Racism alive and well

While searching for something else, I happened across this 2004 news item from The Turtle Island Native Network. (For those who may not be aware, Turtle Island is the original name of North America.)

"Discrimination against Native people is widespread according to Three City Anti-Racism Initiative. Anti-racism educators in Northeastern Ontario have known for years there is a serious issue that must be addressed, but they have never had the data to prove it. Until now."

A nine-month study of racism in Sault Ste. Marie, North Bay and Timmins has concluded the "discrimination against Native people is widespread."

"Don Curry, the project director read all the questionnaires and listened to all the taped interviews from each city, and said he noted racist comments made by people who claimed not to be racist."

If you ever want to hear how racist a supposed non-racist is, just let him talk. Here are a couple of fine examples from white, male respondents in North Bay.

“I don’t think what I’m discussing with you is racism. I don’t believe I’m a racist. There is racism, with the Ku Klux Klanfor example. We can tolerate all the different ethnic nationalities but we single out different groups. If that’s racism, then we have it. I’ve never seen a racial incident and I’ve lived here all my life. I hear people make fun of natives,and of black people, and of Chinese people. I suppose that’s a form of racism. Native people get treated differently in North Bay because they’re special. They have special status. Everyone has special status except we, the white, middle class, working taxpayer. The only reason governments give this special treatment to everybody is to buy votes. Everyone should be equal. Period. There’s more and more hatred. I can see it. When you sit down and have a beer that’s when you hear most of this stuff. If you want to find out just go sit in the hotel for a while and talk to people. It comes up time after time after time. Especially if you talk about hunting or fishing.”

“There is not enough racism in North Bay for it to be an issue. If anything, it has gone too far the other way. Natural born, working Canadians pay for everybody else. Aboriginal people get too many handouts. Racism would disappear if government favouritism would stop.”

Now, to be fair, there were also many comments from white males and others against the racist comments they hear. I cite the examples above as I believe that we too-often pretend that racism is a thing of the past when it is not.

"He [Don Curry] said he also read comments from Native people who have heard and seen enough and don't even react to racism anymore. But then there are the fighters -- the Native people who speak out when they are being discriminated against and contact the store manager, the school board director, the hospital CEO and demand an apology..."

"Maurice Switzer, director of communications for the Union of Ontario Indians and a project leader said, 'Virtually every Aboriginal person I know has had issues in stores related to the status card. This study documents what all of us have known for years. The general public is not very knowledgeable about treaty rights. Racism is an issue and we must work together as a community to create solutions.'

"Aboriginal comments... [in the survey include:] 'The Sault has two faces and hides one very well. . .' 'Discrimination against native people in North Bay is widespread. In finding an apartment, going shopping, eating out, playing sports. . .' 'It happens once a week or every two weeks. I'd be walking with my girlfriend and people driving by or stopped at a light would bang the side of their car and say something. I get that a lot. It doesn't surprise me because I hear it so often.'

"The nine-month project, named Debwewin, the Ojibwe word for [to speak from the heart or] truth, involved the dissemination of questionnaires to the public, printing the questionnaire in local newspapers, follow-up interviews, cross-cultural training sessions in each community, media relations training for anti-racism practitioners, creation of a new web site at http://www.debwewin.ca/ full of resources, and a print media monitoring project."

You can find the full studies at the above link, but before I sign off, I'd like to share some scientific info on the notion of race as taken from the final report.

"Scientists and social scientists have shown consistently that race is a false concept. Conferences convened by the United Nations since the late 1940s have established that there is no genuine basis to differentiate any human attributes as functions of skin colour, eye shape, forehead slope or other physical characteristics collectively associated as characteristics of “race” (Celious and Oyserman, 2001; Henry et. Al. 1995; Johnson, Rush and Feagin, 2000; Twine and Warren, 2000.) Blackburn (2000) explains how the differences in DNA between humans are less than 0.6%. The widest variation is between ethnic groups of Africans; the variation between so-called “Caucasians” and either Africans or Asians is less."

So much hatred and derision over such an insignificant difference.

If you'd like to check out the Turtle Island Native Network for late breaking news, click here.

Colleen