Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
From my experiences in Canada (and me being a minority myself) being with a Canadian (ex) and surrounded by Canadians and their media, Racism is totally swept under the rug. Their is a total sense that everything is hunky-dory and everything will be just ok- that is what I always mean with them being so complacent and compliant.
And as witnessed on this forum- how hard issues brought forward are met with denial and smugness. Or saying "Oh it's in Toronto they do that, not Vancouver" Please, the regional differences in mentality is not as divided as is put forth.
The reality is those minorities face more of a glass ceiling than in the US. Less harsh of a reality than those in Australia or the UK- but more barriers than the US. There may be more extremes in the US, but I do believe there is more of a "white elite" in Canada which you mentioned and I wholeheartedly agree with you.
I agree, this is so true. Canada sweeps racial issues under the carpet and denies there are any problems. The denial and acting like everything is "hunky-dory" is the most frustrating part. Canada is run by the "white elite" like you say to a greater extent than the US and minorities seem to hit a glass ceiling and are relatively underrepresented. I agree with your observations.
I think one of the factors at play is that most Canadians aren't particularly knowledgeable about their country's history or even contemporary Canadian issues and society in general, and this includes the topic of race relations.
Which I why you often get people denying the very existence of not-so-nice stuff that happened in the past.
Personally, I tend to agree with people who use the ''numbers'' argument to explain why race relations have generally been a bit more peaceful in Canada. If aboriginals were 15% of Canada's population, things might be different. (They're already not so good in places like MB-SK where the proportion of aboriginals in the overall population is much higher.)
And if Canada is so different one has to wonder why the place with the longest-established black community (Nova Scotia) basically replicated the segregationist settlement patterns of the U.S. - and even those of the U.S. South. Now, it could very well be that the blacks who moved there from the States were used to this and simply followed what they were used to, but who knows?
In any event, they ended up concentrated in one part of the main city (Africville in Halifax - eventually cleared in an urban renewal project) and in rural small villages in the woods some distance from the nearest white towns all over the province.
I have deep family roots in Nova Scotia and can confirm that there are still places today you can stumble upon a long distance from Halifax and where most people are black, and where can go to church on Sundays and find the townspeople enthusiastically singing gospel music just like in similar places in the States. (Sorry if that sounds like a stereotype - I actually find that's pretty awesome.)
Anyway, you think that it is easy being openly gay in the workplace or easy growing up gay even as a white -well it was/isn't... Let me tell you something, I've had a rock thrown at me by a bunch of homophobes and have had to deal with the pink ceiling for much of my adult life but things are changing Edward and let us look at a brighter future and collectively work hard in our personal lives and at work.. The new world of work is an ever more friendly place to anyone who has the grits to make it but if we give up we lose!
Wow I'm sorry you had to go through that. Nobody deserves that.
Wow I'm sorry you had to go through that. Nobody deserves that.
Well this was back in the 90's....Gay rights have come a long long way since that time and society is far more open. Having said that just because we have a better track record now than before doesn't mean we don't have a long way to go as with many issues. Canadian media (as with Canadians in general) aren't as in your face as Americans but I don't agree with the contention that issues are swept under the rug or that Canadians aren't moving to the more tolerant side of the spectrum.
And if Canada is so different one has to wonder why the place with the longest-established black community (Nova Scotia) basically replicated the segregationist settlement patterns of the U.S. - and even those of the U.S. South. Now, it could very well be that the blacks who moved there from the States were used to this and simply followed what they were used to, but who knows?
In any event, they ended up concentrated in one part of the main city (Africville in Halifax - eventually cleared in an urban renewal project) and in rural small villages in the woods some distance from the nearest white towns all over the province.
Nova Scotia was actually much worse with race relations than the nearby New England states that had similar or larger black populations. Nova Scotia more so resembled the South in how it handled the situation - but the big difference is that blacks were only about 3% of the population rather than 30% or 50%. The black population was virtually all descended from black loyalists who sided with the British in the American Revolution. They were the lucky ones, the defeated British abandoned most to slaveowners in the south after using them, but Guy Carleton (the guy who was tolerant and relatively generous towards the Canadiens) made a personal effort to bring them to Nova Scotia and give them land. Most of them then emigrated to Sierra Leone, which was a British colony being established just for freed black slaves. This was different from the US where very few blacks left for the equivalent American African colony (Liberia).
