Racism In Canada Research Articles

Cultural Exclusion and the Transformation of the Cultural Landscape: The Origins of Anti-Chinese Racism in Canada

Anti-Chinese racism in Canada is a social structure of racialized exclusion that over time came to be built into the settler colonialism that continues to shape the country. Colonizers of European, and especially of British and French origins, have consequently created the cultural landscapes that constitute the country (i.e., its material constructions and dominant cultural overlays). When read against these landscapes, people of Chinese origins and members of other racialized groups continue to be positioned as aliens who do not belong in the country in way in which people racialized as white are not. Focusing on British Columbia (BC), Canada’s westernmost province, and the historical activity of people of Chinese origins, this paper traces the history of anti-Chinese racism and its links to Anglo-Canadian settler colonialism. Canada has long been linked to China, and the Chinese entered BC at the same time as Europeans before the country existed. Despite this, Chinese people have repeatedly been positioned as threats to Anglo-Canadian dominance, and especially to control over the land and its resources. Chinese Canadian resistance to racist exclusions, along with that of other groups, has led to the elimination of legislated exclusions. However, historic exclusions continue to shape cultural landscapes and popular understandings of who belongs and who does not. Remaking these landscapes requires an antiracist project of pursuing common projects that cross over racialized differences to remake the territory in ways that affirm the presence of all the peoples of Canada.

Edmonton's Race-based Data Table: A municipal approach to addressing systemic racism through the collection and use of disaggregated, race-based data.

Recent events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, have drawn nationwide attention to systemic racism as a serious threat to public health in Canada. One promising approach to address such racism is through developing and implementing standardized procedures for collecting and using disaggregated, race-based data. In this commentary, we summarize why this approach is necessary to address systemic racism in Canada, and highlight municipal actions being taken in Edmonton, Alberta, to move this approach forward. In 2021, a Race-based Data Table, comprising 24 institutions and organizations affiliated with health, education, and policing systems, was formed in Edmonton. It aimed to engage practitioners, systems representatives, academics, and community members in collective advocacy around accessing race-based data to better understand and address disparate health outcomes associated with COVID-19 for racialized communities. Further, the Table intends to co-create a charter and toolkit outlining best practices for ethical, race-based data collection and use with local stakeholders and knowledge users. In documenting the beginning stages of the Table, and in evaluating its ongoing progress, we contribute to national conversations regarding the need for government institutions and other organizations to consistently collect and use race-based data as a means of increasing transparency and accountability in their actions.

The 60 Years of Queer and Trans Activism and Care Project: Learning to Conduct Archival Research and Write Dramatic Verbatim Monologues

This reflective essay describes a research course which provided undergraduate students with an opportunity to conduct archival research on six decades of queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (QTBIPOC) activism and care that have challenged heteronormativity, cis-normativity, and racism in Canada. While there are many ways to share the findings of archival research, we chose to teach our students how to create dramatic verbatim monologues as the arts-based research method of verbatim theatre required students to use the words of activists themselves to explain why a particular moment of activism and care was needed. Students attended three different workshops during the full-year course from September 2022 to March 2023: a workshop in conducting archival research, a workshop about centring themselves and their communities in their research, and a workshop in verbatim monologue writing. Here, we reflect upon what these workshops taught us about archival research, working with Indigenous archival material, and rupturing systems of oppression in our own bodies. At the end of the course, students reported their take-aways from the course. This included a new understanding that it was possible to conduct research on topics they felt passionate about and that theatre-based research provided them with a way to express the findings of their research in forms other than writing essays. This new-found freedom was life-changing.

