Photo from the Oberlin College Archives

Today, the United States officially celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. I like to take this day as an opportunity to reflect on his life and impact, as well as learn more about him and his mission in life besides what is commonly taught.

Today, I stumbled on a commencement address that Martin Luther King Jr. gave at my alma mater, Oberlin College in 1965. I have always been very proud of the legacy of Oberlin College related to progressing human rights  and working against discrimination (first college to accept African-Americans, first to accept women to college, and also a stop on the Underground Railroad). However, I was not aware of that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at Oberlin College several times between 1957 and 1965.

Today, his address, titled, “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution”, still carries important messages. I have included the full address below from the Oberlin College archives.

“Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution”

Commencement Address for Oberlin College

By Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

June 1965, Oberlin Ohio

“[Oberlin College] President Carr, members of the faculty, and members of the graduating class of this great institution of learning, ladies and gentlemen:

I can never come to this campus without a deep sense of appreciation and gratitude for all that this great institution has done for the cultural, political, and social life of our nation and the world. By all standards of measurement, Oberlin is one of the great colleges, not only of our nation, but of the world. I am also deeply honored to share the platform today with so many distinguished citizens of our nation – particularly our great secretary of state who, through dedicated and brilliant service, has carved for himself a niche in the annals of our nation’s history.

Now to the members of the graduating class: today you bid farewell to the safe security of the academic environment. You prepare to continue your journey on the clamorous highways of life. And I would like to have you think with me on this significant occasion on the subject, “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution”.

I’m sure that you have read that arresting little story from the pen of Washington Irving entitled Rip Van Winkle. The thing that we usually remember about this story is that Rip Van Winkle slept 20 years. But there is another point in that story that is almost always completely overlooked: it was a sign on the inn in the little town on the Hudson from which Rip went up into the mountain for his long sleep. When he went up, the sign had a picture of King George III of England. When he came down, years later, the sign had a picture of George Washington, the first president of the United States. When Rip looked up at the picture of George Washington, he was completely lost; he knew not who he was. This reveals to us that the most striking fact about the story of Rip Van Winkle is not that he slept 20 years, but that he slept through a revolution. While he was peacefully snoring up on the mountain, a great revolution was taking place in the world – indeed, a revolution which would, at points, change the course of history. And Rip Van Winkle knew nothing about it; he was asleep.

There are all too many people who, in some great period of social change, fail to achieve the new mental outlooks that the new situation demands. There is nothing more tragic than to sleep through a revolution. There can be no gainsaying of the fact that a great revolution is taking place in our world today. It is a social revolution, sweeping away the old order of colonialism. And in our own nation it is sweeping away the old order of slavery and racial segregation. The wind of change is blowing, and we see in our day and our age a significant development. Victor Hugo said on one occasion that there is nothing more powerful in all the world than an idea whose time has come. In a real sense, the idea whose time has come today is the idea of freedom and human dignity. Wherever men are assembled today, the cry is always the same, “We want to be free.” And so we see in our own world a revolution of rising expectations. The great challenge facing every individual graduating today is to remain awake through this social revolution.

I’d like to suggest some of the things that we must do in order to remain awake and to achieve the proper mental attitudes and responses that the new situation demands. First, I’d like to say that we are challenged to achieve a world perspective. Anyone who feels that we can live in isolation today, anyone who feels that we can live without being concerned about other individuals and other nations is sleeping through a revolution. The world in which we live is geographically one. The great challenge now is to make it one in terms of brotherhood.

Now it is true that the geographic togetherness of our world has been brought into being, to a large extent, through modern man’s scientific ingenuity. Modern man, through his scientific genius, has been able to dwarf distance and place time in chains. Yes, we’ve been able to carve highways through the stratosphere, and our jet planes have compressed into minutes distances that once took weeks and months. And so this is a small world from a geographical point of view. What we are facing today is the fact that through our scientific and technological genius we’ve made of this world a neighborhood. And now through our moral and ethical commitment we must make of it a brotherhood. We must all learn to live together as brothers – or we will all perish together as fools. This is the great issue facing us today. No individual can live alone; no nation can live alone. We are tied together.