Anways, they weren't really used to it from living in the US because the ancestors of the black Nova Scotian community had never lived in the independent US. In British America they had been slaves and their situation in NS was something new. But the new society that emerged as NS was settled was just as discriminatory as the deep south, with the difference being that the black population was miniscule. It is a curiosity as to why race relations didn't develop more like New England when so many other features of NS resemble that region.
Yep, lets just ignore it then! We've lost the war, lets go back to cleaning our hotel rooms and accept that as the ceiling. Is that what you want to hear?
Now this may be anecdotal, but FWIW I find of anywhere I have lived, my white friends in Canada are more uncomfortable speaking about racial issues than anywhere else. My white American friends love to topic, especially the ones from the South, its fascinating hearing their experiences. My white British friends, especially the ones whom grew up in London, speak so openly and vulgar about it, and its awesome, because its real and honest. Heck just this past weekend I was with my buddy from Peckham (white guy) and his wife whom is black from Norway (Ghanian descent) We spoke so openly on the topic of race and that is why we love him, because he so comfortable speaking about the not so flowery topics that affect people that look different than him.
So maybe I should stop speaking about race on the Canadian forum, because it seems to be a touchy topic for way too many people. Or maybe Canada is a racial utopia and I missed the boat on that and there is nothing left to speak about. Fair enough, let us all move along then.
P.S: Its funny you mentioned Harrisburg, PA, because the mayor is now a Black Woman. I guess all that talking accomplished something eh? I'm surprised she wasn't cleaning your hotel room.
I've picked your post here rather arbitrarily so my comments aren't necessarily in relation to anything you have specifically said in this thread, Edward. First though, I think that wrt race not being talked about much in Canada, I think you are right, but I think that the idea that not talking about race equates to sweeping it under the rug aren't necessarily related. There are a few things, one of them being money, that people consider bad manners here but are not necessarily considered bad manners to talk about elsewhere. So I think there's more to the not talking about race than wanting to sweep it under the rug.
And elsewhere in the country, black people are a fairly rare and new group of people. It is absolutely true that where there are larger minority groups of any race, there are more likely to be racists. And lately, that has been extrapolated to religious minorities. I think someone, somewhere made a comment that Germans and others hadn't faced discrimination and that is also not true. Wartime hysteria took the right to vote away from, among others, Mennonites. Not even going to mention the detention camps.
It is also true that historically (and very, very recently) Canadians of British descent were at the top of the food chain. Take for example the fact that it actually made news when the Winnipeg Police Force got it's first non-Anglo police chief - Jack Ewatski. If a British background wasn't important on some level, it would never have made the news. The very fact that it did says everything about that. And that was in 1998.
Now Toronto is a story unto itself and I don't live there so I don't have many comments to make about that other than I certainly do remember stories of TO police beating on blacks and other systemic racism - or at least, that was my impression of those stories as they were reported at various times on the news. That the TO police are racist.
I do think that Canadians forget that race isn't as big an issue here because we don't have the same history of blacks in the US and because there are fewer of them. Since anecdotes abound in this thread, I'll add a few of my own. I have heard the n word both in the US (New Orleans - loved the city but for some reason when we stopped to ask directions here or there, white people couldn't wait to tell us to avoid all "n" word people.) And I've also heard that word from a Canadian - an ex-pat who has lived more than half his life in Jamaica. And I've heard it from immigrant Germans and Russians.
What I've heard from Canadians on the very rare occasions that the subject of race comes up is against the First Nations. And on those rarest of occasions, you can't shut 'em up. They sure don't seem shy talking about it at all when for some reason the subject of "Indians" comes up. So since they aren't shy talking in a way that has me blushing to the roots, it can't be that they are trying to shove it under a rug. I think race is not at the forefront of the thinking of the white Canadians I know. Which doesn't mean that they are less racist - it's just not there, right at the tip of their vocal cords, waiting to pop out. Which is different from shoving it under the rug.
And lastly, I wouldn't dismiss fusion's experience as a gay person experiencing discrimination as it relates to his comments on racial discrimination. I think anyone who has experienced discrimination because they are outside the mainstream has more of an understanding of what that means then most people.
I also agree with the poster who said that comparing the black Canadian experience and the black American experience is comparing apples and oranges.
