First the good news: Canadians as a whole are feeling pretty cheery about being part of a multicultural, diverse country.
Now the bad news: One-third of a survey's respondents say that the country is racist.
Celina Gallardo writes:
In partnership with the University of British Columbia, the Angus Reid Institute conduced an online survey of a representative randomized sample of 1,984 Canadian adults between May 11 to May 17 for a report titled “Diversity and Racism in Canada” looking into people’s perceptions of race to highlight what the population truly thinks of diversity.
Canadians tend to feel pride from living in such a diverse country:
Most respondents from across the country think that diversity is ultimately a good thing — 85 per cent of people agree that Canada is a better country because of how racially diverse its population is.
There is a big caveat to this, however, in that many others experience Canada in a less rosy light.
One-third of respondents think that “Canada is a racist country.” Of these respondents, 42 per cent are visible minorities and 54 per cent are women under the age of 35. Meanwhile, three-quarters of respondents over the age of 55 don’t think Canada is a racist country.
Some respondents, including 54 per cent of Albertans and 57 per cent of Saskatchewanians, say that exaggerating discrimination is a larger problem than not seeing it where it does exist. However, 44 per cent of Saskatchewanians agree that Canada is a racist country.
Then there is this sobering result:
Though the majority of respondents say they feel “warm” towards visible minorities (specifically those who are Black, East Asian, South Asian and/or Muslim), Muslim people received the highest amount of “cold” feelings. A quarter of respondents say they feel “cold” towards Muslims, with 42 per cent of men age 55 and older and 37 per cent of Quebecers feeling this way.
Still, 87 per cent of respondents see all races as equal, while 12 per cent think that some races are superior to others.
All of which goes to show, there is still much work to be done.
How do we assess the state of racism in Canada in isolation? What are the comparative numbers for other countries? How many are less racist than us, how many worse? Some nations, Japan for example, are notorious for not renting apartments to foreigners. There are some countries in which to be of a certain religious or tribal identity is a death sentence. What is the origin of racism? Is it rooted in xenophobia, some past history with another group?
ReplyDeleteGiven that you won't find a country with some form of racism to some degree, what is the racism baseline for comparison purposes?
Yes, Muslims attract greater enmity. How many non-Muslim entities has Canada gone to war with over the past 20 years? By my count, that's zero. All those Talib bastards planting IEDs to ambush Canadian soldiers on patrol are Muslim, every one of them, guarantee it. Good, patriotic Christian Canadians get riled up when we take casualties but forget quickly enough the collateral damage the ISAF allies inflicted on Afghan (Muslim) civilians.
And, asking people how they perceive racism is a different matter than the actual degree of racism.
I just don't find much compelling in this survey.
You make some good points here, Mound, but I'm not sure that a comparative degree of racism should be any source of solace. True, we don't directly kill people of another ethnicity or religion, but we still can make life hellish for them. Or choose not to.
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