“They Bring Standards of Academic Excellence Down”

Calls to hire more diverse faculty members in South African and Canadian universities have long standing histories. The pace of implementation of proposals to appoint more Black and women faculty members was slow. It was partly pressures from the #RhodesMustFall student movement in South Africa (2015) and renewed calls to address anti-Black racism in Canada post the murder of George Floyd in the United States (2020) that prompted post-secondary institutions in these countries to take concrete action towards instituting campus wide transformations to address questions of equity, diversity, and inclusion. Informed by the Othering theory and using thematic analysis, this paper critically examines social media users’ rebuttals to the hiring of more Black and women faculty members at universities in South Africa and Canada. This paper argues that the racist and sexist framing of Black and women faculty as the inferior ‘other’ potentially has negative consequences on the mental health of the aforementioned groups. This article also challenges ahistorical analyses that neglect critical examinations of racist and sexist systemic barriers that women and Black faculty contend with when applying for academic positions. Further, this paper exposes the limitations of the logic that assumes that merit-based hiring is necessarily inimical to sustaining standards of academic excellence.

Systemic Anti-Blackness in Healthcare: What the COVID-19 Pandemic Revealed about Anti-Black Racism in Canada.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been numerous examples of how systemic racism and racist stereotypes stigmatized those who contracted and transmitted the virus. This systemic racism predates the pandemic, and is itself endemic in healthcare service, delivery and education as evidenced by the treatment of Black students, residents and doctors. While public health officials, healthcare providers and medical schools may claim to be colour-blind, the documented experiences of Black and Indigenous people and people of colour - particularly those who are queer or trans - demonstrate otherwise. In this paper, the author focuses on the experiences that Black people have in healthcare settings and reflects on what has been revealed during the COVID-19 pandemic, including how systemic historical, contemporary and ongoing anti-Black racism continues to negatively impact health outcomes.

Anti-Black Racism in Healthcare: Could critical race theory prove helpful in the Canadian context?

Anti-Black racism persists in various Canadian areas, including healthcare. The legacy of white dominance from the period of colonization and slavery has spawned an afterlife of anti-Black racism, which has significantly contributed to shortcomings in Canadian healthcare equity. The underfunding of research specifically examining the experiences of Black communities in healthcare has resulted in a lack of evidence in the available literature and has further contributed to barriers to advocacy for addressing health disparities within these communities. In this commentary, we briefly discuss the history of anti-Black racism in Canada and how it continues to manifest in Canadian healthcare. We suggest that engaging critical race theory in the Canadian racial healthcare equity literature may provide a more nuanced analysis of the root causes of racial health disparities in Canada’s Black communities and is essential for developing effective strategies that address systemic and structural anti-Black racism in the Canadian healthcare environment.

Something in the air

This paper considers the issue of environmental racism as it relates to Indigenous and Black communities in Canada. Although the climate crisis affects us all, certain communities have felt the effects of environmental degradation more acutely and for a longer period. Environmental policy or practice that disproportionately disadvantages a racial group is an example of environmental racism. The article examines different policy responses to environmental racism in a Canadian context. The paper looks at proposed avenues for addressing environmental racism through the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Private Members Bills, Senate Bills or the new Federal Housing Advocate position associated with the Canadian Human Rights Commission. It also examines a number of grassroots initiatives taking action against environmental racism. The article argues that having the right to a healthy environment encoded in the Charter is the best option for policy reform and that grassroots organizations working in coalitions continue to make meaningful social change as the policy battle continues. 
 
 How it fits theme:
 The political power of the Canadian government has important implications for all citizens, but that power is not exerted equally against all sectors of society. There is implicit power in policy and practice that has lived consequences for those living in communities that experience systemic inequalities in healthcare, employment, and environment. However, these systemic barriers do not render individuals powerless. Grassroots movements are the fundamental origin of all civil rights victories experienced thus far, and will continue to have an integral role in changing the balance of power for generations to come. The example of environmental racism in Canada is a good place to examine the role of state power in racialized communities. At the same time, the individuals fighting against environmental racism through policy and social movements simultaneously are an inspiring example of resistance in praxis.

