Racism and discrimination: where are we headed?

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Created on Wednesday, 28 August 2013 15:58

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Racism is an awful reality of life, something no government or society has yet been able to eradicate. Racists and their ilk attack something that is intrinsic to human life and human personhood, something that is sacred.

This week we celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the famous “I have a dream” speech, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s impassioned plea to a crowd of 250,000 and to a nation of millions that there should be equality between black men and white men, white girls and black girls.

In many respects, here in North America, we have come a long way since that speech 50 years ago. Society (more or less) does not tolerate racism, even though racists still exist at the fringes. And our governments too, largely because of the work of King and his followers, have enacted civil rights legislation to clamp down on racism.

Looking back, we see good intentions in the government's attempt to eradicate racism. And we see that society has reacted positively to changes (although I would point out that, in fact, society changed first, and then government responded by enacting laws that were popular). So, 50 years later, where to from here?

Some people will point out that racism still exists. Indeed it does. As mentioned above, there remain repugnant racists who revel in the margins of society. But human rights scholars, professionals and commissioners go one step further – they argue that racism is not just on the fringe; it’s still very much present in our society, in our institutions and in ourselves. It’s systemic. We are told that we don’t even know it exists, we don’t see it – it’s just there.

When it comes to policing racism, we’ve come a long way. But perhaps we’ve come too far. Our professional human rights experts are so eager to expunge racism that they are beginning to see it in places it might not exist.

Let me explain: in this past month we reported on three different human rights complaints involving racism allegations, the three decisions coming from three different levels of court: the tribunal level, the superior court level and the provincial court of appeal level. The case at the superior court level was a win for common sense: the B.C. Supreme Court overturned a racism complaint because there was no evidence presented to support the allegation that a racist event (the allegation that a KKK mask was placed on a black man’s lunch box) had even happened.

However, the other two cases are problematic: one case involved an allegation that a club was barring three patrons from entering due to their Indo-Canadian ethnicity. The complainants won at the B.C. Tribunal, despite the fact that they admitted that no racist slurs were ever made during the 45-minute altercation and despite the fact that there were approximately 40 other Indo-Canadians already inside the club at the time. Another case involved three black men (two lawyers and a law student) who were asked for ID as they entered a law library reserved for lawyers and law students, while other lawyers (presumably not black) were not asked for ID at that time. The three men won at the Ontario Court of Appeal because the test was so open to racist interpretation: the focus had to be on the effects of the alleged discrimination (i.e., if the men felt they were discriminated against, then they were).

One other case from a few years back, now quite infamous in Ontario, found a police officer guilty of racism for stopping a black postal deliveryman and asking him for ID. The police officer was very familiar with the neighbourhood, having patrolled it for three years. A new postal worker, whom the officer did not recognize, was acting suspicious, going back and forth between houses. The officer stopped the black man, asked for ID, and after confirming the man was a deliveryman, he went on his way, no harm done. Yet the tribunal ruled that, though the police officer was not a racist nor was there any evidence that discrimination had happened, yet the officer was found guilty of a “conscious or unconscious” act, offending the postal deliveryman.

These cases paint a grim picture of where we are going, a picture all the more grim by the attitudes of so many professional human rights advocates or specialists in this country. Their attitudes are exemplified in this Globe editorial by Steven Chua. The writer states that “racism lies not just in dramatic examples, but in the seemingly insignificant everyday slights we experience all the time.”

And so he tells a story in which he, a non-Caucasian male, went for dinner with a white female friend. He notices stares from an old man at one table and receives a cold reception from the waitress. And he realized, by some unexplained epiphany, “that the coldness directed my way was caused by the fact my friend was white and I was so obviously not.” Later, he writes, “Maybe I was being too sensitive. Maybe I was imagining things. I tried convincing myself it was just me being neurotic. I’m still trying to convince myself.” He concludes, “That’s the thing with racial tension in places like Vancouver, it’s so subtle. No one goes around in the open denying service or slinging disparaging remarks at anyone.”

Reread that last line again and then ask yourself, if this is the case, then who cares? Why insert the issue of race into seemingly nonthreatening encounters with old men or rude waitresses? If this is what “racism” is in Vancouver (or anywhere else in Canada), then perhaps we should be celebrating – no one denies services anymore, no one slings disparaging remarks anymore, he says. No one.

Ironically, this author’s rant is racially charged; his own racial insecurity or awareness informs his outlook such that he projects racist intentions or motivations onto other people’s non-verbal expressions. No one physically or verbally harassed him. No one denied him services. Yet he sees, he feels, he experiences, racism. And, according to the precedents set by human rights tribunals and Courts of Appeal (as outlined above), that is enough to satisfy our human rights elite.

One commentator, Peter Stockland, challenged the Globe for publishing such a piece without a bit more editorial intervention. From an editor’s perspective, he writes,

Proper editing would have required the essay be returned to the writer with at least these three queries:

1. How do you know the scowling man didn’t simply have indigestion, a pending bankruptcy, a son being sent to jail, or hemorrhoids? Explain so the reader will not be left in doubt.

2. How do you know the waitress’s cold, sharp glances weren’t the result of being shouted at by a drunken cook or shoes that were pinching her toes? Explain so the reader will know how the glances were specifically directed at you.

3. You say the scowling man was in his late 50s or early 60s, then later refer to him as Old Man Winter. Doesn’t that convey a sense of dehumanizing ageism equivalent to the perceived racism you are writing about? Suggest deleting too-clever irrelevant stereotyping.

So, 50 years after Dr. King's speech, where to? Are we willing to start policing or evaluating facial expressions as evidence of systemic racism? If so, we have gone too far. Much too far! The fact that the Globe published this drivel without asking the questions that Stockland poses above makes me fear that perhaps the anti-racism crusade is not only unreasonable and beyond common sense. It is now systemically so.