I remember some time ago Mrs. King and I had the privilege of journeying to that great country, India. And I never will forget the experience – it was a marvelous experience – to meet and talk with the great leaders, with the hundreds of thousands of people all over the cities and villages of that vast country. These experiences will remain dear to me as long as the cords of memory shall lengthen. But I say to you this morning, my friends, that there were those depressing moments, for how can one avoid being depressed when he sees with his own eyes evidence of millions of people going to bed hungry? How can one avoid being depressed when he sees with his own eyes millions of people sleeping on the sidewalks at night; no beds to sleep in; no houses to go into. How can one avoid being depressed when he discovers that out of India’s population of more than 400 million people, some 380 million make an annual income of less than $90 a year. And most of these people have never seen a physician or a dentist. As I noticed these conditions, something within me cried out, “Can we in America stand idly by and not be concerned?” And an answer came, “Oh no! because the destiny of the United States is tied up with the destiny of India and every other nation.” I started thinking about the fact that we spend millions of dollars a day in our country to store surplus food, and I said to myself, “I know where we can store food free of charge – in the wrinkled stomachs of the millions of God’s children in Asia and Africa, in South America, and in our own nation who go to bed hungry at night.”

All I’m saying is simply this: that all mankind is tied together; all life is interrelated, and we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be – this is the interrelated structure of reality. John Donne caught it years ago and placed it in graphic terms: No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main… And then he goes on toward the end to say: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. And by believing this, by living out this fact, we will be able to remain awake through a great revolution.

I would like to mention, secondly, that we are challenged to work passionately and unrelentingly to get rid of racial injustice in all its dimensions. Anyone who feels that our nation can survive half segregated and half integrated is sleeping through a revolution. The challenge before us today is to develop a coalition of conscience and get rid of this problem that has been one of the nagging and agonizing ills of our nation over the years. Racial injustice is still the Negro’s burden and America’s shame. We’ve made strides, to be sure. We have come a long, long way since the Negro was first brought to this nation as a slave in 1619. In the last decade we have seen significant developments – the Supreme Court’s decision outlawing segregation in the public schools, a comprehensive Civil Rights Bill in 1964, and, in a few weeks, a new voting bill to guarantee the right to vote. All of these are significant developments, but I would be dishonest with you this morning if I gave you the impression that we have come to the point where the problem is almost solved.

We must face the honest fact that we still have a long, long way to go before the problem of racial injustice is solved. For while we are quite successful in breaking down the legal barriers to segregation, the Negro is now confronting social and economic barriers which are very real. The Negro is still at the bottom of the economic ladder. He finds himself perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. Millions of Negroes are still housed in unendurable slums; millions of Negroes are still forced to attend totally inadequate and substandard schools. And we still see, in certain sections of our country, violence and man’s inhumanity to man in the most tragic way. All of these things remind us that we have a long, long way to go. For in Alabama and Mississippi, violence and murder where civil rights workers are concerned, are popular and favorite pastimes.

Let nobody give you the impression that the problem of racial injustice will work itself out. Let nobody give you the impression that only time will solve the problem. That is a myth, and it is a myth because time is neutral. It can be used either constructively or destructively. And I’m absolutely convinced that the people of ill will in our nation – the extreme rightists – the forces committed to negative ends – have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation, not merely for the vitriolic works and violent actions of the bad people who bomb a church in Birmingham, Alabama, or shoot down a civil rights worker in Selma, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, “Wait on time.” Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals. Without this hard work, time becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. So we must help time and realize that the time is always right to do right.

There is another reason why we must get rid of racial injustice. Not merely because it is sociologically untenable or because it is politically unsound, not merely to meet the communist challenge or to create a good image in the world or to appeal to African and Asian peoples, as important as that happens to be. In the final analysis racial injustice must be uprooted from American society because it is morally wrong. Segregation is morally wrong, to use the words of the great Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber, because it substitutes an I-it relationship for the I-thou relationship. Or to use the thinking of Saint Thomas Aquinas, segregation is wrong because it is based on human laws that are out of harmony with the eternal natural and moral laws of the universe. The great Protestant theologian, Paul Tillich, said that sin is separation. And what is segregation but an existential expression of man’s tragic estrangement – his awful segregation, his terrible sinfulness? And so in order to rise to our full moral maturity as a nation, we must get rid of segregation whether it is in housing, whether it is a de facto segregation in the public schools, whether it is segregation in public accommodations, or whether it is segregation in the church. We must see that it is morally wrong. We must see that it is a national problem. And no section of our country can boast of clean hands in the area of brotherhood. We strengthen our nation, above all we strengthen our moral commitment; as we work to get rid of this problem.

