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Racism in the Canadian Context

Publisher:  Department of Religious Studies, Toronto, Canada
Year Published:  1980  
Pages:  7pp  
Resource Type:  Article

Abstract:  This paper deals with structural racism, define as "the mistreatment and exclusion of racial and ethnic minorities resulting from white supremacist beliefs and attitudes deeply imbedded in our mainline institutions and habits." It explores two aspects of the problem: 1) the hiddeness of the racist beliefs and attitudes which underlie the structural racism of our society, and 2) the differences in strategy which result from adopting a consensus/integrative or a power/self-reliance model for social change.

Hutchinson looks back over the history of Canada and focuses on statements made by political leaders such as Lord Durham, who said: "The language, the laws, the character of the North American Continent are English; and every race but the English (I apply this to all who speak the English language) appears there in a condition of inferiority." A comparison is made between statements of Lord Durham and Pierre Trudeau, both men seemed to believe that policies which impose the values and priorities of the dominant culture on minorities were functional and rational; and that protests by minorities were irrational and irresponsible.

In his discussion of his strategy to fight racism, Hutchinson concludes with call for a "shift in emphasis from being the custodians of the values of the dominant culture to being allies in the struggle for self-reliance on the part of excluded minorities."

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