Anti-Asian Racism in Canada: The Story of the Numbers

This paper delves into the ongoing issue of anti-Asian racism in Canada, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite being a diverse country, Canada has a long-standing history of discrimination towards people of Asian heritage. The Covid-19 pandemic has only exacerbated this issue, with a significant increase in reported crimes and incidents of racism towards Asian or Asian-appearing individuals.
 The paper focuses on identifying and interpreting the most relevant data from various sources on anti-Asian racism in Canada during the pandemic. The author aims to compare and contrast these data sets to understand the underlying trends and factors that contribute to anti-Asian racism in Canada. However, the author notes the challenges of relying on available data sets to inform the public and policymakers. Officially collected crime statistics and non-official online self-reporting data have their limitations in accurately reflecting the scope of anti-Asian racism in the country. 
 The paper concludes that accurate statistics are essential in combating anti-Asian racism in Canada. However, the lack of reliable data is concerning. The author emphasizes the importance of continuing the search for better ways to collect accurate statistics while being cautious in using existing data to avoid misleading the public and policymakers.
 Overall, this paper highlights the urgent need for Canada to address the issue of anti-Asian racism, particularly in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is a call to action for policymakers, activists, and the public to work together towards creating a more inclusive and accepting society.

“The Biggest Mistake You Ever Made Was Thinking That Nobody Cared about Me”: The Representation of Black Lives in Our Fathers, Sons, Lovers and Little Brothers

In this review of the 2022 performance of Our Fathers, Sons, Lovers and Little Brothers, Andrea A. Davis and Carl E. James, from their respective disciplines in Black literary and cultural studies, education, and sociology, engage in a conversation about Makambe K. Simamba’s play. In their conversation, they unpack questions about Black spirituality, the social construction of gender as a raced category, and the difficulty of articulating anti-Black racism in Canada. Their conversation is framed by a critical analysis that locates the play’s action within an understanding of Black community that exceeds national and geographical boundaries, connecting Black experiences in the United States and Canada.

Immigrant Men and Racism in Canada: Impacts on Well-being and Family Wellness

Immigrant Men and Racism in Canada: Impacts on Well-being and Family Wellness

Early Chinese Migrant Religious Identities in Pre-1947 Canada

abstract: Religion for many of Canada's earliest Chinese community was not about faith or belief in God, the Buddha, or the Goddess of Compassion (Guanyin). While the majority of Chinese migrants did not convert to Christianity or Buddhism before 1947, a very large number of them joined and became converted to Chinese nationalism (Zhongguo guomindang, aka KMT). This paper reflects on the findings of sixteen years of ethnographic and archival research to understand how sixty-two years of institutionalized racism in Canada, along with bioregionalism and the built environment, determined Chinese migrant religious identities and behaviors in Canada up to 1947. Different Canadian provinces not only had different race-based laws that restricted individual rights and freedoms, they also had varying bioregional characteristics that influenced experiences and interactions with the built environments of churches, temples, and clubhouses. Chinese migrants adapted to legislation that limited their personal rights and freedoms by being efficacious or ling by professing Christian identities in public settings. They might have made offerings to Buddhist deities and frequented Buddhist temples in their home village before migration. But in Canada, being Buddhist was associated with being Japanese, and it was efficacious to be a practicing Buddhist in private. For Canada's Chinese migrants, it was conversion to Chinese nationalism and the veneration of Sun Yat-sen that was the epitome of ling . Being a devoted member met important practical as well as spiritual needs.

Contagious Minorities: Chinese Canadians during the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada has witnessed a sharp increase in racial violence against Chinese Canadians, and, in an undifferentiated racism, other Asian Canadians have been seen as bearers of disease as well, which often made them targets of racism. The quick transformation of Asian minority groups into threats of contagion during the pandemic points to the persistence of latent fears and anxieties about Chinese Canadians across generational differences, immigration status, and national origin. This essay reflects on how knowledges about early Chinese newcomers that were generated by colonial administrators laid the foundations for modes of racial governance that continue to inform public policy and public discourse in multicultural Canada in ways at once familiar and new. It examines the 1885 Report of the Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration as an important tool in reinforcing the political goal of “white Canada” by strengthening the power of European colonists. Less than a century later, in 1967, the immigration points system was introduced, preceding the adoption of multiculturalism policy in 1971, both breaking with explicitly racist national policies. Yet there is more continuity than there are differences across the 1885 Report and the 1967 immigration policy. Both participate in a historical narrative that excludes the Chinese from national imagining, laying fertile ground for contemporary anti-Chinese racisms during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Contemporary media narratives during the pandemic reproduce the same racial hierarchies, excluding Chinese Canadians from the nation. By placing the rise in anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic in the long historical trajectory of institutional racism in Canada, this essay argues for the need to learn about the historical legacies of racism to be able to intervene in structural racism so that Canada’s promise of multiculturalism can be grounded in justice and equity.