Now there is another problem facing us that we must deal with if we are to remain awake through a social revolution. We must get rid of violence, hatred, and war. Anyone who feels that the problems of mankind can be solved through violence is sleeping through a revolution. I’ve said this over and over again, and I believe it more than ever today. We know about violence. It’s been the inseparable twin of Western materialism, the hallmark of its grandeur. I am convinced that violence ends up creating many more social problems than it solves. This is why I say to my people that if we succumb to the temptation of using violence in our struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness. There is another way – a way as old as the insights of Jesus of Nazareth and as modern as the techniques of Mohandas K. Gandhi. For it is possible to stand up against an unjust system with all of your might, with all of your body, with all of your soul, and yet not stoop to hatred and violence. Something about this approach disarms the opponent. It exposes his moral defenses, weakens his morale, and at the same time, works on his conscience. He doesn’t know how to handle it. So it is my great hope that, as we struggle for racial justice, we will follow that philosophy and method of non-violent resistance, realizing that this is the approach that can bring about that better day of racial justice for everyone.

In international relations, we must come to see this. We must find some alternative to war and bloodshed. In a day when man-made vehicles are dashing through outer space, and guided ballistic missiles are carving highways of death in the stratosphere, no nation can win a world war. It is no longer a choice between violence and non-violence; it is either non-violence or non-existence. The alternative may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation, our earthly habitat transformed into a tragic inferno that even Dante could not imagine. So this is our challenge: to see that war is obsolete, cast into limbo.

I do not wish to minimize the complexity of the problems to be faced in achieving disarmament and peace. But we shall not have the courage, the insight, to deal with such matters unless we are prepared to undergo a mental and spiritual change. It is not enough to say we must not wage war. We must love peace and sacrifice for it. We must fix our visions not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, far superior to the discords of war. Somehow we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which no one can win to a positive contest to harness man’s creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a peace race.

All that I’ve said is that we must work for peace, for racial justice, for economic justice, and for brotherhood the world over. We have inherited a big house, a great world house in which we have to live together – black and white, Easterners and Westerners, Gentiles and Jews, Protestants and Catholics, Moslem and Hindu. If we all learn to do this we, in a real sense, will remain awake through a great revolution.

I urge you to continue the tradition that you have followed so long, for this institution has probably done more than any other to support the struggle for racial justice. You have given your time, you have given your earnings, you have given your bodies, you have participated in demonstrations, you have participated in the determined struggle to keep this issue in the forefront of the conscience of the nation. I urge you to continue to do so as you go out into your various fields of endeavor. Never allow it to be said that you are silent onlookers, detached spectators, but that you are involved participants in the struggle to make justice a reality.

We sing a little song in our struggle – you’ve heard it – We Shall Overcome. And by that we do not mean that we shall overcome the white man. In the struggle for racial justice the Negro must not seek to rise from a position of disadvantage to one of advantage, to substitute one tyranny for another. A doctrine of black supremacy is as dangerous as a doctrine of white supremacy. God is not interested in the freedom of black men or brown men or yellow men. God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race, the creation of a society where every man will respect the dignity and worth of personality. So when we sing We Shall Overcome, we are singing a hymn of faith, a hymn of optimism, a hymn of faith in the future.

I can still sing that song because I have faith in the future. I believe that we, as Negroes, are going to gain our freedom in America because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with the destiny of America. Before the Pilgrim fathers landed at Plymouth we were here; before Thomas Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence we were here; before the words of the Star-Spangled Banner were written we were here. For more than two centuries our forbears labored here without wages. They made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters; in the midst of the most oppressive conditions they continued to grow and develop. Certainly if the inexpressible cruelties of slavery couldn’t stop us, the opposition that we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because both the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

Yes, we shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. We shall overcome because Carlyle is right: “No lie can live forever.” We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right:

Truth forever on the scaffold,

Wrong forever on the throne,

Yet that scaffold sways the future,

And behind the dim unknown

Standeth God within the shadow,

Keeping watch above his own.

We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right: “Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again.” With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair, the stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood, and speed up the day when, in the words of the prophet Amos, “Justice will roll down like waters; and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Let us stand up. Let us be a concerned generation. Let us remain awake through a great revolution. And we will speed up that great day when the American Dream will be a reality. We, in the final analysis, can gain consolation from the fact that at least we’ve made strides in our struggle for peace and in our struggle for justice. We still have a long, long way to go, but at least we’ve made a creative beginning.

