Racism in Canada

Canada is a multicultural country but still there is a lot of social inequality in Canada. Social Inequality plays a major role in everyone’s life and it also shapes one’s opinions, character and influences what one becomes in his/her life. Racism is also a form of social inequality, which is kind of prevalent in almost every society of the world. But everyone is not racist; therefore, if we base our judgment solely on the basis of a bunch of racist people, then every German is a Nazi, every white person is a white supremacist and every Arabian person is a Taliban, which is a completely wrong notion. Racism is a socially constructed phenomenon centered on the concept of stereotype and prejudice that describes the hostile or negative feelings of one ethnic group toward another, it is a specific form of prejudice based on aspects of physical appearance such as skin color (Symbaluk, Bereska, 179). This essay will throw some light on the racism against immigrants in Canada. Today people in Canada live in a multicultural society but the former ideologies of racism are still clinging to our advanced civilization.

There are many organizations to prevent racism but we can still find incidents of racism and hate crimes related to racism in Canadian newspapers, magazines and in other social media. There are various policies against racism in Canada but if we look at various studies conducted on Canadian minorities, which are directed towards to know their Canadian experiences, most of the participants accept that, they face racism in one form or another. Canadian population mainly constitutes of Europeans and Caucasians and they have continually been at the top of the Canadian hierarchy since its existence and, they also segregated Native American Indians into their society. But as the Canada continually evolves into a melting pot of many ethnic backgrounds, there are some chances that in coming years majority race may eventually become the minority. This fear can easily be seen in many Canadian people and can ignite forms of racism because of peoples continued fear of losing dynamism and power held in being the majority. This often leads

Canadian people to feel that their own race is jeopardized because of the overflow of various races immigrating to their country and, it somehow threatens their own existence and well being. This whole idea and insight, which is set in minds of so many Canadian people, makes no sense at all but it ultimately leads to racism against immigrants and other minorities in Canada. Canada identifies visible minorities as individuals who are ‘non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour’. Thus, the category ‘visible minority’ includes individuals who identify their origins as Chinese, South Asian (e.g., East Indian, Pakistani, Punjabi, Sri Lankan), Black (e.g., African, Haitian, Jamaican, Somali), Arab/West Asian (e.g., Armenian, Egyptian, Iranian, Lebanese, Moroccan) etc and Other (Satzewich, 2010). Policies such as (Canadian Council for Refugees, Anti Racism Policy), are formed by Canadian government to eliminate racism and all other kinds of discrimination against immigrants in Canadian society. This policy works by identifying and diminishing the barriers and roadblocks that are preventing refugees and immigrants from fully participating in Canadian society.

But despite all these efforts when Canadian authorities spoke to new and old immigrants, they discovered that lots of them feel let down by the system here and are leaving to explore better options; some of them even acknowledge that there is no other country like this one and will come back one day when they will be provided with equal opportunities. (Roy, 2012 ). This shows that there is long road ahead for Canadian authorities to make Canada a racism free country. In sociology the functional and conflict perspectives examine racism in different ways. Both approaches vary in different ways like; competition of status, race, struggle of power, race and ethnicity that plays a vital role in racial discrimination. People try to maintain their superiority group membership, which can cause an active dislike and hostility between groups. The categories are created on based of race and ethnicity into which we are placed by birth and often negatively recognized. According to functionalism racism served an important function in society by contributing positively to the dominant group.

The racial views can benefit to people who want to deny the rules and rights that are in privilege of minority groups. This becomes a big problem over time and cause many problems like crime, unemployment in society. Whereas according to the conflict perspective racial discriminate occurs due to the control of power by different groups in society. The struggle of dominance between different competing social groups like race, gender, religion and ethnicity develop a bigger perspective of racism. The conflict perspective states that social structure is best understood by the struggle between dominant and the subordinate group. This conflict refers to the unequal access to the resources, opportunities, certain standards of living and quality of life. In long term this perspective also brings segregation and poverty and low standards of living, health and well-being.

A person’s mind is made of what is taught to him/her starting at a very early age. Child starts noticing color differences very soon, so to end racism we should start teaching our children about the consequences of racism at very early age. In schools teachers should teach not to discriminate and live equally. Since schools are not the only influence that children have so parents are also responsible for teaching their children. The Government of Canada should also continue to partner with the provinces and territories to facilitate information sharing and address racism and multiculturalism issues where there is joint responsibility.

References

Canada’s Action Plan Against Racism [Electronic Resource] : A Canada For All : An Overview. n.p.: [Ottawa] : Dept. of Canadian Heritage, c2005., 2005. Roy Baisakhi,. “Why some immigrants leave Canada” (2012) http://canadianimmigrant.ca/community/why-some-immigrants-want-to-leave-canada

Satzewich, Vic. “Measuring Racism: A Case For Verstehen.” Canadian Issues / Thèmes Canadiens (2010): 45-57. Canadian Reference Centre. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.