Racism in the Region

[dtkvictim]

So the hate that is online really isn't from the people who are constantly associating with them it is more so from those who are of an older demographic.

I disagree with this, and would actually caution against believing racism will die out with older generations. My personal experience with the older people in my life is that they generally just don't care about Canada, it's developments, and its future. Demographics aren't really a concern for them, and any racism they express seems to come from ignorance rather than hatred. They are simply coasting towards retirement in the Canada of yesteryear.

Meanwhile I've had a shocking, and honestly disappointing, number of friends in the 20-35 age range develop racist beliefs. Most of these people are university educated, and many of them also attended the diverse Cameron Heights with me. Many are non-white and/or immigrants themselves. I think a major point that also separates younger people from the older generations is that their racism is far more informed and thus held with more conviction. Younger people like me grew up dining in the homes of immigrants with wildly different backgrounds, we have decade long online friendships with people in the most random parts of the world, we consume vast amounts media from outside of the American cultural empire, etc. The problem is that despite being so informed about other cultures they, just like seemingly everyone in this thread, fail the separate the individual from the group. Their informed racism is the other side of the coin to you suggesting that interacting with, befriending, or loving an individual from a culture precludes taking issue with the culture.

[danbrotherston]

Has racism increased in the region in the past few years? I definitely feel like it has, just perusing the Waterloo subreddit. More complaints about "foreign students", foreign drivers, people not speaking English.

I don't think people's internal views regarding race/ethnicity shift at nearly the speed that you're observing in public discourse. The other option is that the increase in racism is stemming from the newcomers themselves, which while I think is probably true outside of this discussion, is definitely not what you're referring to and is not who is leaving the comments you're reading online.

Rather, I think what you're observing is a shift in the environment causing greater contact between diverse cultures and thus more opportunity for conflict. In my own opinion, what you're observing is multiculturalism as it has functioned throughout basically the entirety of human history up to and including today.

I think it's also important for this discussion to not conflate critique of culture and cultural issues with racism.

Leaving aside the question of what the level of immigration should be (I mean, I'm of the opinion that more open borders are a good thing--but I also live in the EU)...

You also, perhaps not consciously, moved to a less diverse place (especially compared to SW Ontario) and one that has more or less rejected multiculturalism.

Two things I wanted to touch on here:

I don't think culture is different from race. Race is a social construct. While there are some genetic markers that allow us to guestimate someone's lineage which is roughly correlated with race, the concept of race is something that is deeply social. I'd have trouble defining race differently from culture. 

I see it "culture" often used as a defense against racism. "No, I'm not racist, I just think the CULTURE that Indian people grow up with encourages being rude and shoving on the bus"...because teenagers (or entitled adults) who grew up in Canadian culture never push to try to get to the front of the line. To me, I really don't think they are different.

Even things which you would think are "cultural" or framed in a cultural way...like "honor killings". We call them that, but we don't call them that when white people do the same thing in Western countries for the same reasons. We just call it murder.

I know there are cultural differences, but I think it is very dangerous to ascribe specific internal traits to a group of any kind. To me, culture is more visible and communal. The CULTURE of Canada involves things like Canada day...a holiday where lots of celebrations happen, and people have different personal interpretations of and feelings about those communal events.

The second one, my experiences...

I wouldn't be so bold as to try and state what Dutch people in general feel or do, or how they interpret multi-culturalism (although the sample inburgering (citizenship) tests are...almost comically racist in their framing so that does give some clue...OTOH here is one Dutch person's interpretation of them--there are English subtitles for those interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j44IVZ5T...tchwithKim).

As for myself, I had heard that we were moving to a more mono-cultural place, and I knew that...it certainly wasn't the motivation (not even subconsciously, and I do know). Upon arriving...we've found it to be...significantly more mult-cultural than I expected. Of the 10 neighbours in our block that I know well enough to chat with, only four of them are Dutch. I'm told we've moved to a relatively multi-cultural place in our city, but we are in a small city outside the randstad with no University. Now...we aren't in the north of the country, or really far away from the big cities. But certainly it was surprising to us just how multicultural it was, given what we had expected. And frankly, it is a pleasant surprise, and frankly, living in Kitchener didn't actually seem all that multicultural. While I know more of my neighbours now, in Canada, none of my neighbours that I knew were not Canadian.

So who knows...like all things, I think there is more variation locally than people expect.

[danbrotherston]

The other thing is that people seem to be more willing to translate online hate into in-person hate. The NZ election is in less than two weeks and e.g. a Te Pāti Māori candidate has had her house broken into twice.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/o...aign-trail

NZ has traditionally been a pretty no-need-for-security place (Christchurch attacks notwithstanding?)

