What is "Race" and Racism?

What is Racism?

There has been a great focus on racism in the recent past. Some Canadians even argue that we live in a post-racial society (e.g. “Obama was voted in!” “we have employment equity laws to fix any racism!”), but time and again, science has told us that racism still affects racialized Canadians, Indigenous peoples, and (racialized more than non-racialized) immigrants today.

If we truly lived in a post racial society, then on a regional, provincial, and national level, we would see humans of all racialized identities earning the same amount of money, passing down similar amounts of wealth to the next generation, achieving the same levels of educational attainment, experiencing the same level of policing, enjoying the same overall health outcomes, living free from environmental toxins, living the same length of time, etc.

But this is simply not the case: Read this recent news story by CTV News that provides a few statistics demonstrating Systemic Racism in Canada (check out how Dr. O'Dowd defines this term).

On virtually every indicator (income, wealth, educational attainment, health outcomes, etc.), racialized individuals fare worse than non-racialized (white) people. Why? It is not because of some genetic predisposition to making less money, having a different IQ, or by simply being a better equipped individual. It has to do with how the historical marginalization of certain people based on racist assumptions continues to play out and impact lives in contemporary practices and interactions (i.e. systemic racism).

Therefore, our team thinks about racism as more than one 'bad apple' who simply needs to be educated about their misunderstandings. Racism does occur between people in everyday life but, it is also baked into Canadian (North American, western, etc.) systems, institutions and infrastructure.

When racism occurs, we tend to picture the perpetrator as a white supremacist holding a swastika sign shouting racist slurs. But this is only one kind of racism (hate racism). Racism is enacted by ordinary individuals everyday in their thoughts, decisions, and actions. Racism is complex and it manifests in many, varied complex ways.

Racism is defined as “the belief that racial identity is an inherent and inherited human characteristic, linked to innate capacities assumed to be permanent and common across a particular group. Racism also involves the belief that these races are hierarchically ranked or deferentially valued in terms of capacities (e.g. intelligence) judged inferior and superior” (Hartigan, 2015, p.242).

Can anyone commit racism?

The vast majority of racism is enacted by those who hold dominant positions in society (in a perceived racial, social or cultural sense, e.g. be a majority community member) and who have the power (whether in the workplace, in conversations, etc.) to enact their prejudices. But racist ideologies infect everyone living in that society, not just the majority community. Further, racism does not just mean the disadvantage of some, but the advantage of others. Here in Canada, white settlers are the majority community who experience racial advantage (see our page on whiteness) at the expense of historically marginalized and racialized individuals.

One way to think about how racism is enacted is with this equation: Racism = prejudice + power

Racism is supported by racist ideologies that have been crafted over centuries and can be seen in everyday conversations and actions, in seemingly colourblind hiring and promotion policies in the workplace, and in the laws of our country. In some cases, individuals may enact racism unwittingly and unconsciously. Follow this link or this link to learn more about intent versus impact or, read Ijeoma Oluo’s text ‘So you want to talk about race?’). Ibram X. Kendi's How to be an anti-racist is another important source to help reflect on the complexities of racism. If you are new to this topic, I recommend reading Oluo's work first.

To read more about our thoughts on what is racism, you can check out this google doc which is a fluid (constantly changing, updating) document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Nc8mU3OEwNcaiBOYhF0rsIB5kxTZ-sM2LAgr_3cKjbw/edit

Jennifer Long, PhD, 2021