Forms Of Institutional Racism Research Articles

549 A Study Exploring the Impact of Gender and Ethnicity Diversity on the Experience(s) and Career Development of Surgical Trainees

Abstract Despite notable ethnic diversity amongst doctors in the UK, female surgeons from an ethnic minority background are particularly under-represented. It is not known if they experience additional challenges and difficulties during surgical training and or with their career progression due to any possible impact of their gender and ethnicity. A qualitative research methodology was employed, and seven one-to-one interviews were conducted with female participants from ethnically diverse backgrounds. An intersectional approach was used to assess any possible impact of gender and ethnic diversity on experience(s) of surgical trainees and whether or not they had any implications for career progression. Interviews were subsequently transcribed and coded for thematic analysis and for construction of possible theories. Several themes emerged to account for participants' experiences of negative workplace experiences (NWPE) including racism, sexism, and discrimination throughout surgical training. In addition to these factors, unconscious and explicit forms of bias also had the potential to impact a trainee's career progression through reduced access to senior support, mentorship, theatre cases, and research opportunities. Participants detailed other direct contributors affecting career progress including a lack of senior support, reduced access to role models/mentors, conflicting family and cultural pressures, and institutional forms of racism, sexism and discrimination encountered in their job role as a surgeon and the NHS. Further research is needed to explore the intersectional experiences of surgical trainees in order to improve the training environment, retain trainees and encourage diversity within surgical careers.

Now You Are Part of the Solution: Bioethicists' Contribution in Addressing Racialized Health Inequity.

Neoliberalism (an economic approach emphasizing tax abatement, market deregulation, and social safety net reduction) promotes inequality and unfavorable health outcomes. These outcomes are exacerbated among racial and ethnic minorities, as this policy approach is often coupled with various forms of institutional racism. The combination of these factors translates into concerning population health disparities in the United States. More egalitarian policies could disproportionately affect the socially marginalized and help rectify these challenges. Given the social and cultural capital bioethicists have in the fields of medicine, public health, and policy, this group is uniquely positioned to help remediate racial and ethnic inequity. Moreover, the unique skill sets bioethicists employ (conflict resolution, mediation, negotiation, facilitating public engagement, policy analysis) can be useful to improving the health of the populous. Thus, bioethicists can play a key role in addressing the most concerning health challenges and inequities today.

In public administration and public policy, can theory capture caste?

June of 2020 brought about mass protests on behalf on the Black Lives Matter movement. Protests that caused many industries and institutions to reevaluate the role they have played in perpetuating institutional forms of racism. This article explores the current state of Public Administration and Public Policy theories and frameworks and evaluates the fields understanding of how racial caste and racial socialization impacts the administrative state. It argues that the only way for the field of Public Administration and Public Policy, through scholarship and teaching, to rise to the challenge of addressing systemic and institutionalized forms of racial discrimination that permeates society and the administrative state is for scholars to develop a deeper understanding of racism and its impact on individuals, organizations, and institutions.

Institutional Racism in American Post-Civil Rights Movement in Dear Martin by Nic Stone (2017)

This thesis is an analysis of a novel written by Nic Stone entitled Dear Martin (2017). It explores the issue of institutional racism in the post-civil rights era. The concept of systemic racism by Joe R.Feagin is employed to analyze this novel. This analysis focuses on four issues of systemic racism as seen through several African-American characters. This analysis also depends on the narrator to determine which parts of the novel are used as the data. The result of the study shows that African-American characters experience four forms of institutional racism which are The White Racial Frame and Its Embedded Racist Ideology, Alienated Social Relations, Racial Hierarchy with Divergent Group Interest, and Related Racial Domination: Discrimination in Many Aspects. In conclusion, in this post-civil rights movement era, African-Americans still face institutional racism.

The development of awareness of racism in adolescents of color over 4 years of high school.

This mixed methods, longitudinal study considered the developing awareness of racism of adolescents of color over 4 years of high school. A series of latent growth models were fit to consider participating adolescents' (n = 643) developing awareness of interpersonal and institutional forms of racism over five waves of surveys. Additionally, four waves of interviews with a subset of adolescents (n = 70) were analyzed through a multistep process consistent with qualitative research methods that seek to balance etic/outsider and emic/insider perspectives Participating adolescents demonstrated significant, linear growth in their awareness of interpersonal and systemic forms of racism between middle and late adolescence. Participating adolescents also most frequently cited examples of racism in the systemic domain of power to demonstrate their understanding of racism, and their invocation of examples of systemic racism grew more frequent as they advanced through high school. The present study revealed that, on average, adolescents' awareness of racism increases significantly between middle and late adolescence, but also that there is considerable heterogeneity in the ways that adolescents of color recognize and understand racism.