And so I close by quoting the words of an old Negro slave preacher who didn’t quite have his grammar right, but uttered words of great and profound significance:

Lord, we ain’t what we oughta be;

We ain’t what we wanna be;

We ain’t what we’re gonna be;

But thank God we ain’t what we was! “

It’s in the urban dictionary – “book hangover” – when you read into the wee hours of the night, and suffer for it the next day. That’s what I have ….

I read “The Help” last night. I wanted to read it – and I was scared to read it. It had so much controversy and hullabaloo around it – black women’s voices and experiences written by a white woman.  Would it be shameful? Would it be empathetic?

But the movie had come out and I knew I would end up watching it. As a writer – I am always pulled to movies based on books. And I always need to read the book *first*.

So, I started in on it last night.

From a writer’s perspective – excellent story. I have a book hangover after all. Great pacing. Lots of tension. And you get caught up in these characters’ lives.

But there are faults. No faults that pull me out of the story. Nothing that stops me in the middle of reading a chapter where I want to throw the book against the wall.  But faults, nevertheless.

The strongest argument for and against this book I found in this blog posting (and its related links):

http://www.racialicious.com/2011/06/28/we-just-cant-avoid-the-help/

For the novel: A writer writes what they know. Even if that experience isn’t all knowing, all true, all accurate. That’s how lives are …. limited and biased. Can we expect novels to be any different from people? As one author said on this blog, “We have to be the change we want to see in others. Open minds means open pages.”

Against the novel:  The novel perpetuates damaging stereotypes. An understanding of the segregation, its causes and its solutions appear to be (as one author quotes) “amusing anecdotes” of African-American women portrayed in the novel. The Civil Rights Movement wasn’t an accident. It was a movement, initiated by hundreds of intelligent, passionate and brave women and men. They would have come to these insights way before someone outside their community asked them to “think and write about their life.”

The point is – I couldn’t very well criticize or laud the book unless I read it, right? Discussion has to be informed discussion. Take a read and see what you think. But as I write this, I realize what really pulled me in.

There is a new generation of “the help” in Canada. As a Filipina-Canadian, born right here in Alberta, I have a lot of privilege. Education. Work experience in Canada. My citizenship. But in no way do I forget what could have been my lot in life. Every couple of years, a new cousin arrives from the Philippines. Just like me – educated. But, despite their experience as nurses, midwives, marketing consultants – they start as a nanny here. Start from scratch. Now, if someone who criticized The Help, went to these present day women and asked to put together a *real* novel – with their real life experiences … well, then maybe all of this hullaballoo would be worth it.

Roxanne Felix is a Youth Program Manager at the Centre for Race and Culture in Edmonton.

The views presented above do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Race and Culture.

Race riots are not a new phenomenon. They have occurred numerous times throughout our history.

In the United States, race riots occurred in 1897, at sugar plantations in Louisiana; 1891, Omaha, Nebraska; 1906, Little Rock, Arkansas; and 1917, East St Louis. The Chicago, 1919 were the worst of 25 race riots across the US that summer. More riots took place in Tulsa, Alabama, 1921; 1935 in Harlem; 1943: Detroit, Harlem and Los Angeles. The Selma, Alabama riots of 1965 were led by Martin Luther King when peaceful protest failed, after King’s assassination, rioting took place in 125 cities in the US. Watts and Los Angeles saw riots in 1965; Gordon Lightfoot’s Black Day in July was written about Watts. Take a listen to it – it’s a dark and gloomy but poignant piece. In 1992, Los Angeles, race riots erupted after police were acquitted of physically assaulting Rodney King. And in more 2009, Oakland, California. And there have been more.

We have had our very own riots in Canada.  Toronto, 1933 – Christie Pits Race Riot; Vancouver, 1907, anti-Asian riot; and in 1992, the Rodney King riots spread to our own country, to Toronto, Yonge Street.

Britain has also had a long history of race riots. 1919, South Shields; 1919, Cardiff; 1919, Liverpool; 1919, London; 1948; 1958, Nottingham; 1958 and 1967), London; 1979, Notting Hill (No, not the place where Hugh Grant fell in love with Julia Roberts!); 1979, London; 1980, Bristol, 1980; five race riots in 1981 in Brixton, Toxteth, Birmingham, Leeds, and Manchester; and in 1985, three in London, one in Leeds, and one in Manchester. Then various riots about every 2 years from 1985 – 2001. Then Birmingham again in 2005.

