlet. I wonder if this is happening in Canada right now because the % indigenous has gone way up between census periods (sometimes 50% in 5-10 years; it's possible this is due to population growth alone but that seems unlikely to me).

[saffronleaf]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Surely you're intelligent and informed enough to know what he meant by "systemic racism".

But in case you missed it, what he means is that there is nothing built into "systems" in the U.S. that deliberately prevents meritorious students from going to university based on their skin colour or ethnicity. There is nothing "built in" that prevents people from advancing their careers in the military or anywhere else in public service. There is no broad conspiracy to provide minority kids with a crappier education.

If anything, most anything that can be called institutional in the U.S. actually has programs of "positive discrimination" that attempt to give minorities a leg up, to compensate for injustices from the era where such systemic barriers did exist. (Since they still may have repercussions today.)

Sure, minorities still end up getting the short end of the stick far too often. That's because even the best systems are run by faliible humans, some of which are racist, have old reflexes or are simply dumb.

But of course, you already knew all of this. You just choose to ignore it because it takes away from your bombast.

Exactly. If anything, the system is tilted in our favor in part to offset the fact that yes at the individual level there are some racists and given that the majority is White they are likely to hold positions of power like disproportionately being in hiring committees at firms or whatever.

But even the latter (racist individuals who are overtly racist or prejudge you for your race) are rather uncommon (and getting less and less common). In fact there's probably no better place than the US or Canada for a "person of color" (annoying term).

[rousseau]

I mean, look at it this way: Clearly the US is not as racist in 2020 as it was in 1960,* systemic or otherwise. Yet on the whole African-Americans still perform poorly per those Ben and Jerry metrics.

You can talk about white flight, inter-generational poverty and poorly run educational districts, but clearly there's something more at work, and the only answer that makes any sense is cultural. How could it not be that the dystopian black family structure and the utter contempt for educational attainment are the primary causes of black underachievement?

Lots of black leaders recognize this, as have the large segments of the black population who have reached the middle-class (and let's not forget that black Americans on their own would form the world's seventh richest country, or something like that). The biggest problem is how to fix it, of course. Nobody has an answer for that yet. Or maybe the cure is going to take generations.

One thing is abundantly clear to me, though: the SJW prescription of declaring Tourette's-like that the problem is all-racism-all-the-time is definitely not the answer.


*If you can't agree on this then I don't know what kind of discussion can be had about racism.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by dleung

As for "colourism" in ethnic communities, well yeah, white supremacy naturally comes with non-whites wanting to be white. Some will even lower their standards to date a white person. When white supremacy goes by the wayside, so will these gross practices.

That is categorically false and you know it.

Colourism was rampid in many parts of the world well before Europeans arrived and remains completely ingrained in the culture to this day. Somehow racial minorities are offended by people judging them upon their skin colour {which they should be} but then have absolutely no trepidations about doing it to members of their own community.It's always easier to blame others for your problems but looking in the mirror requires a lot more strength because they may not like what they see.

[saffronleaf]

Originally Posted by dleung

...what? You say "enlightened way" like it's some SJW construct being forced down your throat. The only time my family has ever encountered criminal activity was a white guy rummaging through our garage. At no point was his ethnicity ever on my parents' minds, but you bet it would be if he was black or brown. He had the privilege of being seen as an individual rather than a representative of "Group X".

As for "colourism" in ethnic communities, well yeah, white supremacy naturally comes with non-whites wanting to be white. Some will even lower their standards to date a white person. When white supremacy goes by the wayside, so will these gross practices.

Preference for whiteness in many Asian communities, including for example India, far predate colonialism or any notion of "White supremacy" as we understand it today.

These woke studies and postcolonial studies are often the most racist. They give white men all the agency in the world while minorities are just inert material being shaped by their influences.

It's part of this weird Jesus syndrome that these woke people have where they want to bear all the sins of the noble savages they led astray.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by dleung

^^That's a weird way of cropping that quote. Acajack was saying that if a black guy killed your relative it's unrealistic to not to be prejudiced against blacks after that. I was arguing that we do this for white people all the time, so why not with other races? The mention of slavery was only to say that society has evolved for the better and can continue to evolve.

For starters, I never talked about "a black guy" so maybe you'd wanna quote people correctly?

Secondly, my main point was about human nature. And I stand by that. It is what it is.

I'd add that it's not about "us doing this for white people all the time", it's more about people "doing it for their in-group all the time".

You can bet that more than a few African-Americans have a different reaction (at least in their minds) when they get a speeding ticket from a white cop vs. a black cop. The same goes for getting denied for a job or a loan.

And actually the example I had in mind was very personal. At one time in my youth I went out on a few dates with this very WASP anglo girl from Ottawa. Her best friend (also very WASP) had during the previous year had a scary experience when she was alone on a darkened street in downtown Ottawa with a bunch of men that I assume were Québécois. She wasn't physically assaulted but it came close enough that it freaked her out quite a bit. I wasn't really Mr. Francophone at that time and spoke perfect unaccented English but just the fact I had a French name and spoke the language was too much for this friend, who strongly advised this girl to stop dating me for this particular reason.

[saffronleaf]

Originally Posted by rousseau

I mean, look at it this way: Clearly the US is not as racist in 2020 as it was in 1960,* systemic or otherwise. Yet on the whole African-Americans still perform poorly per those Ben and Jerry metrics.

You can talk about white flight, inter-generational poverty and poorly run educational districts, but clearly there's something more at work, and the only answer that makes any sense is cultural. How could it not be that the dystopian black family structure and the utter contempt for educational attainment are the primary causes of black underachievement?

Lots of black leaders recognize this, as have the large segments of the black population who have reached the middle-class (and let's not forget that black Americans on their own would form the world's seventh richest country, or something like that). The biggest problem is how to fix it, of course. Nobody has an answer for that yet. Or maybe the cure is going to take generations.

One thing is abundantly clear to me, though: the SJW prescription of declaring Tourette's-like that the problem is all-racism-all-the-time is definitely not the answer.


*If you can't agree on this then I don't know what kind of discussion can be had about racism.

Exactly.

They make the assumption that any disparate outcome between population groups is attributable to some amorphous difficult-to-pin-down notion of "systemic racism".

Even within these broad racial categories that we've created, you find enormous diversity in outcomes within sub-groups, because the broad categories we use (e.g., Black, White) don't accurately map on to biological population groups.

For example, if you look at the SES of recent immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, you'll find much different (typically better) outcomes. Of course, this is in part due to immigration selection pressures, but I think there's a lot more involved. Recent migrants from Africa remind me much more of for example migrants from India and China, where they place a huge emphasis on education and discipline.

I think there are huge economic issues that prevent social mobility, but that is a race-neutral issue and plenty of poor White people need a way to get up and live a dignified life as well.