The New Jim Crow in Higher Education: A Critical Race Analysis of Postsecondary Policy Related to Drug Felonies

In this paper, critical race theory and critical race praxis for educational research are used to frame an analysis of the 1998 Amendments to the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA98) that limits access to financial aid for students who have been convicted of a drug felony. The authors explain how the HEA98 disenfranchises Black and Latinx college student populations. This policy is a form of institutional racism against the disproportionately large number of Black and Latinx individuals that have been convicted of drug-related crimes, which creates a caste system of college access and support. This policy analysis highlights data on incarcerated populations that link the policing of drug offenses to racial profiling and discrimination (e.g., “the War on Drugs” and the 1994 Crime Bill), questions the motivations for reducing access to education in drug offenders, reviews causes and inhibitors of recidivism in drug offenders to make the case for the promotion of education in recently-released offenders, and highlights empirical data that supports expanding access to these people. The authors conclude the paper with recommendations to progress toward racial educational equity. This paper is directed toward higher education scholars, practitioners, and policy makers who possess a strategic critical orientation towards racial equity in education.

Institutional Racism and Campus Racial Climate: Struggles for Sense of Belonging and Academic Success Among Black Students in the K-12 Public Schools

This paper explored racial discrimination as the primary underlying factor which creates an unwelcoming campus racial climate for Black students in K-12 public schools. It also highlights how the validation of the White race over the Black race perpetuates racial discrimination in the form of institutional racism. It shows how institutional racism creates negative relationships between most Black students and their White teachers, resulting in hostile campus racial climates. This paper, through the lenses of racial battle fatigue and critical race theory, argues that hostile campus racial climate results in a lack of sense of belonging among Black students in K-12 public schools. In addition, this paper demonstrates that the negative relationship that often exists between Black students and White teachers is due to negative perceptions (deficit thinking) and behaviors of White teachers. Various ways White teachers can help eliminate hostile campus racial climate against Black students are discussed. Data for this study were collected through the review of scholarly literature that discussed the experiences and negative effects of campus racial climate on the relationship between most White teachers and Black students in K-12 public schools.

Challenging who counts as a citizen. The infrastructure of solidarity contesting racial profiling in Switzerland

ABSTRACT In urban spaces, racial profiling is a widespread police practice that dramatically reveals who is not considered a citizen of the nation. As the so-called majority society tends to see racial profiling as an indispensable police measure to maintain ‘order’ and ‘security’, initiatives of solidarity with people experiencing this form of institutional racism are rare. Nevertheless, a movement against racial profiling has emerged in Switzerland since 2016, protecting People of Color against local border policing and challenging the racialized boundaries of national citizenship. To analyze the convergence of differing solidarity practices, I propose the concept of ‘infrastructure of solidarity’. As I show in the empirical analysis, this ‘infrastructure of solidarity’ contesting racial profiling consists of a diverse set of actors deploying various forms of (counter-)knowledge and different political, social and spatial registers: from being involved in direct actions within urban citizenship struggles to artistic interventions and activist research to highly professional strategic litigation; and from solidarity as intimate, friendship-based care relationships to more strategic political relationships.

Education Policy and Black Teachers: Perspectives on Race, Policy, and Teacher Diversity

This article examines interview responses from prominent education researchers who were asked to consider the role of major educational policies in the underrepresentation of Black teachers in public schools. Participants considered policies related to accountability and market reforms including testing, school choice and charter schools, and alternative teacher education. Although participants agreed that Black teachers contribute greatly to academic achievement for students, their views differed about whether or how policies undermine the presence of Black teachers in schools. We offer conceptual distinctions between participants’ views, including those who described policy as having a mixed impact on Black teachers, those who described policy as having an unintended but harmful impact, and those who described policy as playing a tacit role in systemic marginalization of Black teachers and as a form of institutional racism. We find benefit in all participants’ views and offer suggestions for initiatives that seek to strengthen workforce diversity.

A Game of Thrones: Power struggles and contestation in Romani Studies

Abstract This article explores the relationship between the academy and Roma communities and reflects on how horizontal violence, commodification and scientism have created disconnection and forms of institutional racism. The article reflects upon the emergence of a new cadre of critical Roma researchers challenging the established hierarchies of the academy. The paper will assess the strength and validity of these challenges and reflect on whether merely new power elites are being formed or whether critical approaches to Romani Studies presents scope for transformative change.

