Racism in Canada

Canadians have watched with concern and moments of horror as racial tensions have escalated to protests in the streets in the United States. I simply can't bring myself to watch what is a chilling snuff film in which black George Floyd is slowly choked to death by a white police officer. 

I've been disappointed and not surprised that a number of Canadians with public platforms, including the premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, have suggested that systemic racism is not an issue in this country. Media types such as Stockwell Day and Rex Murphy have fatuously said so, and Day has paid for his comments by losing several white privilege appointments. 

I would like to believe that Canada isn't as racist as America, or other countries. Yet we have a history of oppression and broken promises to Indigenous peoples and our commissions and inquiries don't seem to do much to change outcomes. When First Nations protesters blockaded rail lines a few months ago many called for police and military intervention -- sound familiar? 

We have used Chinese labour to build our railroads in horrendous conditions and Black porters to be virtual servants on trains. When a contest was held to identity the Greatest Canadians, environmentalist David Suzuki was on the list. Lest we forget, Suzuki spent some of his early years in an internment camp for being Japanese-Canadian and he's on the list with Sir John A. Macdonald who war arguably a white supremacist. 

There has been some thoughtful stuff written about the Heritage Minutes -- remember them? the sixty-second stories of our Canadian history which have leaned heavily toward our own form of propaganda of exceptionalism, as well as dishonesty by exclusion about our racist past.Some newer versions have attempted to correct those omissions and perceptions.  

I certainly don't want to entertain the notion that I am racist, yet I am the product of a culture in which I could function as a Baby Boomer white male where everything leaned toward my security and success. I've had a lifetime of opportunity which wasn't afforded to Indigenous peoples or People of Colour and the fact that I didn't really get this until pushed to do so is a form of racism.

I'm grateful that I've been part of a Christian denomination, the United Church of Canada, which has and still does address these grim realities I can't deny that the UCC ran Residential Schools or that our one Black moderator, thg Right Reverend Wilbur Howard, couldn't get a call to congregation for years beause of the colour of his skin. 

I don't write this because of a desire to be a self-flagellating liberal. I and all of us just need to be honest in Canada and ask what can change, today and tomorrow. As we look across the border we can also search our own hearts. 

Comments?