Anti-Indigenous Racism

What is Anti-Indigenous Racism?

Anti-Indigenous racism is the ongoing race-based discrimination, negative stereotyping, and injustice experienced by Indigenous Peoples within Canada. It includes ideas and practices that establish, maintain and perpetuate power imbalances, systemic barriers, and inequitable outcomes that stem from the legacy of colonial policies and practices in Canada.

Systemic anti-Indigenous racism is evident in discriminatory federal policies such as the Indian Act and the residential school system. It is also manifest in the overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in provincial criminal justice and child welfare systems, as well as inequitable outcomes in education, well-being, and health. Individual lived-experiences of anti-Indigenous racism can be seen in the rise in acts of hostility and violence directed at Indigenous people.

What is Colonialism?

Colonialism is the historical practice of European expansion into territories already inhabited by Indigenous peoples for the purposes of acquiring new lands and resources. This expansion is rooted in the violent suppression of Indigenous peoples’ governance, legal, social and cultural structures. Colonialism attempts to force Indigenous peoples to accept and integrate into institutions that are designed to force them to conform with the structures of the colonial state. “Colonialism remains an ongoing process, shaping both the structure and the quality of the relationship between settlers and Indigenous peoples.” (TRC Final Report, 2016 What We Have Learned: Principles of Truth and Reconciliation)

Identify, Interrupt & Disrupt Anti-Indigenous Racism:

A Framework

Understanding and dismantling anti-Indigenous Racism requires a framework that shows educators how structural anti-Indigenous racism is created and reproduced. Educators also need to understand how First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples demonstrate resistance, resilience and brilliance in spite of the structural racism they face. The sections are organized by resources that help you to identify, interrupt and disrupt anti-Indigenous racism.

Framework adapted from "Implicit Bias and Structural Racialization,” By Kathleen Osta & Hugh Vasquez, National Equity Project

Priming, Associations, Assumptions

Dominant narratives about about race (family, media, society) coupled with racial hierarchies in institutions and society and differential outcomes by race all prime us to believe that Indigenous peoples are inferior to white people, create and maintain harmful associations, and lead us to make harmful assumptions, consciously and unconsciously, about First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.

History, Policies, Practices

Race is a socially constructed idea to justify white superiority over Indigenous, Black and racialized peoples. Policies and practices that consolidate and protect power bestow unearned economic, social, cultural and political advantage to people called 'white' an unearned disadvantage to Black, Indigenous and racialized peoples. National narratives (ideology, belief systems) about Indigenous peoples being 'less than human' (or savages) justifies mistreatment and inequality.

Inequitable Outcomes, Racial Disparities

Inequitable outcomes and experiences resulting from policy decisions in health, housing, employment, education and life expectancy, reinforces white supremacist beliefs and ideology; the dominant narrative uses disparate outcomes as evidence of white superiority, promotes whiteness as normal and desirable and justifies inequality.

Brilliance, Resistance, Resilience

Despite the history of colonization and current government sanctioned injustices, First Nation, Inuit and Métis peoples have demonstrated continued brilliance, through organized resistance and cultural resilience. Students needs to hear this counter narrative through text selections and teaching of history and contemporary realities to ensure that highlighting injustice against Indigenous peoples does not lead to assumptions that they are powerless or lack agency in the face of structural racism.

Explore the resources below to identify, interrupt, and disrupt Anti-Indigenous Racism