During the 1980‘s, riots in Britain produced a similar government retort to the one we are hearing now. “Riots reflect a society run on green and looting.” David Cameron, Prime Minister of Britain said last week that the most recent riots had “no cause beyond feral wickedness… criminality, pure and simple,” (from the Guardian). Interestingly, even as the government of the time was criticizing (in public) the moral fortitude of the rioters, behind closed doors, David Heseltine was launching a private members bill in parliament appealing for urgent action needed to deal with urban deprivation. He said that “it took a riot” to make them see the need.

Let’s take a look at the bigger picture. What has caused racialized people to erupt in violence so very frequently over history? Regarding the recent riots in Tottenham, where many racialized people abide, austere moves by a government bent on recession-style budget cuts resulted in a dramatic reduction of the  education maintenance allowance.  This allowance was given to the few racialized people who strove for and were admitted to university, despite having to overcome many barriers.  Those who managed to get their tuition together were met with a tripling in that cost. And, in this very impoverished area, the few venues for positive recreation were closed down.  Pitts, a criminologist quoted in the Guardian responded that most participating youth “do not have much of a legitimate future” and really “have nothing to lose”. When hope is taken away, hopelessness and anger take over, and we see mass violence.  And as you can see from the examples listed above, it happens often.

There is so much we can do to create equitable opportunities in our society. Let it not “take a riot” for us to see the tremendous possibilities we have.

Charlene Hay is the Executive Director of the Centre for Race and Culture. The views presented above do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Race and Culture.

(Image from newsinn.com)

The recent rioting in London is not the first time that Britons have taken to the streets in the past few years but, chances are, that you have forgotten the meaning and significance of the last few mass protests. Why? Because they didn’t receive a reaction.

In 2003, it was estimated that between 750,000 – 2 million people peacefully marched in London, opposing military intervention in the Iraq war. What was the result? The U.K. Government supported and participated in the war anyway.

On March 26, 2011, it was estimated that 250,000-400,000 people took to the streets of London to protest the government’s plan to deeply cut spending on social programs. What was the result? The government went ahead with its cuts anyway and the media focused on a small group of violent protesters (maybe 1000 out of 250,000) that used the opportunity to smash windows and set fire to buildings.

In a democracy, we are told that the people hold the power – that our elected representatives are there to listen to the people whom they represent – but what message does it send to people when their peaceful protests are rendered impotent and powerless?

The current “protesters” in London are using violent tactics that seem to spring up spontaneously and without order. (And I call them “protesters” and not “rioters” or “criminals” because people who take to the streets in any kind of collective fashion have some kind of grievance at the heart of their actions – whether they recognize and name it or not. See an analysis of this idea here). Thousands are participating in these riots but what will be the result? Probably nothing at all– save for more reinforcement of negative stereotypes by the media about youth and visible minorities.

All aforementioned protests in London drew on the collective power of people but they all failed (or will fail) because they were not able to dismantle the systems of oppression that they were protesting against in the first place. The protesters focus their attention on individual people in power or on institutions, such as the government, that hold power, but they do not attack a neoliberal system that has been oppressing them for decades and has remained constant despite political changes from a Labour to a Conservative government or a change in the personnel that runs the country.

Some people will say that the latest London protest is about race or class or about hooliganism, but it is about all those things and about more than those things. The neoliberal policies of the last three decades have claimed to redistribute wealth but have only created policies that have concentrated the wealth into fewer and fewer hands. If the state says, “we won’t care for you anymore, you need to care for yourself,” then the pressures are concentrated on individuals and their individual actions are implied to be the reason for their success or their failure. The government is no longer responsible. “We had nothing to do with it,” they say, “we left all the decisions up to you.”

These neoliberal policies effect those who already face an uphill battle against inequity due to the intersectionality of race, class, gender, ethnicity, religious affiliation and other factors. So we will see lots of poor racialized people protesting in London. We will also see poor white people and other segments of society who feel that they have no access to power. Most likely, these groups will not gain anything from their actions.

So why do people take to the streets? Perhaps it is because they feel that it is the only way to create change. But collective power must be exercised with an awareness of what change it wishes to create in the world. On the flip-side, government can no longer ignore the challenges plaguing those at the margins of their society. London must try again— with protesters finding a unified and resonating message that will not fall on deaf ears.

Ashima Sumaru is an Education Coordinator of the Migrant Routes program of the Centre for Race and Culture. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Race and Culture.

According to Jezebel, a bride in South Africa wanted a Colonial Africa themed wedding and hired an all black wait staff to fit the theme. This wedding has sparked not only disbelief and outrage but also questions of whether or not the bride and groom had malicious intent when they planned their special day.

