To understand unconscious bias, you also need to accept one basic fact: the systems we grow up in are inherently racist.
Canada is a country founded on the principle of white supremacy. White settlers came to this country and decided their culture, their lives, and their needs and wants were inherently more important and superior to those of the Indigenous peoples already inhabiting this land.
British settlers took stolen Africans with them to this “new world,” believing they were inferior enough to be considered sub-human and property. From there, the people who founded Canada and the US built systems of power rooted in the belief their culture, religion, way of life and skin colour were inherently superior, crafting the foundations of the society we live in today.
That’s what North American culture was built on: racism.
It’s easy to forget this when you’re of the “majority.” When the country you live in was built to serve people who look like you, it’s hard to see the small ways Canadian institutions and society exclude marginalized people—especially people of colour.
In 2023, we’re entering an era where there’s a greater understanding that racism is bad. People are being held able for past racist actions and people of colour are more empowered than ever to speak out against the racism they endure.
However, Queen’s is still a hotbed for racist harassment and microaggressions. Many people of colour here endure a lot of racism from their peers, professors, and sometimes even their friends.
Despite the general understanding that racism is bad, it’s still normalized. It’s just expressed in more covert ways, so many people who still maintain racist attitudes are fooled into thinking they’re more progressive than they actually are.
This belief creates an environment where well-meaning people still perpetuate the racist attitudes they claim to denounce, without the self-awareness to realize what they’re doing. Meanwhile, students of colour feel too unsafe to speak out about the racism they endure.
Queen’s student demographic leans heavily white and creates an environment where students feel speaking out against their white peers might make them a pariah. For every person of colour who wishes to speak out, there are a dozen white students who lack the awareness to understand and might respond to criticism with hostility.
Canadian culture hasn’t totally shaken the inclination to dismiss people of colour and excuse the racist behaviour so prevalent in this country. If Canada and Queen’s are to become a place where racist behaviours aren’t tolerated, the excuses of “it was so long ago” and “they didn’t know any better” can no longer be accepted.
If Queen’s wants to become a more diverse school, it has to be safe for BIPOC students to enter. Otherwise, Queen’s will forever be falsely advertising diversity to lure BIPOC students into an unsafe environment.
Clanny is a fourth-year English student and The Journal’s Assistant Lifestyle Editor.
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Darryl Flasch
Thank you Clanny for being you, being a racilized person, being persistent achieving academic success, and being vigilant to the prevasive existence of racism woven into the fabric of everyday life in Canada. The racisim is rooted in British imperialism exported to the colonies to subvert the orginal inhaitants of new settlements that continues in the modern day era of Canada and beyond. Poignantly calling out not only the atrocity of racism, but the institutionalized racism in Canada. That it is normalized and accepted without qualification and perpetuated unbeknownst to some that racialized persons normalize racism as well. You highlight the perils that continue to be fueled reminding racialzed persons oppression is alive in Canada and not yet a relic of our collective colonialist past. We have to do better to be better. As a cisgender Caucasian settler on turtle Island I acutely understand racism isn’t my fault it exists in Canada but it is my responsibility to identify and eradicate it in all its forms that it manifests. In the form of the microagresssions you identified people knowingly or more so unknowingly breath life into the notion of racism in Canada, so it is our collective duty to actively work with racialized persons especially at decision making tables to ensure meaningful change happens. So we must look around to see whose voice are we not able to hear and ensure their voices are present, amplified and acted upon is the only way to create impactful and meaningful change. It is not anyone’s role to speak at, to or for racialized persons. The people who have benefited from the oppression of institutionalized racism have a duty to make room at the many tables they have no presence but it’s imperative it be the decision making ones. In this era of our Canadian herstory especially post secondary institutions need to actively work on decolonizing by reviewing, assessesing, augmenting and educating we are collectively responsible so to make safe happen especially in learning environments for racialized persons, as with society in general, we can’t fight what we don’t see so ensure the appropriate lenses are used so we all see these hidden racist microagressions and for some the truth hurts but secrets cripple. So if anyone is uncomfortable, as you noted, the persons in power who have benefited from this inequality. Invite them to reflect on what it is that is impacting their response to help them be aware it’s a reaction to change, it’s the beginning of growth and new perspectives that opens up possibilities for themselves along with dismantling racism that can only be mutually beneficial for racislized persons to genuinely live life in Canada the same way the people in power have felt since its inception that we can then safely say Canada is truly a multicultural society as it is now just in words and not action. You sumed it up prefectly to be better you need to do better so wake up Canada we all have work to do and together we make Canada the true reflection of us all who replace the woven racism with woven respect and honour for all not just for some.