Quantifying intersecting structural racism in the youth criminal justice system: a whole-population linked administrative data study from Manitoba.

ObjectivesOver three decades ago, the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry identified structural racism in Canada’s justice system. Although rates of youth criminal charges and incarcerations have declined substantially since then, it is unclear whether First Nations youth are treated differently than non-First Nations youth for similar offences. Our study addressed this question.
 ApproachThis retrospective cohort study of youth born 1991-2001 and living in Manitoba between ages 12-17 used whole-population linked administrative data to identify youth charged with a crime (N=13,543). First Nations youth (n=7,081) were compared with all other Manitoba (AOM) youth (n=6,462) on whether their criminal charge proceeded or was dropped, deferred or diverted. The study applied an intersectionality theoretical framework. Individual (age, type and severity of charge, ever in child protection care, youth and/or mother diagnosed mental disorder, maternal incarceration, number of siblings, urban/rural residence) and social strata (First Nations identity, income, sex) factors were adjusted for using multi-level models.
 ResultsAfter accounting for other factors, First Nations youth had a higher risk of a charge proceeding than AOM (adjusted Relative Risk (aRR) 1.16, 95% CI 1.12-1.20). There was no difference in charges proceeding for male First Nations youth compared with male AOM, whereas among females, the risk was greater for First Nations (aRR 1.31, 95% CI 1.26-1.36). Low income and a history of being in the care of the child protection system increased the risk of charges proceeding for AOM only (aRR 1.16, 95% CI 1.13-1.18; aRR 1.13, 95% CI 1.07-1.20); for First Nations, there was no increased risk of charges proceeding associated with these intersecting factors.
 ConclusionThese findings provide quantitative evidence of the intersecting structural racism in the youth criminal justice system previously identified by First Nations leaders. Future research will follow this cohort to determine whether more judicial sanctions are applied to First Nations youth throughout the justice process, including within criminal courts and corrections.

Environmental racism in Canada.

> You are a family physician doing a locum in northwestern Ontario. Your next patient is a 6-year-old child who presents with chronic fatigue and paresthesia in their extremities. Upon physical examination, you also discover bilateral hearing impairment.[1][1] You recall reading in the news that,

Two-eyed Seeing for youth wellness: Promoting positive outcomes with interwoven resilience resources.

Despite the challenges facing Indigenous youth and their communities due to historical and contemporary institutionalised racism in Canada, communities are drawing on the richness of their own histories to reassert their cultural heritage. Doing so supports mental health outcomes of young people in particular, as highlighted in a compelling body of research. The question facing many communities, however, is how they can facilitate such child and youth engagement in order to support related positive mental health outcomes. This article reports on findings from a Participatory Action Research (PAR) study conducted in a First Nations community in Unama'ki (Cape Breton), Atlantic Canada. The study, Spaces & Places, was a partnership between the community-based mental health service provider (Eskasoni Mental Health Services, EMHS), eight community youth (14-18 years old), and a team of academics. Situated within a resilience framework, the team explored the ways in which the community facilitated, or restricted, youth civic and cultural engagement. Foregrounded against a strong legacy of cultural reassertion within the community, findings highlight the core resilience-promoting resources that support positive youth development. Additionally, findings demonstrate how these resources provide meaningful support for youth because of the way in which they are intertwined with one another. Furthermore, cultural engagement is underpinned by the Two-eyed Seeing model, supporting youth to integrate their own culture with settler culture in ways that work best for them. Findings support community-based service structures, and underscore the importance of community resilience in the effective support of Indigenous children and youth.