Dismantling White Privilege: The Black Lives Matter Movement and Environmental Justice in Canada

On August 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia, alt-right/White supremacy groups and Black Lives Matter (BLM) supporters came face-to-face regarding what to do about public monuments that celebrate key figures from slavery and the Jim Crow era. White supremacists and White nationalists did not hide their racist ideologies as they demanded that their privileged place in history not be erased. The BLM movement, which challenges state-sanctioned anti-Black racism, was ready to confront themes of White discontent and reverse racism, critiques of political correctness, and the assumption that racialized people should know their place and be content to be the subordinate other.It is easy to frame the events in Charlottesville as indicative of US-specific race problems. However, a sense that White spaces should prevail and an ongoing history of anti-Black racism are not unique to the United States. The rise of Canadian activism under the BLM banner also signals a movement to change Canadian forms of institutional racism in policing, education, and the labor market. This article responds to perceptions that the BLM movement has given insufficient attention to environmental concerns (Pellow 2016; Halpern 2017). Drawing on critical race theory as a conceptual tool, this article focuses on the Canadian context as part of the author’s argument in favor of greater collaboration between BLM and the environmental justice (EJ) movement in Canada. This article also engages with the common stereotype that Blacks in Canada have it better than Blacks in the United States.

African American Students’ Experiences in Special Education Programs

Background/ContextDisproportionate placement of African American students into special education programs is likely to be a form of institutional racism, especially when such placement stigmatizes students. If placement also fails to lead to educational benefits, the practice becomes even more suspect. Some studies have explored disproportionate placement (i.e., over-representation) from the perspectives of policy makers and educators, but few have looked at the practice from the vantage of the African American students experiencing it.Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of StudyThis study explored how nine African American students in secondary special education placements perceived their school experiences and the benefits, challenges, and detriments associated with their placements and accompanying disability labels.SettingParticipating students attended one of three high schools in an urban district in the midwestern United States. Respectively, the schools had low, medium, and high percentages of students on individualized education programs (IEPs).Population/Participants/SubjectsThree students from each of three schools participated in the study. With the help of school personnel, the researchers selected students who (a) were African American, (b) were juniors or seniors, (c) carried the label of learning disabilities or mild cognitive impairment, and (d) had received special education services for at least three years.Research DesignThe researchers used an in-depth interview design including three increasingly detailed interviews with each student. Verbatim transcripts of interviews provided the data the researchers analyzed using (a) inductive coding, (b) development of case-specific profiles, (c) organization of codes to identify patterns in the data, and (d) identification of emergent themes.Findings/ResultsThree emergent themes suggested that, in most cases, students found the negative consequences of their special education placement to outweigh any benefits. The limited benefits of placement included interactions with responsive teachers and, in a few cases, more suitable instructional pacing. The negative consequences included the experience of being stigmatized by peers, making limited academic progress because of a slow-paced curriculum, and confronting barriers that kept them from returning to general education placements.Conclusions/RecommendationsThe study found that traumatic events in the students’ lives led to academic difficulties, which subsequently led to placement in special education. Rather than supporting the students through a difficult phase of their lives, educators used special education referral and placement as a form of victim blaming. This response had the effect of excluding the students from engagement with the general education curriculum and from interaction with friends. The dynamics of victim blaming led the researchers to judge special education referral and placement of the nine African American students as a form of institutional racism.

Colorless Racialization : Analyzing the Discrimination of ‘Oldcomer’ Koreans in Japan and Chinese in Korea from an American Sociological Perspective

Past sociological theories on race and ethnicity have attributed the persistence of racial discrimination to physical, and presumably immutable, features of racial identification. Thus, despite the decline of institutional forms of racism, scholars have pointed to enduring patterns of marginalization among racially distinct minorities in a variety of different measures. This paper finds that contrary to theories which purport to predict a decline in racial discrimination with the increasing physical indistinguishability of minorities, culturally assimilated Korean minorities in Japan and Chinese minorities in Korea continue to experience marginalization due to nationality laws that exclude on the basis of ancestry as opposed to place of residence or birth. The paper proposes that rather than physical markers of race, legal and societal definitions of in-group membership and nationhood play more definitive roles in perpetuating the discrimination of minorities in society.