Waterloo Region? I have no idea. I'm not there right now, and even if I was, I would be in my own bubble (as many of us are).

Yeah, we really are...

It was kinda eye opening for me when one of my friends in my grad program told me she wasn't comfortable visiting the market in Kitchener. I know the area is rough, but on market day it's so busy that it feels perfectly friendly to me. But I've never had racial slurs shouted at me....or had an egg thrown at me...as she had...

[tomh009]

Has racism increased in the region in the past few years? I definitely feel like it has, just perusing the Waterloo subreddit. More complaints about "foreign students", foreign drivers, people not speaking English.

Foreign drivers? Yeah, the Toronto drivers are really aggressive and obnoxious, we should not allow them in our region!

And, seriously, people not speaking English in public? When did that become illegal? The foreign students and other immigrants do, as a rule, speak English quite well, but of course they may speak another language with family or friends.

(And, no, Dan, these comments are not aimed at you.)

[dtkvictim]

I don't think culture is different from race. Race is a social construct. While there are some genetic markers that allow us to guestimate someone's lineage which is roughly correlated with race, the concept of race is something that is deeply social. I'd have trouble defining race differently from culture. 

I don't think it's possible to have a conversation without talking past each other without clarifying this point. Personally I prefer to use the word ethnicity to encompass the combination of genetic grouping and culture. It is a deeply social construct meaning that the amount that culture and genetics contributes to that group identity is up the members of the group, but it is still very real. Racism to me would be judging, making assumptions about, or discriminating against an individual based on their immutable genetic background. You have now prompted me to consider that racism intersects with culture, in that I think it would be racist to assume someones culture based on their phenotype, or to believe that all members of an ethnicity are stereotypical representations of their culture.

I see it "culture" often used as a defense against racism. "No, I'm not racist, I just think the CULTURE that Indian people grow up with encourages being rude and shoving on the bus"...because teenagers (or entitled adults) who grew up in Canadian culture never push to try to get to the front of the line. To me, I really don't think they are different.

I don't see your argument here. Do you consider shoving your way onto a train an action beyond critique? The behaviour is either genetic or cultural, and I certainly don't think it's genetic. If we can't critique culture, that we can't critique that behaviour.

Using Canadian culture as an excuse is a poor defense. Using the train example, we clearly sit somewhere in the middle of a spectrum between places like Japan and India. Am I supposed to accept both as equivalents, and movement in either direction as functionally irrelevant? I reject that idea, and I know which direction I would prefer Canadian culture develop towards.

And again, culture does not mean every individual within it is a stereotypical representation of it. It's about averages, and the outliers don't change that.

Even things which you would think are "cultural" or framed in a cultural way...like "honor killings". We call them that, but we don't call them that when white people do the same thing in Western countries for the same reasons. We just call it murder.

Most people are relatively blind to their own culture, yes. Doubly so for English speakers, Westerners, and North Americans whose culture (especially through media) has dominated globally for decades. That doesn't negate the existence of culture.

I know there are cultural differences, but I think it is very dangerous to ascribe specific internal traits to a group of any kind. To me, culture is more visible and communal. The CULTURE of Canada involves things like Canada day...a holiday where lots of celebrations happen, and people have different personal interpretations of and feelings about those communal events.

Now, if I'm reading this correctly (and I might not be), this is where I strongly disagree. Hardline advocates of multiculturalism often seem to take an offensively simplistic view of culture. Superficial visual representations of culture like song, food, and dance are indeed culture, but IMO are the least important aspects of it. It pains me that the number one defense you find online of multiculturalism is "but what about the food???". It tells me that either 1) they have such a superficial and ignorant understanding of culture that they think food really is the biggest difference between cultures, or 2) they have nothing good to say about other cultures that the only positive they can come up with is food (though it definitely is usually a positive!).

There are far more important aspects to culture, many or most of which are not visible. These are as fundamental as things like perception of space and time. Do you like when people aren't physically pressed against you in the grocery store line, accept LGBTQ+ people, bring their trash home instead of littering, show up to scheduled meetings at the scheduled time, believe in the scientific method as the supreme way of knowing, aid strangers in need of help, or prefer democracy over monarchy/theocracy? Then you have cultural preferences, and unless you think people are genetically predisposed to adhere to or not from these, then I don't think that's racist.

Maybe this is tangential to your OP, but I think a lot of what you're reading online is cultural critique, though it's no doubt mixed in with some racism.

[nms]

I think in general, for certain generations, the appearance of "the other" (insert differentiating characteristic here) can be a challenge, especially if it appears as if "the other" has some sort of advantage over the non-other. This can equally affect an older generation ("This no longer looks like the place I grew up") or a younger generation ("I can't buy a house/get a job here.")