Conceptualizing anti-Asian racism in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic: A call for action to social workers

ABSTRACT Anti-Asian racism in Canada has emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic and become more rampant. This article integrates Canadian postcolonialism, a critique of Canadian multiculturalism, and a framework of intergroup prejudice to conceptualize the covert anti-Asian racism that is entrenched in Canadian society. How COVID-19 exposes and “legitimizes” anti-Asian racism is further analyzed and included in this conceptualization. This conceptualization also includes social workers’ leading roles in combating anti-Asian racism through reforming and integrating client interventions, cultural policy, social context, and offers directions that can guide future social work research and practice in improving social justice during this crisis.

A Case of Senator Lynn Beyak and Anti-Indigenous Systemic Racism in Canada

On March 7, 2017, Canadian Senator Lynn Beyak stood up in the Red Chamber and delivered a lengthy speech urging Canadians to recognise the positive aspects of the Indian Residential Schooling system that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had failed to acknowledge. In their positions as settler teacher educators, the authors examine how Senator Beyak’s statements expose the depth of systemic settler colonialism, anti-Indigenous racisms, and unsettling beneficiary narratives here in Canada. The authors call on teacher educators to examine these systemic anti-Indigenous racisms in relation to how they can confront and disrupt settler Canadian colonialism and historical settler consciousness within teacher education and school curricula. Drawing on recent research done by educational researchers at Faculties of Education across Canada, the authors maintain that settler colonial benevolence and colonial systemic anti-Indigenous racisms can be unlearned and learned through ethical relationality, truth, and a critical praxis of reconciliation.

The banality of infrastructural racism through the lens of peace and conflict studies

ABSTRACT The Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) discipline has advanced critical analysis of armed conflict, ethnic violence, and peacebuilding, yet remains marginally silent on racism/racialisation as a form of violence. Consequently, we employ in this article the notions of ‘structure’ and ‘infrastructure’ to bring the multiple layers of racism to PACS attention. The structure, as we conceive it, are the tangibles of racism, manifested, performed, and enacted in real time. The infrastructure is the ontological grounding or the substratum of structural racism; the intangibles, ideologies and hidden ideas and the everyday destructive metanarratives, which, although mostly disguised at first, condition daily interactions between the dominator cultures and the subalterns. We argue that these forms of racism are products of imperialism and coloniality in settler colonial societies like Canada, which explains why, for the most part, our remedial efforts subsist at the level of the structures, with less impact on the invisibilized infrastructural ideologies sustaining them at the micro levels. We identify some of these infrastructures of racism in Canada, and raise some questions on their tenacity, banality, and the complacency of PACS in their perpetuation in everyday life.

Reflections on return migration: Understanding how African immigrants in Canada contemplate return

AbstractEven though research on return migration has flourished in the last decade, we still know very little about how immigrants contemplate the decision to return to the homeland. Using multinomial logistic regression, we examined the variables underpinning the return intentions of African immigrants in Canada—specifically, Ghanaians and Somalis in Toronto and Vancouver. Our key independent variables included immigrants’ socioeconomic characteristics, their time‐ and place‐utility factors, their attachments to the homeland, their integration into the Canadian society and their perceived levels of racism in Canada. We found that respondents who were born in Somalia were less likely to have return intentions, compared with those who were born in Ghana. Also, those who lived in Toronto were more likely to have return intentions relative to those who lived in Vancouver. Moreover, those who perceived the level of racism in Canada to be high were more likely to have return intentions.

#StopAsianHate: Understanding the Global Rise of Anti-Asian Racism from a Transcultural Communication Perspective

Abstract The rise of anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic has been a global phenomenon. This article aims to develop a transcultural communication perspective to examine the global rise in anti-Asian violence. It discusses the intersection of global and local factors underlying the rise of anti-Asian racism in Canada, namely (1) the historical and ongoing impacts of settler colonialism (2) the flaws of Canadian multiculturalism, and (3) the insider/outsider dichotomy adopted by mass media’s framing of the pandemic. By explicating these structural factors from a transcultural communication perspective, this article argues that politicized transcultural discussions on white supremacy are urgently needed for initiating constructive conversations over anti-Asian racism worldwide.