The not so Great Racism in Canada Thread

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I think overt racism often correlates with economic decline or poverty. I grew up in SW Ontario (the .com part, not the rust belt part), overt racism was pretty rare. “Jokes” or negative comments were most often directed at South Asians or Poles, and maybe anti-Muslim views after 9/11. I don’t think indigenous racism was ever a thing.

Thunder Bay isn’t necessarily poor or economically declining. The poverty rate is 21.5% compared to the provincial average of 18.4, which is not bad given its location and issues. It does have a comparatively large Indigenous population though of around 10% of the total population. If your city doesn’t have comparable demographics then your situation is different. Other places in Canada get to comfortably ignore a lot of these issues and then can pretend that they are not at all racist. Thunder Bay and similar cities are really at the front lines when it comes to dealing with our colonial past. And it is indeed complicated, difficult, and at times ugly.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

If there's anybody truly hard done by in Canada, it's First Nations. I've never truly been shocked by racism in Canada, but by some of stereotypes related to me about aboriginals out West.

The environment in the West is pretty different from what I've seen in the eastern part of the country.

I didn't know this until I checked but BC and NS have about the same % of FNs. However, BC has some much more remote FN communities (not geographically possible in NS) and they have on average had much less contact with Europeans (recent relatives may not have spoken English for example). In NS, many of the reserves look like subdivisions and suburban retail pods and if you grow up on reserve the job and education options near where you live are comparable to people off reserve. Vancouver by comparison draws from a vast hinterland of remote rural towns and reserves. It is very expensive and a hard city to get established in if you don't have local support or family that can send you money. This is a recipe for creating an urban underclass like what exists in the DTES.

I think Winnipeg and Edmonton are similar although they are at least much more affordable.

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by lio45

They're the only Officially Separate group, in terms of status. So... not that surprising, actually.

Imagine a fictional land of green, blue, orange and purple people. The green, orange and blue ones pay taxes, the purple ones get free money for being purple. This state of affairs is enshrined in their Constitution or something.

Without knowing anything else about that fictional place, I can already forecast that green, orange and blue people will dislike / think less of purple people.

This analogy completely ignores the legal and historic realities of Crown-First Nations relations in Canada (treaties, etc) and so is rather useless.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

This analogy completely ignores the legal and historic realities of Crown-First Nations relations in Canada (treaties, etc) and so is rather useless.

It’s some weird, jealous grievance held against people who have suffered exponentially compared to any “special status” they hold now.

It is entirely centred around his point of view, as if the experience of the other doesn’t exist.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

This analogy completely ignores the legal and historic realities of Crown-First Nations relations in Canada (treaties, etc) and so is rather useless.

It's not useless, if we aren't even allowed to discuss the absurdity of the Indian act, something that is undeniable systemic racism, then how can we ever expect to move to the future we all want where that act doesn't exist? This conversation always gets shut down due to being apparently so tough a problem that it's not even worth discussing the end point. And the status quo of the most racist of laws continues forever. Imagine if Canada had no such laws and America still had a "Black Slave act" guaranteeing them a pittance in exchange for their entrenched pitiful status - how smug and disdainful of the Americans we would be.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by milomilo

It's not useless, if we aren't even allowed to discuss the absurdity of the Indian act, something that is undeniable systemic racism, then how can we ever expect to move to the future we all want where that act doesn't exist? This conversation always gets shut down due to being apparently so tough a problem that it's not even worth discussing the end point. And the status quo of the most racist of laws continues forever. Imagine if Canada had no such laws and America still had a "Black Slave act" guaranteeing them a pittance in exchange for their entrenched pitiful status - how smug and disdainful of the Americans we would be.

Growing up, this was the most popular issue that otherwise overtly racist people wanted to discuss with regard to Indigenous people. What does that say?

Their other favourite topics: why are they all drunks? why can’t they get their 🞵🞵🞵🞵 together? why can’t they just get over it?