Going back over the past 200+ years of settlement in region, prior generations of "others" (mainly white Europeans) folded into the general population after a few generations with, perhaps, the exception of the Old Order Mennonite population. Kids in my generation who went to German school on Saturday mornings at the behest of their parents or grandparents, likely aren't sending their kids to German school, though they may keep some of their German traditions. While the same path of shifting from "other" to "non-other" is likely true regardless of where someone's parents or grandparents came from, in some cases an entirely Canadianized person of colour can still standout in the produce aisle next to an equally Canadianized grandchild of someone who immigrated from Germany in 1952.

[ijmorlan]

Racism to me would be judging, making assumptions about, or discriminating against an individual based on their immutable genetic background.

I would insert “assumptions about” in front of “their”. Racism is generally not a carefully-considered activity, where we find out a person’s genetic background and then discriminate against them based on that; it’s based on assumptions about who they are. Sometimes people who aren’t in a marginalized group get a glimpse of what it’s like to be in that group when somebody misidentifies them for whatever reason.

Obviously, my point isn’t that it would be better if racists were more careful and more precise in their racism; the point is that being racist is inherently ignorant and anti-intellectual.

[danbrotherston]

Has racism increased in the region in the past few years? I definitely feel like it has, just perusing the Waterloo subreddit. More complaints about "foreign students", foreign drivers, people not speaking English.

Foreign drivers? Yeah, the Toronto drivers are really aggressive and obnoxious, we should not allow them in our region!

And, seriously, people not speaking English in public? When did that become illegal? The foreign students and other immigrants do, as a rule, speak English quite well, but of course they may speak another language with family or friends.

(And, no, Dan, these comments are not aimed at you.)

Haha...

I'm the one who lives in a country where English is not the main language* but who speaks English and doesn't speak the native language (much). Just because most people here do speak English I don't think negates that entirely.

FWIW, I do know that before I open my mouth, I can more or less "pass" as a non-immigrant, although in the EU, I suspect that is somewhat less important. But I've always feel a little funny when there are people of  a visible minority speaking perfect Dutch that I cannot follow at all.

* The funny thing is the official primary EU language--the language all meetings, business, and official communications are conducted in--is English...which is not the first language of any of the member nations (thanks to Brexit anyway). It does provide a nice kind of neutral ground where nobody is favoured.

[danbrotherston]

I don't think culture is different from race. Race is a social construct. While there are some genetic markers that allow us to guestimate someone's lineage which is roughly correlated with race, the concept of race is something that is deeply social. I'd have trouble defining race differently from culture. 

I don't think it's possible to have a conversation without talking past each other without clarifying this point. Personally I prefer to use the word ethnicity to encompass the combination of genetic grouping and culture. It is a deeply social construct meaning that the amount that culture and genetics contributes to that group identity is up the members of the group, but it is still very real. Racism to me would be judging, making assumptions about, or discriminating against an individual based on their immutable genetic background. You have now prompted me to consider that racism intersects with culture, in that I think it would be racist to assume someones culture based on their phenotype, or to believe that all members of an ethnicity are stereotypical representations of their culture.

I do hope that you don't feel I am talking past you .

I see it "culture" often used as a defense against racism. "No, I'm not racist, I just think the CULTURE that Indian people grow up with encourages being rude and shoving on the bus"...because teenagers (or entitled adults) who grew up in Canadian culture never push to try to get to the front of the line. To me, I really don't think they are different.

I don't see your argument here. Do you consider shoving your way onto a train an action beyond critique? The behaviour is either genetic or cultural, and I certainly don't think it's genetic. If we can't critique culture, that we can't critique that behaviour.

Using Canadian culture as an excuse is a poor defense. Using the train example, we clearly sit somewhere in the middle of a spectrum between places like Japan and India. Am I supposed to accept both as equivalents, and movement in either direction as functionally irrelevant? I reject that idea, and I know which direction I would prefer Canadian culture develop towards.

And again, culture does not mean every individual within it is a stereotypical representation of it. It's about averages, and the outliers don't change that.

Even things which you would think are "cultural" or framed in a cultural way...like "honor killings". We call them that, but we don't call them that when white people do the same thing in Western countries for the same reasons. We just call it murder.

Most people are relatively blind to their own culture, yes. Doubly so for English speakers, Westerners, and North Americans whose culture (especially through media) has dominated globally for decades. That doesn't negate the existence of culture.

I know there are cultural differences, but I think it is very dangerous to ascribe specific internal traits to a group of any kind. To me, culture is more visible and communal. The CULTURE of Canada involves things like Canada day...a holiday where lots of celebrations happen, and people have different personal interpretations of and feelings about those communal events.

