The View From Here: June 2020

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

OP-ED -- As we mark Canada Day, Canadians are waking up to the country’s racist reality

This Canada Day, we need to make a commitment to eliminate the cancer of racism from this country, so that we can eventually live up to our own hype about how great Canada is on July 1 in years to come.

By Fareed Khan
June 30, 2020

https://www.hilltimes.com/2020/06/30/as-we-mark-canada-day-canadians-are-waking-up-to-the-countrys-racist-reality/254962

GATINEAU, QUE.—Canada Day 2020 will be a national holiday that will be burned into the memory of Canadians young and old for many years to come for a couple of reasons.

To begin with, it will be the first Canada Day in living memory with no official celebrations taking place anywhere in the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all of which have been cancelled due to fears of transmitting the coronavirus at large public events.

However, the more important reason this Canada Day will be remembered is because of the great Canadian awakening that has occurred since the killing of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer. Canadians from all walks of life have taken to the streets in anti-racism demonstrations from coast to coast to protest anti-Black racism, anti-Indigenous racism, and systemic racism. It’s as if Canadians of all backgrounds have awakened to the endemic racism in our society, and they have joined with Blacks, Indigenous people, and people of colour to call for action to address racial injustices.

The reality that Canada is built on a foundation of racism and Indigenous genocide is not a new revelation since there is extensive research documenting this. What does seem to be new is Canadians’ heightened awareness and desire to do something about it.

It is difficult to recall this level of attention being paid to racism in Canada, albeit there have been instances of media and public focus from time to time. Racism was one of the topics addressed in the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015. Hate and bigotry was on the public’s minds and the political agenda again when six Muslim men were murdered in a Québec City mosque by a white supremacist in January 2017. Attention was focused on racism again when old photos of Justin Trudeau in blackface and brownface came to light during the federal election last fall, and once more when Don Cherry ranted about immigrants not properly honouring veterans on Remembrance Day on his Hockey Night In Canada segment.

In each instance, there was a brief public, media, and political focus on issues of racism in Canada which subsequently faded. This time, however, it seems to be different, as the public engages in wider discussions about the racist foundations of Canadian society in the lead-up to Canada’s national holiday.

Racism was a factor in the policies of Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. The architect of the residential schools system said of Indigenous people, “Though he may learn to read and write, his habits, training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write.” His racism also was directed towards the Chinese, who he felt would create a “mongrel race” and threaten Canada’s “Aryan” character if allowed to immigrate.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier is also notable for his racist order in council in 1911 that prevented Blacks from immigrating to Canada. In addition, Laurier’s government is well-known for policies that blocked immigrants of Chinese, Japanese, and South Asian origin.

Sir Robert Borden was also on the list of overtly racist Canadian leaders. He won the 1911 election on the strength of his xenophobic slogan, “A White Canada.” It was also under Borden that the Komagata Maru incident occurred, when a ship filled with Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus was forced back out to sea by the Royal Canadian Navy from the port of Vancouver.

Canada’s racist policies continue today in various forms, including police treatment of Indigenous and racialized Canadians. They were instituted by leaders who have been celebrated for years as “great” Canadians. The recent protests have focused attention on Canadian racism, resulting in public calls for change.

On this Canada Day, occurring in the shadow of anti-racism protests, Canadians have to accept that, while better than most countries, Canada is not as great as it is made out to be given its racist history and institutions. This Canada Day, we need to make a commitment to eliminate the cancer of racism from this country, so that we can eventually live up to our own hype about how great Canada is on July 1 in years to come.

Fareed Khan is founder and chair of the anti-racism activist group Canadians United Against Hate.

The Hill Times

OP-ED -- Systemic racism on display in House of Commons

Fareed Khan
Toronto Star Contributor
Tue., June 23, 2020
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2020/06/23/systemic-racism-on-display-in-house-of-commons.html

The latest examples of systemic racism in Canada occurred last week in the heart of Canada’s democracy. It involved the only racialized leader of a federal political party, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, and how he was treated in the House of Commons, as well as how the story was covered by the media.

On June 17, House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota expelled Singh from the House for refusing to apologize for calling Bloc Québécois MP Alain Therrien racist. The incident occurred after Therrien became the only MP to vote “no” on Singh’s motion calling on the government to investigate the issue of systemic racism within the RCMP, their budget and their training of officers on the use of force. In addition to voting “no” on the motion, thereby denying it unanimous consent and causing it to fail, Therrien used a hand gesture that Singh found to be dismissive of the seriousness of the issue being discussed, which resulted in Singh using the word he did.

This incident, and how media covered it, not only showed Canadians an example of racism played out at the highest level of politics, it also demonstrated that a racialized minority in a position of privilege was not immune to systemic racism. For many people of colour across the country, it was another example of how they are treated when they try and challenge racist behaviour in their own lives.

The image of the only political party leader who is a visible minority being thrown out of Parliament by the white Speaker of the House, for challenging what he considered racist behaviour by a white MP, was a glaring example of systemic racism and white privilege at the highest level of politics. To add insult to injury, the MP who instigated the incident was allowed to remain in the House of Commons, and was defended by the white members of his caucus. It was as though Therrien, the Bloc Québécois caucus, and the Speaker were blind and deaf to the calls of Canadians, particularly Black and Indigenous Canadians, protesting in the streets and calling for an end to systemic racism and police violence.

In addition to Singh’s treatment in the House, another layer of systemic racism was evident in the way that editors and producers at Canada’s major media outlets framed the story.

In a scan of more than 50 different headlines in Canadian media since the story broke, including multiple stories by the CBC, CTV, Global, the National Post and the Globe and Mail, there was only one instance in a Toronto Star headline where Therrien was mentioned by name. While there were details about him contained in the body of the story, to the public the headlines made it seem that the story was purely about Mr. Singh rather than the actions of Therrien that created this controversy.

The headlines and coverage of the incident are part of a pattern that communities of colour have seen often where insufficient media attention is given to the underlying racism that is the catalyst for racist acts. In Singh’s case, the fact that the media largely ignored Therrien, allowed his BQ colleagues to run interference for him, and didn’t dig into why he was the lone BQ MP to vote “no” on Singh’s motion, raises questions about the decision makers in the newsrooms of the nation, and why they and their news teams framed the story as they did.

Why was there singular media focus on Singh rather than Therrien, the man who set off this chain of events? Why didn’t the media ask Therrien about why he opposed Singh’s motion when his entire caucus supported it? Why did the rules of the House of Commons sanction the person of colour who called out the racism, and ignore the person who instigated this furor?

What happened in the House of Commons and how media covered the story brought racism to light in Parliament in a way that has infuriated many Canadians. It showed that even in one of the most privileged places in Canada, a chamber of equals, systemic racism and white privilege go hand in hand, and that comes through in how media covered that privilege as well.