For white people reading this article, let me get a few things out of the way.
1. No, I’m not saying you’re a racist.
2. This is not about you feeling guilty.
3. Yes, there are things you can do to change things.
BREAKING NEWS: There is racism in Nova Scotia. By racism, I mean more than racial slurs, or even cross-burnings on people’s lawns. I’m thinking of deep-seated, hard-to-extricate institutional racism, the kind that’s led to disproportionately high rates of poverty, unemployment, incarceration and educational underachievement in black and Aboriginal communities in this province.
There are basically two ways to explain these types of inequities. Either you believe they exist because black/Aboriginal people are naturally inferior—and if that’s the case, I take back number one above—or else you accept that in some way, racism plays a role.
The current state of race relations in Nova Scotia is rooted in history. From the beginnings of European colonization, black and Aboriginal people were seen as little more than a source of cheap, unskilled labour. Promises of means to achieve better lives—like land grants—were routinely broken, and exclusionary laws barred people of colour from white churches, schools and other institutions.
For example, African Nova Scotian students attended separate, chronically underfunded schools until just a few decades ago. School integration in the 1960s and ’70s saw its own problems as black and aboriginal students were bussed long distances into often-hostile learning environments. (For more information see the enlightening Black Learners Advisory Committee Report of 1994.) As for Mi’kmaq students, the horrors of the residential school system that aimed to “kill the Indian in the child” are well-known.
There’s a flip side to all this, however. If one group of people in society has been chronically disadvantaged, that means another group has been chronically advantaged.
That is, if black and Aboriginal Nova Scotians have suffered, and continue to suffer, from systemic racism and exploitation, then white Nova Scotians have benefited, and continue to benefit, from that same racism and exploitation. This is something many people seem to have a hard time accepting (especially if they have faced discrimination of another kind, for example).
At a recent public talk, Rocky Jones, one of the province’s most prominent African Nova Scotian activists, challenged the audience to get beyond simple ideas about racism: “You might say, ‘Wait a minute man, my best friend is black…I’ve never done anything in my lifetime that is discriminatory or prejudicial. How can you say to me that I’m benefiting'” from racism?
The fact is, white Nova Scotians have always held disproportionate wealth and power in this province, whether in business or politics (Nova Scotia didn’t get its first black MLA until 1993, and no Aboriginal person has ever been elected to the legislature). That wealth and power has been passed down, and continues to be passed down, through the generations.
Today, even if your ancestors were Polish/Acadian/Jewish, if your skin is pink you benefit from living in a society where it is the norm for those who look and talk like you to hold power, be successful and have your opinions valued. No racial profiling in stores, no assumptions about your capabilities, no doubts about whether you’re being treated fairly because of your skin colour, no automatic associations of your community with crime or drugs or alcohol.
(Immigrants of colour face their own stereotypes and history in Nova Scotia, which unfortunately there isn’t space to explore here.)
As mentioned above, this isn’t about guilt. It’s about making things right. When a story comes up in the news about racial profiling, or aboriginal rights or the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children, white people need to look seriously at our own place in this province’s history, and how that fits into the situation at hand.
The problems and solutions are often institutional, not individual, and therefore can be complicated. But we need to have conversations about them, recognize that those conversations are about all of us, and take the lead in dealing with our racism problem. a
Ben Sichel is a teacher in Dartmouth and a member of Solidarity Halifax. He benefited from racism in writing this column. Find him on Twitter at @bsichel.
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This article appears in Mar 14-20, 2013.
Great article – thank you Ben Sichel 🙂
Well if your life sucks complain, drag out the old racizm card, don’t do a goddam thing to improve your own station in life just blame whitey . The same whitey who signs the cheques so that you can live in rent free/reduced housing, the same whitey who supports the food banks so that you can go out and have your booze and drugs and still fed the little papoose. Someday whitey is just going to get fed up, then my friends you will be fucked and hungry as well enjoy you deserve it
Thanks for a great piece, Ben. Thanks also to big bertha for coining a new term, “racizm card”. What a perfect way to describe this type of hyperbolic, deluded, and borderline sociopathic response to any mention of racism in a serious context.
@big bretha The day we are fucked and hungry would be the day African and Native Nova Scotians will join hands to see the province burn to ashes the same way Spartacus did to Rome.
I agree with all of this, but I DO wish we would stop talking about racism in this province with the constant implication that it’s worse here than elsewhere. This otherwise excellent article seems to perpetuate yet more of the persistent (but false) narrative Nova Scotians like to tell themselves about how backwards we are. (I don’t know why we’re so ready to accept that notion.)
