Racism, Living In The Shadows of Canada - By Farhan Ishraq

Racism, Living In The Shadows of Canada

by Farhan Ishraq | For Walling's BlogSpot | Posted January 17th, 2020 | 10:35 am

A metaphor for how society values a certain group of people more than others based on the colour of their skin. Picture from Pixelfuel

It is in our human nature to desire superiority. When the human superiority complex is regarding the various types of “races”, it becomes quite problematic; such a superiority complex is defined as racism and has existed throughout the course of history. Canada’s past is filled with various acts of racism against the First Nations of this land. In the past, racism in Canada was for the most part towards the First Nations people. Now that Canada is saturated with people from all over the world, racism looks much different but it still persists. Racism affects everyone including the victims and victimizers. It is a problem that restricts society from being the best it can be. Hence, we must do what we can to prevent racism to whatever extent we can. In the past, the Indigenous population of Canada has faced tremendous racism and they still do. When talking about the racism Indigenous people face, the Colten Boushie case crosses my mind. On August 9 of 2016, a 22-year old indigenous man of the Cree Red Pheasant First Nation, Colten Boushie was fatally shot on a rural Saskatchewan farm by Gerald Stanley, a non-Indigenous farmer. Stanley shooting Boushie while being fully aware that he has the power and is at an advantage is what I find questionable. Moreover, there was a lack of Indigenous jury, as Jagmeet Singh told Global News Canada, “Lack of Indigenous jurors reduces confidence in courts.” Not having any representatives for Colten Boushie only paved the way for Stanley ultimately being pleaded not guilty while he should have been charged with manslaughter. This is just one example of the racism that Indigenous people face, racism from Canada’s (in)justice system. Though I think Indigenous people face racism to more of an extent than other groups of people of colour, I still think people of colour and/or ethnic groups of people, and/or visible minorities experience a lot of racism. According to a statistics report by Statistics Canada, in 2014, “one in five (20%) of those who self-identified as a member of a visible minority group reported experiencing some form of discrimination in the preceding five years… more than three in five (63%) believed that they were discriminated against because of their race or skin colour.” The report states that these “visible minority populations reported relatively low rates of violent victimization compared with their Canadian-born and non-visible minority counterparts” but the problem is that they faced discrimination on the basis of their skin colour, ethnicity and/or race (i.e. racism). The report also makes it clear that the percentage of immigrants and visible minority group reporting experiencing discrimination has declined slightly from 2004, a drop from 19% to 17% for immigrants and from 28% to 20%. The difference is almost insignificant. While I do not believe that we will ever be able to completely eradicate racism, we should be able to reduce its extent. Discrimination is never good, especially when it’s regarding one’s race. Racism is from a place of hatred, which creates more hatred. We already have many problems in our society and racism is a big one; so, if we are able to properly tackle this issue, it would feel like a huge weight being taken off of society. To reduce racism, we must first educate ourselves. We can do our own research about a certain group of people rather than relying on what the media tells us. We can do research about the racism people face. We can talk to certain groups of people to know more about them personally. With the knowledge gained, we can first teach each other and others about racism, stereotypes, tell them why it is wrong, give them information about groups of people they have racist assumptions about etc. These could reduce the amount of individual racism, which could further reduce systemic racism. However, I don’t believe that is enough to tackle systemic racism. To tackle it, we need to raise our voices against the established institutions.

Work Cited

Connolly, Amanda. “Colten Boushie Verdict: Lack of Indigenous Jurors Reduces Confidence in Courts, Jagmeet Singh Says.” Global News, Global News, 13 Feb. 2018, globalnews.ca/news/4022673/colten-boushie-gerald-stanley-jagmeet-singh/.

“Death of Colten Boushie.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 7 Nov. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Colten_Boushie.

“Forms of Racism.” Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre, www.aclrc.com/forms-of-racism.

Statistics Canada. “Experiences of Violent Victimization and Discrimination Reported by Minority Populations in Canada, 2014.” The Daily - , 12 Apr. 2018, www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/180412/dq180412d-eng.htm.