“Fractured Reflections” of High-Status Black Male Presentations of Self: Nonrecognition of Identity as a “Tacit” Form of Institutional Racism

ABSTRACTThis article examines the effects of “tacit” expectations about race, which are institutionalized in an Interaction Order that frames how we “see” high-status occupational identity. There is an essential moment in presenting Self before Other(s) when it is the turn of the Other(s) to recognize, respond to, and ratify that presentation. The Self is a social accomplishment that requires mutual cooperation from others. Failure to recognize and ratify competent presentations of self, reported frequently by black men, can strip those presentations of the social identity they claim and the dignity, power, and authority associated with that identity. We argue that these “tacit” expectations about identity follow black men wherever they go—no matter how successful they are. Using accounts drawn from interviews, we examine the persistent failure of Others to recognize and ratify high-status black male identities and the legitimate authority they carry.

Passing and the State in Junot Diaz's "Drown"

This essay presents Junot Diaz’s 1996 short story “Drown” as an important discussion of passing that not only spans racial and sexual identities but also tracks state strategies for managing racial and sexual difference. “Drown” describes a post-Fordist overlap between long-standing, ghettoizing state racism and the later, apparently orthogonal state strategy of closeting and homophobia analyzed by Margot Canaday in The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America (2009). While teachers, the police, and the Army are still glaringly white in this story’s 1990s Dominican immigrant neighborhood, state goods such as higher education and military service have now become the benefits of a “sexual citizenship” (Canaday 256) that premises individuals’ access to modern state benefits and resources on heterosexuality and that defines suspected homosexuals as “anticitizen[s]” (9), beyond the state’s care or concern. The coincidence of these two systems of exclusion means, of course, a doubled burden for the story’s nameless narrator, a ghettoized young Dominican American man with some queer sexual experience. However, it also demonstrates the state’s appropriation of passing for its own biopolitical ends. Passing-for-white was an interstitial tactic of African American resistance to state-sponsored racism, but in the homophobic “straight state,” passing-for-straight becomes the normal condition of full citizenship for everyone. Moreover, for racial minorities, the imperative to pass for straight reinforces existing spatial and geographic forms of institutional racism. “Drown” responds to “sexual citizenship” with a “move to guard the margin” (Spivak 132), marking and maintaining a gap between state and self, discourse and speech. The narrator’s calculated silences preserve ethical possibilities that the state cannot enact, predict, or regulate. I begin here with a prologue recounting Canaday’s major claims, her use of the term passing, and the potential I see for expanding her analysis beyond its original, white-normative conditions of existence. I go on to close-read “Drown,” explicating its narrator’s (self-aware) collaboration with state strategies of racist ghettoization and homophobic exclusion, and then explore theoretical means for imagining an end to such collaboration. Finally, I discuss implications, based on Diaz’s and my analyses, for a more general project of reading race and sexuality together.

Race talk in a public high school in Salvador Bahia: discourses of power and resistance

Racialization and ideology structures are constituted in the everyday talk that reifies and challenges dominant racial discourses among Soteropolitano teachers and illuminates distinctive culturally constructed borders and conventions as conditioned by the specific topography of race in Salvador, Bahia. Teacher's race talk in one diverse public high school both challenges and reifies racial inequity in Northeastern Brazil. Teacher talk in schools exists as both a political and a cultural terrains where racism is strategically silenced by some teachers and contested by others. This race talk reflects dominant discourses of racial democracy and subaltern discourses of racial consciousness that resist structural, historical, and institutional forms of racism. Everyday discourses around race employed in social institutions are one important aspect of the Black Atlantic and should be considered in how we theorize the political and cultural practices of the African Diaspora populations in Brazil.

Review: Educating African American Males: Voices from the Field edited by Olatokunbo S. Fashola

