Anti-Black racism in Ontario and Canada
According to Ontario's Anti-Racism Strategic Plan, anti-Black racism is "prejudice, attitudes, beliefs, stereotyping and discrimination that is directed at people of African descent and is rooted in their unique history and experience of enslavement." It is related to white supremacy, a system and ideological framework that asserts the rights, experiences, privileges, and dominance of white people through both conscious and unconscious ideas of white racial superiority.
Anti-Black racism is deeply embedded within Canadian policies, practices, institutions, and sectors, from child welfare and education to health and criminal justice. However, in many cases it is considered normal or is otherwise invisible to the larger white society. Manifestations of anti-Black racism include higher unemployment and poverty rates among African Canadians, anti-Black racial stereotypes, and the overrepresentation of African Canadians in school suspensions and expulsions as well as in the child welfare and criminal justice systems.
Resources
- The hidden side of paradise: Violations of the economic and social rights of African CanadiansSubmission from the African Canadian Legal Clinic to the United Nations highlighting some major areas of concern regarding Canada’s violations of the economic and social rights of African Canadians
- Errors and omissions: Anti-Black racism in Canada [2012]This report from the African Canadian Legal Clinic describes the African Canadian experience of marginalization and disadvantage resulting from the prevalence of anti-Black racism in Canada
- Report of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent on its mission to Canada [2017]This report examines Canada’s history of enslavement, racial segregation, and marginalization of African Canadians and its legacy of anti-Black racism. It also issues a number of recommendations to assist Canada in its efforts to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, Afrophobia, and related intolerance. Note: Click on "E" under Documents to access the report
- Why the Black struggle in Canada has all but been erased. Two historians explain our blind spot [2020]African Canadian historians and professors Afua Cooper and Rinaldo Walcott discuss the erasure of anti-Black racism and the Black experience in Canada
- Ontario’s Anti-Black Racism StrategyThe Ontario government’s roadmap for addressing anti-Black racism and improving outcomes for African Canadian communities. Note: This was published under the previous provincial government (Wynne administration) and is now considered archived
- Critical Race Network @ UW statement against white supremacy, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and anti-SemitismThis statement provides some insight into how critical race theorists understand white supremacy
- The language of white supremacy [2017]Article from The Atlantic looking at how the concept of white supremacy has been used and defined