Look at the country’s so-called eipicentre of multiculturalism, Toronto, where non-white people are increasingly ghettoized in poverty-stricken high-rise suburbs, where only five out of 45 city councillors are visible minorities, where the mayor talks about “orientals” “working like dogs” and where only 13% of the city’s business leadership is comprised of non-white people, according to the non-profit called the Maytree Foundation that tracks these issues.
Consider:
There was a flap recently about rural teens in Ontario are flying confederate flags.
There was a cross-burning in B.C. last year.
Now consider:
Nova Scotia has one of Canada’s lowest hate-crime rates in the country, high-profile incidents notwithstanding.
Privilege and entrenched power structures along racial lines is a nationwide problem. It is not specific to this province or this region, nor do I believe its’ worse here.
This is fantastic! As someone who is white passing, I’ve certainly noticed A LOT of advantages in how people treat me compared to my relatives who are darker skinned (even they aren’t that dark). People truly do get treated better off the bat when they’re lighter here.
The only people that will brush this article are going to be racist white people who don’t want to open their eyes to the world around them.
Yip, great article! Unmasking white privilege is necessary to understanding systemic racism (all the “isms” actually). What makes it so hard is that it’s everywhere and if you’re white, it’s “normal”. So, for those of us who are white, let’s just get used to the fact that we hold a lot of power we shouldn’t, that that’s unfair. It’s time for us whities to unlearn the nasty habits that our privilege allows us to get away with, and work for justice.
Okay, let’s set a few things straight. I’m from Toronto, and let me tell you, if you’re white in this city, then you’re the bottom of the barrel – period. Mayor Ford spoke about Asians working like dogs – and they do. They work hard, but they keep to their people. I’m living in a house owned by a nice Chinese couple. There are three other Chinese people living here. They go out of their way to be nicer to the other Chinese people, offering them all sorts of benefits that the other residents do not get. Toronto is nothing more than a bunch of pockets, as the people choose to segregate themselves. Every little pocket, hates every other little pocket, but let’s not talk about it. I was with black friends, and we saw Asians walking dogs. They commented: I guess they’re all vegetarians. I’ve been in black neighbourhoods with Asian friends who have said: you won’t find a bookstore around here, because they’re all illiterate. Muslims openly hating Jews, holding rallies wishing for their death. Little children reading hate poems on why all Jews should be exterminated. Go through the North End of Toronto, which is predominantly black and middle eastern, and they would set you on fire if they could. You’re guilty of being white, plain and simple. The white male is the last person on earth we seem to be allowed to openly hate. Whites are a minority in Toronto, which is predominantly Asian. People have become too hypersensitive about race, income and status because the media is constantly pitting us against each other. Dr Ben Carson wrote an excellent book called One Nation. In it, he talks about how hypersensitivity, the failed PC movement, and that fool Obama are not only bringing the US down, but the rest of the world with it. We need to have an open, frank discussion about race, but that might never happen because of too many crybabies out there. For the record, Dr Carson is black. He openly burnt Obama in a speech, with Obama right there. The man speaks his mind, just like Brigitte Gabriel, and holds no punches. It’s time to sheer the wool sheeple , and wake up.
Great article but what do we do about it? Tell me how we fix it? I have been saying this for years and most nod and agree. Do we keep paying lip service to the obvious and say “hmfp tsk tsk”? Do we take to the streets and burn it all down and start over? Or is there a third option? I really want to hear some doable options we can all participate in to correct this. I honestly could give a @#&* if it is worse elsewhere or if you feel the damage done by this disgusting legacy is not your fault, the fact is it still exists and in needs to be fixed now!
To “Miguel Sanchez”: you’re extolling the virtues of Ben Carson? Seriously? The Republican looney-toon who compares gays to pedophiles and bestiality? A nutter who’s compares Obama to Stalin and Hitler??? And Brigitte Gabriel, Republican mouthpiece for the xenophobic Heritage Front, who has called Arabs “sub-human” and “barbarians” and said that “no practicing Muslims should be allowed into the United States”? You’re not guilty of “being white”, as you say, you’re guilty of being moronic.
Just because all of the exploiters of race were European (and that is definitely not true), does not mean all Europeans had racial privilege. Scots, Irish, Slaves, Roma, etc etc etc were ethnically exploited for centuries. Africans of the Barbary coast took white European slaves for millennia. Why should they have guilt? What was their “privilege”?