Educating African American Males: Voices from the Field edited by Olatokunbo S. Fashola. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2005. 320 pp. ISBN 1-412-91433-7. Much has been written about African American male student achievement and its relationship to the achievement gap phenomenon (Perry, Stelle, & Hilliard, 2003; Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 2003; Hrabrowksi, 1998; Ogbu, 1998; Patterson, 2006; Polite & Davis, 1999; Duncan, 1999; Freeman, 1999). Researchers and media outlets are quick to elaborate on reasons why African Americans are consistently falling behind their white counterparts. Many offer narrow assertions about African American male student achievement from either an historical, sociological, or economical lens when determining school success or failure. Conversely, empirical and mixed-methodological approaches have not been given adequate attention in helping to further the conversation about providing effective solutions toward closing the achievement gap of African American male students and countering deficit-model approaches. In Educating African American Males: Voices from the Field, Olatokunbo S. Fashola and several other prominent educational researchers boldly address this issue. The text is divided into eight chapters, situating itself within several thematic spaces including social, cultural, and historical issues; school reform; early, middle, and high school experiences; structural critiques of masculinity; institutional forms of racism; and extra-curricular activities that help to promote positive self-esteem and critical thinking for African American males. Collectively, the contributors articulate the need for new approaches by challenging the educational community to move beyond traditional measures of achievement and to understand the significance of social, historical, cultural, behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and pedagogical approaches which contribute to widening the achievement gap between African American males and their counterparts. Social and Historical Context of Schooling Experiences for African American Male Student Achievement Robert Cooper and Will Jordan’s “Cultural Issues in Comprehensive School Reform,” the book’s opening chapter, addresses African American male student achievement by tracing and examining both the historical and systematic effects of racism and by showing how institutionalized oppression plays a large role in widening the achievement gap. The authors strategically and impressively analyze factors such as rampant unemployment, poverty, and inadequate access to health care as potential factors for African American males being disenfranchised within the context of school and society. The authors suggest that there is an

Attrition After Intake at a University Counseling Center: Relationship Among Client Race, Problem Type, and Time on a Waiting List

The present study examined the relationship between attrition after intake and the length of time that clients spent on a waiting list by client race and problem type. Participants were 1,461 clients who completed an initial intake evaluation at a large, Mid-Atlantic counseling center over a 6-year period. Fullfactorial hierarchical logistic regression analyses revealed that African American clients were less likely to return for counseling than were European American clients, regardless of the problem type. ********** A Challenge all too familiar for staff at university counseling centers is meeting the demand for services in an appropriate and timely fashion. Because the demand for services may outweigh available staff resources, certain administrative procedures, such as the creation of a client waiting list, may become necessary (Anderson, Hogg, & Magoon, 1987). Reports from the College and University Counseling Centers Data Bank (Magoon, 2001) and other research (e.g., Clack, Stone, & Thurman, 1984) indicate the pervasiveness of waiting list procedures. Although the reality is that waiting lists are pervasive, particularly at large university counseling centers, concerns remain regarding the adverse impact of waiting lists. The potential adverse impact of waiting lists may be particularly poignant for members of racial and ethic minorities, who may view this administrative procedure as a form of institutional racism (Ridley, 1995). Previous research on waiting list attrition has failed to examine the possible influences of racial differences. For example, Anderson et al. (1987) found no significant difference in waiting list attrition between those who had a long wait and those who had a short wait between intake and the first session. However, a limitation of this study was that group differences were examined only between those who had a long wait for services and those who had a short wait for services. In describing the demographic data of the participants, it was simply stated that the groups did not differ appreciably with regard to racial and ethnic makeup (Anderson et al., 1987). Thus, any racial difference in waiting list attrition is not known. The present study was designed to begin to fill that void in the literature. Waiting List Research: An Overview The efficacy and appropriateness of waiting lists have long been areas of inquiry. Early research on waiting lists has suggested increased dissatisfaction among clients who had to wait for services (Levy, 1963; Sinnett & Danskin, 1967). Some findings suggest that clients' dissatisfaction with being on a waiting list is related to failure to return for services (i.e., attrition), especially for those individuals rated as more psychologically dysfunctional by the intake interviewer (e.g., Whittemore, 1985). However, other scholars contend that the waiting list itself is not problematic, citing that dissatisfaction is more related to clients' perception of whether something is being done to address their concerns (Shueman, Gelso, Mindus, Hunt, & Stevenson, 1980). For example, Obetz, Farber, and Rosenstein (1997) found that students who perceived that they had waited longer were less likely to believe their needs were met by the counseling center; however, no relationship between actual length of wait and satisfaction with counseling was found. A prevailing theme in the literature is that length of time on a waiting list is not a significant factor in client attrition after intake for the majority of clients, regardless of the types of problems (e.g., emotional or vocational) with which clients present (Anderson et al., 1987; Archer, 1981, 1984; Krauskopf, Baumgardner, & Mandracchia, 1981; May, 1990; Obetz et al., 1997). In fact, research suggests that most clients do not report negative reactions or effects from being on waiting lists (Archer, 1984). For example, May found that for clients not needing immediate intervention, the majority (63%) of those who failed to follow through with services stated they either no longer needed counseling or were undecided about pursuing counseling. …

Coaching difference: a case study of 4 African American women student-athletes.