A white teenager grows up in this environment, thinking that Indigenous people are worthless, so he throws a trailer hitch at an Indigenous woman, out the window of a passing car. She dies. In 2017.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

Growing up, this was the most popular issue that otherwise overtly racist people wanted to discuss with regard to Indigenous people. What does that say?

Their other favourite topics: why are they all drunks? why can’t they get their 🞵🞵🞵🞵 together? why can’t they just get over it?

A white teenager grows up in this environment, thinking that Indigenous people are worthless, so he throws a trailer hitch at an Indigenous woman, out the window of a passing car. She dies. In 2017.

And this is the type of comment that is useless and is doing exactly what always happens - shutting down any hope of actually discussing, and potentially solving the most egregious example of systemic racism, probably in any first world country. When examples of true systemic racism are asked to be cited, it is hard to actually point to anything concrete. But here in Canada it is quite literally written into law, and yet it's abolition is not allowed to be contemplated.

Now, I'm off to throw a trailer hitch at someone, being the racist 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 that I am.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by milomilo

And this is the type of comment that is useless and is doing exactly what always happens - shutting down any hope of actually discussing, and potentially solving the most egregious example of systemic racism, probably in any first world country. When examples of true systemic racism are asked to be cited, it is hard to actually point to anything concrete. But here in Canada it is quite literally written into law, and yet it's abolition is not allowed to be contemplated.

Now, I'm off to throw a trailer hitch at someone, being the racist 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 that I am.

Treaty rights are only a problem for those who don’t care about the real issues facing Indigenous people. All they perceive is how unfair this apparently is to them, drawing the focus back to themselves as the real victims of course.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

Treaty rights are only a problem for those who don’t care about the real issues facing Indigenous people. All they perceive is how unfair this apparently is to them, drawing the focus back to themselves as the real victims of course.

Well, that's not what I think, and while lio can speak for himself I'd be quite sure he's not overly concerned about the few bucks out of his tax payment it costs either.

But I do care about other Canadian citizens doing well. For moral reasons, but also if nothing else it makes economic sense to not have a section of the population in enforced poverty - that's underutilised production. However since the subject is poisoned and shut down every time it comes up, the status quo will likely continue either until the conversation matures or the indigenous population is so diluted that the one drop (or at least, 1/8) rule becomes meaningless.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Well, that's not what I think, and while lio can speak for himself I'd be quite sure he's not overly concerned about the few bucks out of his tax payment it costs either.

Exactly.

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

It’s some weird, jealous grievance ...

So if you learned in the 1980s that I, a Canadian citizen with zero ties to South Africa, was supporting the idea of seeing apartheid ended there, your reaction would have been "wait a minute, this makes no sense, I can't see what's in it for lio45 financially...?!?"

That's frankly weird. You never even thought that maybe the answer could be so simple as "because it's so obviously the right thing to do"?

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

This analogy completely ignores the legal and historic realities of Crown-First Nations relations in Canada (treaties, etc) ...

And that's exactly the point: as mentioned, without knowing anything else about that fictional place, just from the very basic parameters given, you can already forecast that there will be dislike / resentment of the Special People (purple) from the Regular People (green, orange and blue).

It's pretty much automatic, any time you officially have more than one class of citizen with different sets of rights and privileges and obligations in any society.

(The way to fix this is to make everyone be equal.)

In the analogy, you'll note that we don't need to know the history of the fictional land in question; it's irrelevant. Maybe the ancestors of the purple people got screwed big time in the past. Maybe they were enslaved and are now getting perpetual reparations. Or maybe it's the diametrical opposite and they're the old blue blood aristocrat ruling class, sitting on their fat asses while the other colors, who work for a living, have to pay them a tithe just because they exist. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that they have Officially Different Ethnicity-Based Status, with different financial privileges and sets of rights and liberties attached, and that pretty much guarantees racism.

Sooner or later, you'll see a green, orange or blue person throw a trailer hitch at a purple person in that fictional land. Count on it.

[wg_flamip]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Just using the contemporary definition of racism, which is prejudice or discrimination against an identifiable group. I am fully aware that most francophone and anglophone Canadians could be considered to be of the same race, ie (northern) European.