And lastly, yet again, everything I need to know about human nature I learned in kindergarten and from chickens. If people don't have anyone to pick on who sticks out because of their skin colour, or their sexuality, or some other obvious difference, they will pick on the person whose socks are a centimetre shorter or longer than the other person. It seems that humans have some sort of sick need to find differences in others to feel superior to. Oh yeah - and with regards to chickens - they do that too. I was raised on a chicken farm. The term 'pecking order' didn't come out of nowhere.
bs is that map. A black guy is above me literally telling you his experiences. This the problem with canada, you guys just dont get racism. You totally miss the mark and dont understand it. Its not about having a map of racist countries or telling yourself you are tolerant. If we dropped most canadians off in louisiana and had them live around a majority black populace their racism would become apparent.
Canadas "advantage" is having a very white populace where minorities are divided into little groups so none of them are big enough to pose a threat to white superiority. Hence there are less racial incidents and things appear to be good. But you guys never really look into how it is for those small minorities of blacks or asians or indians. The guy above you is telling you his experience and i think it is incredibly short-sighted to write his experience off.
I am a white man and i try to actually listen to my black countrymen and how racism affects them. I think this is how racism can be solved. As a white person we are very seperated from the experience of minorities and it is hard for us to see how things actually are for other people. We only see our little bubble. And in canada people dont want to see outside their white bubble. It is more about claiming to be the least racist (as you have done with your map) rather than taking any real action. Canadians claim that there isnt a problem or that the problem has been solved. But there is a problem. Im a white guy and i believe that the key is to let blacks and other minorities talk about their grievances rather than ignoring it because it makes me uncomfortable. We have racism, i admit that and know it is real, and i want to solve it, not write it off because i dont like how it sounds!
BS is that map. A black guy is above me literally telling you his experiences. This the problem with Canada, you guys just dont get racism. You totally miss the mark and dont understand it. Its not about having a map of racist countries or telling yourself you are tolerant. If we dropped most Canadians off in Louisiana and had them live around a majority black populace their racism would become apparent.
Canadas "advantage" is having a very white populace where minorities are divided into little groups so none of them are big enough to pose a threat to white superiority. Hence there are less racial incidents and things appear to be good. But you guys never really look into how it is for those small minorities of blacks or Asians or Indians. The guy above you is telling you his experience and I think it is incredibly short-sighted to write his experience off.
I am a white man and I try to actually listen to my black countrymen and how racism affects them. I think this is how racism can be solved. As a white person we are very seperated from the experience of minorities and it is hard for us to see how things actually are for other people. We only see our little bubble. And in Canada people dont want to see outside their white bubble. It is more about claiming to be the least racist (as you have done with your map) rather than taking any real action. Canadians claim that there isnt a problem or that the problem has been solved. But there is a problem. Im a white guy and I believe that the key is to let blacks and other minorities talk about their grievances rather than ignoring it because it makes me uncomfortable. We have racism, I admit that and know it is real, and I want to solve it, not write it off because I dont like how it sounds!
Best post I've read in a long, long time.
As an American from New England who moved to Canada recently, I'm simply fed up with the casual yet underhanded racism and prejudice that infects this place. I try to see the positive aspects of life here, but in reading these posts (really, a great conversation, though you can tell it's uncomfortable for the white Canadians) it's hard not to question my decision.
As an American from New England who moved to Canada recently, I'm simply fed up with the casual yet underhanded racism and prejudice that infects this place. I try to see the positive aspects of life here, but in reading these posts (really, a great conversation, though you can tell it's uncomfortable for the white Canadians) it's hard not to question my decision.
They'll just dismiss it with a "It's in that part of the country, not in my part of the country"
Although (white) Canadians are a little too hunky-dory when it comes to racial issues- perhaps oblivious of its impact on the minorities- the racism style is not appallingly overt (and random) like this incident below from an Australian piece of trash, also mentioned on the Aus forum. Now I know she doesn't represent Australia but they totally do take racism to a whole 'nother level down there. So all this against Canada is still eclipsed by the realities in other parts of the world.
They'll just dismiss it with a "It's in that part of the country, not in my part of the country"
Although (white) Canadians are a little too hunky-dory when it comes to racial issues- perhaps oblivious of its impact on the minorities- the racism style is not appallingly overt (and random) like this incident below from an Australian piece of trash, also mentioned on the Aus forum. Now I know she doesn't represent Australia but they totally do take racism to a whole 'nother level down there. So all this against Canada is still eclipsed by the realities in other parts of the world.
"Beat the n*igger, pound that n*gger" Is pretty overt if you ask me.
P.S: Netwit, enjoyed reading your post above. Hopefully I will have time soon to respond in a thoughtful manner.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Please, the regional differences in mentality is not as divided as is put forth. 