The purpose of the present investigation was to describe the experiences of African American women student-athletes and the role that coaches play in those experiences. This study profiles 4 women who participated in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I cross-country, crew, track and field, and volleyball. Using data gathered through the qualitative methods of document analysis, background questionnaires, focus groups, grounded surveys, and in-depth individual interviews, the results of the study are focused on how coaches affect individual student-athletes and, most specifically, a particular segment of the athletic world that tends to be overlooked: the African American woman. Results are organized according to the following themes that emerged through the collection of data: (a) the involvement of coaches in African American women student-athletes' exposure to racism through stereotypes, (b) coaches as significant influences on African American women becoming involved and remaining involved in sport, and (c) power structures in sport and society affecting African American women as a form of institutional racism. A practical applications section follows the results.

The Contemporary Structure of Canadian Racial Supremacism: Networks, Strategies and New Technologies

Abstract: In the past five years, public debate has increasingly centered on racial supremacists who use the internet for advertising and recruitment. Yet, to date, this phenomenon has attracted little sociological attention. As such, the present paper seeks to accommodate for this curious silence in the literature by drawing on data gathered from an investigation of the Freedom-Site, a racial supremacist Web site run out of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In addition to updating the body of literature concerned with Canada's racial supremacists, three arguments are presented: first, there exists a considerable gap between the public images that racial supremacist groups attempt to present on the interact and a far less benign image that emerges upon closer analysis; second, exemplified by the Freedom-Site, the interact has facilitated a greater degree of solidarity between racial supremacist organizations; and third, given the impersonal nature of the interact, there exists a certain degree of danger that otherwise ordinary citizens will become more susceptible to the ideology of racial supremacism. These arguments are incorporated into an examination of why racial supremacist groups have appeared on the interact and what the implications of this presence are. Resume: Depuis ces cinq dernieres annees, le debat public se concentre de plus en plus sur l'utilisation du reseau Interact par des mouvements racistes a des fins publicitaires et de recrutement. A ce jour, le phenomene n'a que tres peu attire l'attention des sociologues. Ce memoire cherche a compenser ce curieux silence en termes de documentation ecrite en puisant dans des donnees provenant d'une enquete du Freedom-Site, site Internet raciste etabli Toronto (Ontario, Canada). Ce memoire presente non seulement un ensemble dc documentation ecrite traitant des mouvements racistes au Canada mais avance egalement trois arguments : premierement, il existe un fosse considerable entre l'image que les groupes racistes tentent de donner d'eux-memes sur le reseau Internet et celle, bien moins benigne, qui emerge d'analyses plus approfondies; deuxiemement, scion l'exemple du Freedom-Site, le reseau Internet a favorise une plus grande solidarite entre les organisations racistes; et troisiemement, etant dorme la nature impersonnelle d'Internet, il existe un certain danger a ce que le citoyen moyen devienne plus sensible aux ideologies racistes. Ces arguments ont ete integres a une etude examinant la raison pour laquelle les groupes racistes auraient fait leur apparition sur le reseau Internet et sur les implications de leur presence sur le reseau. In cyberspace, communication and co-ordination is cheap, fast, and global. With powerful new tools for interacting and organizing in the hands of millions of people worldwide, what kinds of social spaces and groups are people creating? (Smith and Kollock, 1999:1) Introduction Is Canada racially tolerant? Aggregate data collected over the past several years have indicated that a significant portion of Canadians not only have abandoned blatant manifestations of racism (Reitz and Breton, 1994), but that many forms of institutional racism are diminishing in the country (see, for example, Guppy and Davies, 1998).(2) Challenging these findings, however, are numerous studies which continue to indicate a widespread intolerance in Canada. Henry and Tator (1994:2), for instance, argue that white Canadians tend to dismiss the large body of evidence documenting racial prejudice and differential treatment while fundamental inequality exists and continues to affect the lives and life chances of people of colour (see, also, Henry, Tator, Mattis and Rees, 2000). Writing on Canadian Native Peoples, LaRocque (1989) has reasoned that this tendency equates to a denial mechanism on the part of [white] society that racism is a problem in Canada. And although attitudinal surveys conducted since the second World War paint an optimistic picture where [white] Canadians' perceptions of racial minorities are concerned, this is of little comfort to natives, immigrants and other disadvantaged persons who continue to express very serious concerns about racial prejudice and discrimination in Canada (Buchignani, 1983). …