Though African-Americans, POC, BIPOC, etc. are all diverse groups as well.

As long as we're discussing treating people differently as a group due to unchangeable characteristics unrelated to the integrity of their character as individuals (thank you MLK), then it fits in to this discussion.

I've never heard that definition of racism before, and I doubt anyone has ever forwarded such a definition earnestly. Women, for example, are definitely an identifiable group that definitely experiences discrimination. They don't under any serious definition qualify as a race, and discrimination against them is not racism. That doesn't mean that that discrimination isn't serious, that it shouldn't be taken seriously or that it doesn't belong in a wider discussion of discrimination and systemic oppression(s).

You're right in that the groups you listed are diverse in their own right. You will note, however, that the data we use to gauge racism as it affects those groups is collected using definitions pertaining explicitly to race as is understood on common social and legal bases. As far as I am aware, there is little to no data regarding divergent outcomes between ("charter") language community groups that are specifically collected by any institution of note in this country within the framework of race as it's commonly understood to exist both socially and legally in either language. I'm doubtful that any definitions used to describe the linguistic divide in this country as it exists today through the lens of race and racism could achieve enough buy-in from the various stakeholders to allow for an honest and fruitful conversation based on commonly understood frames of reference—just as it would be impossible to do so regarding gender, 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 orientation, ability, &c.

I suppose my original comment wasn't as well thought out as it could've been. My intended point was: Given that both language communities are racially diverse in their own right, a conversation about race and racism that focuses on divergence between those communities obscures (purposefully or not) how race and racism plays out within those communities, which is really the level at which race and racism is experienced and perpetuated on the day-to-day.

At the end of the day, how our society understands race and language are fundamentally different. Race is assigned to the individual at birth by a society that considers it to be innate and unchangeable, and how we collect data about it reflects that. Language, even "first language", is considered acquired and to a degree changeable: hence, "first language spoken and still understood". Both worthy topics; different conversations.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

And that's exactly the point: as mentioned, without knowing anything else about that fictional place, just from the very basic parameters given, you can already forecast that there will be dislike / resentment of the Special People (purple) from the Regular People (green, orange and blue).

It's pretty much automatic, any time you officially have more than one class of citizen with different sets of rights and privileges and obligations in any society.

(The way to fix this is to make everyone be equal.)

In the analogy, you'll note that we don't need to know the history of the fictional land in question; it's irrelevant. Maybe the ancestors of the purple people got screwed big time in the past. Maybe they were enslaved and are now getting perpetual reparations. Or maybe it's the diametrical opposite and they're the old blue blood aristocrat ruling class, sitting on their fat asses while the other colors, who work for a living, have to pay them a tithe just because they exist. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that they have Officially Different Ethnicity-Based Status, with different financial privileges and sets of rights and liberties attached, and that pretty much guarantees racism.

Sooner or later, you'll see a green, orange or blue person throw a trailer hitch at a purple person in that fictional land. Count on it.

Human nature being what it is, Joe Schmo isn't going to take a course on why purple people are treated differently, and even if he does because it's mandatory in school, won't necessarily retain the exact information all his life.

It's especially confusing if Joe Schmo is also fed messaging all his life about how all colours are the same and equal. And then you throw an "except, but..." into the mix.

BTW, personally I am not necessarily against reparation-style arrangements for indigenous peoples.

But I do understand criticisms of them - both from people who are indigenous and those who aren't.

And BTW2, to address what some others have said, the incidence of all of that on my personal tax bill is miniscule, so I don't really care about that.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by wg_flamip

I've never heard that definition of racism before, and I doubt anyone has ever forwarded such a definition earnestly. Women, for example, are definitely an identifiable group that definitely experiences discrimination. They don't under any serious definition qualify as a race, and discrimination against them is not racism. That doesn't mean that that discrimination isn't serious, that it shouldn't be taken seriously or that it doesn't belong in a wider discussion of discrimination and systemic oppression(s).

