Khuutra said:
I apologize if I came across condescendingly. I will try to amend my tone. I say take a class or read a book exactly because I don't have the perspective to lay out an appropriately-lengthed diatribe about racism and its current and past states in Canada. Canada was no better to its aboriginals than Jackson was, and that form of oppression (and cultural annihilation) persisted into the 20's, with aboriginal children being relocated away form their families specifically to receive a white education and be ingrained in white culture. Racism exists now just as badly as it does in the States, but it's often in comparatively insidious ways. A general lack of racial and cultural integration (in comparison to the states) has resulted in the nursing of racial hatreds without the expanded perspective that is the eventual consequence of integration. Canada is just as much a country of immigrants as the US is (I am one of them) but it lacks the cultural structure that the US has; hatreds are more easily hidden and ignored because this is a generally segregated society, but the racism is there, and it's real, and it's seething. |
Yeah Canada definitely has some black marks on an otherwise pretty great history. Japanese internment camps, native residential schools and the turning away of Jews in the second world war come to mind when I think of bad things we've done.
But I certainly think Canada is MILES ahead of the US in terms of equality both past and present. I'm not sure if the US was the last western country to abolish slavery but they were certainly near the back of the pack, and even after slavery there was segregation up until what the 60's or 70's? It wasn't till guys like MLK came along that they started to end segregation.
Canada isn't perfect now but we live in pretty solid harmony I'd say. Like right now I go to school at the University of Waterloo and if you look up the demographics it must be half Asian, probably 1/4 middle eastern/indian and the other 1/4 a mix of white and whatever else there is but we all get along. We are a very diverse school. I just played poker Friday night with some guys from my residence (around 12 of us) and the guy hosting it was British, there were 2 french guys, a German guy, a swedish guy, a dutch guy, and more. I think Me and this other guy were the only actual Canadians but we all had a great time and got along famously. I don't see many cases of racism in my area, but of course I can't speak for all areas of Canada.