Read the original post and see pictures here. (Picture at left taken from Jezebel)

The venue for the wedding has issued a press release.

By Stephanie Molina

According to a recent report by  the Fraser Institute immigration is costing Canada over 23 billion a year and the often touted benefits of immigration to Canada and Canadians doesn’t match the cost.

Many have already commented on the problematic nature of how the numbers may have been calculated – and there has also been interesting arguments made that immigrants are reducing the overall crime rate in Canada. I, however,  want to consider how the systemic discrimination that newcomers and immigrants face may impact how we consider the net cost or benefits of folks coming to Canada to make a new life.

Another recent report released in May by the Fraser Institute’s ideological counterpoint, the Centre for Policy Alternatives, uses the same economic data from the 2006 Statscan census. The report titled: “Canada’s Colour Coded Labour Market” tells a story of the economic situation in Canada as it relates to people of colour. According to one of the reports authors, Grace-Edward Galabuzi, “We found that during the heyday of Canada’s pre-recession economic boom, racialized Canadians were more willing to work, but experienced higher levels of unemployment and earned less income than non-racialized Canadians. The distribution of work tells a disturbing story: Equal access to opportunity eludes many racialized Canadians.”

So why do we need to look at these two documents side by side?  The answer is people of colour.  The Fraser report doesn’t mention it, but the reality of immigration to Canada today and since the correction of discriminatory immigration policy in the late 70’s, is that it is that it is overwhelmingly people of colour that are choosing to migrate to Canada.  The demographics here have shifted dramatically in the last 40 years in terms of racial representation and the fact of the matter is that when people of colour come to Canada, they will most likely be contending with forms of discrimination based on race and ethnicity, that the dominant white population has no need to consider when they apply for a job.

So while we can spend a lot of time calculating, debating and re-calculating the numbers of what immigrants contribute to the Canadian economy in the end we still need to address the issue of discrimination in employment that both immigrants of colour and their second and third generation children experience.

It seems unfair to claim that immigrants are costing Canada, when we haven’t given them an equitable opportunity to contribute.  Immigrants contribute less to the tax share, partly because of support they need to settle, but also because, in the end, because of racism, and discrimination a disproportionate number of newcomers work in low paying, temporary or insecure conditions.  And more shocking is that this discrepancy continues beyond first generation newcomers to their children and even their grandchildren.

The answer then lies not in reducing the number of immigrants or placing conditions on immigration – barriers, which are already strong and contribute negatively to the ability of newcomers to find good jobs. Rather, government should address the society and the systemic barriers that newcomers are arriving to.  If Canada is serious about making the most of its immigration policy then it should seek to address inequity in employment and services by creating more programs to address the discriminatory obstacles that immigrants and people of colour face when coming to Canada.  The alternative, proposed by the Fraser Institute, is blaming immigrants as a drain on the economy.   This ideology has the unfortunate outcome of fostering bias and discrimination against newcomers that in turn only reinforces the cycle of underemployment, exclusion and inequity.  The longer we take to address this issue of discrimination, the longer we will be keeping immigrants and their children from contributing to Canada’s success.

Ian Mathieson is an Education Coordinator at the Centre for Race and Culture. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Race and Culture.

“i’m so glad that i just heard this song. i’m victim to many stereotypical comments and racist jokes just because i’m black so its great to hear a song that makes me feel slightly liberated from it. even if its just a little bit, i’m glad to be a little bit mentally free.“

Why was I left a bit breathless after reading this comment? Well, I think it was because those words spoke so clearly to the debilitating impact racism can have on our lives. The person who wrote this comment expressed feeling victimized and imprisoned by racism. As someone who does not experience racism often, the thought of someone being constantly subjected to it is very painful and impacts me deeply.

I am glad that Shad is sharing his words with the world and offering a fresh and honest perspective in which some can find solace from racism. Take a couple of minutes and have a listen. Does this song resonate with you?

Racialicious has a fabulicious post (excuse the made-up word) for those who are fans of the shows 30 Rock or The Office. For those unfamiliar with the Racialicious blog, it is ” blog about the intersection of race and pop culture. ” And so this post by Guest Contributor, Joi Foley, is an interesting post comparing the shows two different takes on dealing with issues of race.

“Elements of Diversity: How Change Agents, Activists, Advocates, and Other Do-Gooders Seem to Not Get It Right After 40 Years of Trying”

Read this interesting article here.