You're right in that the groups you listed are diverse in their own right. You will note, however, that the data we use to gauge racism as it affects those groups is collected using definitions pertaining explicitly to race as is understood on common social and legal bases. As far as I am aware, there is little to no data regarding divergent outcomes between ("charter") language community groups that are specifically collected by any institution of note in this country within the framework of race as it's commonly understood to exist both socially and legally in either language. I'm doubtful that any definitions used to describe the linguistic divide in this country as it exists today through the lens of race and racism could achieve enough buy-in from the various stakeholders to allow for an honest and fruitful conversation based on commonly understood frames of reference—just as it would be impossible to do so regarding gender, 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 orientation, ability, &c.

I suppose my original comment wasn't as well thought out as it could've been. My intended point was: Given that both language communities are racially diverse in their own right, a conversation about race and racism that focuses on divergence between those communities obscures (purposefully or not) how race and racism plays out within those communities, which is really the level at which race and racism is experienced and perpetuated on the day-to-day.

At the end of the day, how our society understands race and language are fundamentally different. Race is assigned to the individual at birth by a society that considers it to be innate and unchangeable, and how we collect data about it reflects that. Language, even "first language", is considered acquired and to a degree changeable: hence, "first language spoken and still understood". Both worthy topics; different conversations.

Just trying to be a man of my time.

You should know, though, that all my life Quebec has been called "racist" for Bill 101 and its treatment of anglophones (language-specific matters) and now for Bill 21 (religion-specific matters). Whereas most francophones and anglophones in Quebec are as I said white of European stock, and religion has nothing to do with race or skin colour.

So it does sound a bit like now that we have brought up the matter of discrimination or prejudices against francophones (historical or present-day), the definition of "racism" in our discussions all of a sudden gets narrowed.

As I often say on here: I don't really care either way.

I just wanna know what it's gonna be.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Joined the military, showed up in Quebec and heard more ethnic slurs on Basic Training (against every ethnicity) that Summer than I had my entire teen years combined. Also got refused service in St. Jean for my poor French. Never understood why Quebecers think everyone has it out for them. Most of Canada doesn't really think about them.
.

I am losing track here. Are anecdotal examples OK or not?

Or only OK if they paint certain groups in a bad light?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

I propose a thought experiment. Imagine you are a white heterosexual male in a diverse group of university-educated Canadian friends. You must pick one group to make fun of while minimizing the blowback you receive. You must pick from these groups: black people, trans people, indigenous people, women, gay people, Muslims, Francophones.

Even worse let's imagine you have to Tweet an insult. There's no contest.

Another experiment I propose is to go to any English-language media site of your choosing and look at stories about Quebec, then compare how many of them sympathetically mention the preservation of Quebec culture to how many rant about language laws or the hijab thing. Honestly just try finding any positive or sympathetic coverage of Quebec.

My point with this isn't that Francophones in Canada in 2020 are hard done by, it's that when we are reduced to talking about feelings or subjective experience we are a slave to our biases, and we have a whole bunch of them in Canada. This tends to pair up poorly with flimsy arguments about differences in outcomes:

Different outcome + sympathy => problem
Different outcome - sympathy => who cares

We need to get away from this kind of thinking if we want to achieve universal fairness.

Historical grievances, particularly as judged by subjective emotional impact today, are a similar dead end. Actually they're worse than a dead end in that they encourage the creation of the worst possible narratives and a victim mentality. Often the victim mentality is not even a good thing for the victim. If we did universally privilege subjective historic grievances in Canada, Francophones would get a blank cheque as a historically oppressed minority group (with Acadians being an even-more-oppressed subgroup).

Francophones have (more or less) "made it".

This comes with both good and bad sides when it comes to the attitudes of non-francophones towards them.

On the one hand, there is a large segment of the population in Canada that simply views francophones as normal people who are "equal" to them. No better or no worse than anyone else. No less competent or valued simply because they are francophone.

On the other hand, there are those who have always harboured prejudices against francophones and think that by being "equal" and acting that way, the Frenchies are playing way above their weight class. They also think the odds have unfairly been tipped in francophones' favour. The fact that francophones have "made it" gives these people a bit more freedom to lay it on thick, sometimes even in polite circles as you say.