Now, if I'm reading this correctly (and I might not be), this is where I strongly disagree. Hardline advocates of multiculturalism often seem to take an offensively simplistic view of culture. Superficial visual representations of culture like song, food, and dance are indeed culture, but IMO are the least important aspects of it. It pains me that the number one defense you find online of multiculturalism is "but what about the food???". It tells me that either 1) they have such a superficial and ignorant understanding of culture that they think food really is the biggest difference between cultures, or 2) they have nothing good to say about other cultures that the only positive they can come up with is food (though it definitely is usually a positive!).

There are far more important aspects to culture, many or most of which are not visible. These are as fundamental as things like perception of space and time. Do you like when people aren't physically pressed against you in the grocery store line, accept LGBTQ+ people, bring their trash home instead of littering, show up to scheduled meetings at the scheduled time, believe in the scientific method as the supreme way of knowing, aid strangers in need of help, or prefer democracy over monarchy/theocracy? Then you have cultural preferences, and unless you think people are genetically predisposed to adhere to or not from these, then I don't think that's racist.

Maybe this is tangential to your OP, but I think a lot of what you're reading online is cultural critique, though it's no doubt mixed in with some racism.

Certainly I think that there are some universally good human values, although trying to define a complete list is something we literally fight wars over. So do I think it is wrong that some cultures (like our own) treat women as lesser or even property of men, obviously.

These are hard questions.

But I don't see that as the example most of the time when people are talking about immigrant's culture. Usually it is around "rudeness" or other relatively minor complaints. And yes people will justify "rudeness" as not being disruptive, but really rudeness is completely defined by culture. Our society has lots of disruptive behaviour, but culturally we only consider some of it rude. And that also changes over time. Smoking inside used to be normal. Now it would be very rude, so much so it is prohibited.

As for what culture is, my point was that I see culture as communal customs and traditions, not individual behaviour. I would just never ascribe individual traits from a cultural tradition. If it is tradition to own women, that is a bad tradition. But a person who is misogynist against their wife isn't doing that because of culture, they're doing it because they're misogynist. And sure, there is a lot of grey, but plenty of non-misogynist people come out of cultures that have a tradition of misogyny. Sure, we should try to change culture which is bad, but we shouldn't use that cultural context to make assumptions about individuals. I think we're on the same page about that.

So...do you think that culture is more about how to behave or more about how to feel?

[cherrypark]

On the specific topic of recent local spikes in racist sentiment and statements, the connection of the current housing crisis and controversial policies for student visas and immigration centred on Conestoga College has created a permission structure to single them out. No doubt it's on the rise generally, especially online, but it seems that specific target group has had an easily reachable "reason" to target.

[KevinL]

* The funny thing is the official primary EU language--the language all meetings, business, and official communications are conducted in--is English...which is not the first language of any of the member nations (thanks to Brexit anyway). It does provide a nice kind of neutral ground where nobody is favoured.

Pedant's corner - English is an official language of Ireland (alongside Gaelige).

[tomh009]

* The funny thing is the official primary EU language--the language all meetings, business, and official communications are conducted in--is English...which is not the first language of any of the member nations (thanks to Brexit anyway). It does provide a nice kind of neutral ground where nobody is favoured.

Pedant's corner - English is an official language of Ireland (alongside Gaelige).

And Malta. But, I believe, in each case it's the second official language.

[danbrotherston]

Pedant's corner - English is an official language of Ireland (alongside Gaelige).

And Malta. But, I believe, in each case it's the second official language.

Ahh. Fair point, I did forget about Ireland (as did most brexiteers). 

Malta I had no idea that English was an official language, I had associated it with other languages. Their golden citizenship makes more sense now.

[danbrotherston]

I still don't think it's entirely online, but I do think it's worth muting /r/kitchener these days.

[danbrotherston]

Thoughts on this:

I see pretty frequent posts (to /r/waterloo) ostensibly complaining about "landlords" only accepting applications from prospective tenants of a specific ethnicity (or gender).

But often when I read into this, it's not "landlords" but "roommates". People are looking for a roommate to sublet to. While this might still make them technically a landlord, they are also a roommate.

FWIW...I don't really think the same standard can be applied. I think people have a right to be choosy about who they live with. I think it's probably still individually racist for a person to exclude someone from consideration as a roommate because of their race, but I find it much harder to call it illegal discrimination.

To take a different example, it is also common for people to choose roommates based on gender, but people are much less likely to call that sexist, despite it being exactly the same scenario.

Do you think people should be allowed to discriminate who they room with based on race? Or am I just crazy here?