You see something analogous going on with Jews (notably in the U.S.) these days, BTW.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

Cool. I like how you proactively defend yourself from the response I was never going to write.

You don’t understand my circles, actually. Your general responses to my point of view clearly indicate that.

You’re saying you weren’t offended so it doesn’t sound like racism or prejudice to me. Your genuine, emotional response as the “target” is the primary barometer. And so now you can treat other groups the same way, right? Take their accounts for what they are without needing to overwrite them with your own? You’re capable of that?

But it doesn't work that way in the 2020 manner of debating things - which you so ardently defend.

I know people who are black who claim they experience little to no racism against them in Gatineau. I can find quite a few of them in the next hour if you wish. But that doesn't cancel out the existence of racism here in Gatineau, in Quebec or in Canada.

In fact, in the 2020 manner of debating things, you (in the case of Lio's comments) or I (in the case of my black friends) relativising the existence of racism based on those anecdotes is morally wrong on an extremely serious level.

Just like when other posters say they never heard prejudiced comments about Quebecers, indigenous people, or Group X Y or Z when they grew up in Places A B or C in Canada.

That's all very nice, but this is 2020. We don't care. Stay focused and don't detract from the issue!

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by Acajack

But it doesn't work that way in the 2020 manner of debating things - which you so ardently defend.

I know people who are black who claim they experience little to no racism against them in Gatineau. I can find quite a few of them in the next hour if you wish. But that doesn't cancel out the existence of racism here in Gatineau, in Quebec or in Canada.

In fact, in the 2020 manner of debating things, you (in the case of Lio's comments) or I (in the case of my black friends) relativising the existence of racism based on those anecdotes is morally wrong on an extremely serious level.

Just like when other posters say they never heard prejudiced comments about Quebecers, indigenous people, or Group X Y or Z when they grew up in Places A B or C in Canada.

That's all very nice, but this is 2020. We don't care. Stay focused and don't detract from the issue!

He was not offended and you are comparing it to issues and situations where people are genuinely offended.

This is the trap of conversations with you and Lio, you think that your hypothetical twists are somehow analogous with sincere feelings and lived realities. This is only possible because you have an emotional distance. If you actually cared, the difference would be obvious. But you don't so it's really a waste of time, a pointless "debate".

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

He was not offended and you are comparing it to issues and situations where people are genuinely offended.

This is the trap of conversations with you and Lio, you think that your hypothetical twists are somehow analogous with sincere feelings and lived realities. This is only possible because you have an emotional distance. If you actually cared, the difference would be obvious. But you don't so it's really a waste of time, a pointless "debate".

But the thing is that there *are* francophones who are offended by these things.

Just because Lio doesn't care doesn't mean they don't. Or that their feelings are less valid than his.

Applying your own logic (yet again), this isn't about Lio not caring or Jos-Louis Latrémouille caring a whole lot. It's about people saying inappropriate and insensitive things to Québécois people in their midst - when they shouldn't. People's reactions aren't the determining factor on whether something is acceptable or not. (Especially not when some people may have internalized an inferiority complex due to multi-generational mistreatment. Again, this is taken almost chapter and verse from the playbook of people who think like you do.)

Think of Lio as a Québécois Candace Owens and it all becomes perfectly clear.

[savevp]

Trying to highlight anti-Francophone racism in the current climate is a sisyphean task. No matter how much you employ logic or reason, your views will never hold water in woke circles for the simple reason that French Canada has a white, European background. It therefore occupies an immutable spot on the 'wrong' side. It's the same reason Jews are frequently targeted by progressive politicians. The white group will always be considered the racist oppressors

Modern progressive identity politics file groups into either the victim or oppressor category solely based on skin colour. There is no changing sides and no room for nuance. White people, according to progressive logic, are invariably racist and cannot leave that category. At best they can be woke allies but must always wear the shameful dogtag of being irredeemable racists.

Perhaps once the true aim of many (not all) of woke progressives is reached, namely anarcho-marxism, white people will stop being treated as universally racist by groups like BLM.