[PEN-L:8827] Re: racism

[Rod Hay <rodhay@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bill can rant all he wants but he is short on the facts.

I never said there was no class segregation in Canada. The is in fact plenty
of it.

He does not have the studies at hand, because they do not exist. I will post
later a list of studies that show that "race" has no significant effect on
income. The simple corelations that he quotes on language, not "race" are
misleading. Look at the multivariate analysis and then tell me that "race"
is an issue. It fact the latest studies show that there is a slight positive
effect on income for those who the government calls "visible minorities".

There are few treaties in British Columbia but that is not the case in the
rest of the country. One of the conditions that B.C. agreed to enter was
that it be allowed to keep its pre-Confederation Indian Policy. That the
right of conquest allowed the occupation of the land. The rest of the
country has required treaties to cede the land. A careful study of the
history of these treaties would show that the Federal government has
systematically violated the terms, and that if they had not the economic
position of the natives would be significantly better than it is now.

Bill may not place much hope in the "bourgeois" school system. But where
else is going to place his hope. The educational system if the method that
has dissolved the "legacy of racism" that Bill sees everywhere. It is system
that working class activist for many generations have fought to achive. It
is not perfect, but it is sure a lot better than the alternatives. (which at
the moment seem to be a private, segregated system, operated for profit.)

There is no doubt that natives have been and continue to be the victims of
systematic racism. That was not stated or implied in my earlier post. The
federal government has obligations to provide housing, schooling and health
care that they have not met. If they did things would be much better.
Nothing more is meant by my previous post.

I also did not imply that there were no racists, or no acts of racism.  That
would be silly. But no sillier than the exaggerated rhetoric that flies
about political discussion in our major cities about the level of systemic
racism that exist in this country. I live in the inter city (in an urban
area of about a quarter million.) My neighbour hood contains people of many
backgrounds, including native people and immigrants from Germany, Russia,
Somalia, Portugal, Italy and Hong Kong. All living together peacably. This
is not unique. There are too many leftish propagandists in this country who
wish they had this as an issue, but it is not there. And immigrants continue
to vote for the liberals and conservatives, because the majority of them
don't see it as an issue.

Bill also cites a number of historical incidences. Those I don't deny, but I
challenge him to measure the "legacy" of those racist acts. The evidence is
just not there.

My objection to affirmative action programmes is not that their are subject
to "racist objection." But because they introduce an obvious point of
division among the poor, when programmes that would achieve the same
objective, could be designed that are not defined in racial terms.

Any public system or programme that divides people according to some
superficial criterion can only lead to a worsening of the conditions of the
majority.

And for all Bill's rhetoric, there is not one solid proposal. I wrote my
piece because, Jim Devine challenged me to outline the policy conclusions of
my abstract claims. I would challenge Bill to do the same what is your
concrete proposal.

I might also add that I prefaced my remarks by saying that I don't know the
US situation well to make any serious comment on the difficulty of achieving
any progress. But I do know the wrong way to go. And segregation, and racial
theories are the wrong way to go.


----Original Message Follows----
From: Bill Burgess <burgess@xxxxxxxxxxx>
0

I have to strongly disagree with Rod's claims about Canada. He wrote:



We can quibble about what "little segregation" is, but taking Vancouver as
an example, there certainly is residential segregation along the usual
race/class lines, and the less-'white'/more working class area schools have
inferior buildings, equipment, extra-curicular programs, etc. Partly  this
is because they have to provide more English language and special-education
programs per capita.



No widespread, indentifiable, systemic racism in Canada at present? This is
whitewash. Affirmative action has not been as big an issue in Canada but
remains part of any serious program to overcome inequality.

It is incredible to imply that race is not a significant factor in
determining income in Canada. I'm with Rod on denying that race is a
scientific category but he seems to deny most of its social reality. I
don't have studies in hand on all groups, but I'm looking at a 1996
regression study by Shapiro and Stelcner that shows that  unilingual
francophone men in Quebec earned 20% less than unilingual anglophones  in
1971 and 9% less in 1991 (17% and 8% respectively when educational levels
are taken into account). Quebec is 82% francophone. The earning gap between
unilingual anglophones and allophones (neither French nor English is their
mother tongue) was even greater, and again, allophones who spoke only
French earned less than those who spoke only English. I wonder why? And, if
there is no widespread systemic racism in Canada why isn't Quebec's right
of national self-determination respected?

"Liv[ing] up to its treaty obligations to the natives" minimizes what is a
much bigger issue. There never have been treaties covering most of B.C. and
many other areas of Canada. The Indian Act, which treats Natives as wards
of the state, still governs all 'Status Indians'. 'Indians' are still
losing status if their mothers and grandmothers married whites (but not if
their father and grandfathers did). The income of Aboriginal people in
Canada was 40% lower than all Canadians in 1991, and the income of those on
reserves (which make up a much smaller area than those in the U.S.) would
be lower still. Aboriginals are incarcerated at 5-6 times the rate of the
rest of the population, 10 times as much for female aboriginals, 12 times
as much in the prairie provinces. The youth suicide rate is 6-8 times the
national average.

The issue of racism in Canada is different in some ways than in the U.S.
but in other ways it is not. In one way it is bigger problem because it is
officially denied as being a problem. The (past) treatment of Natives? A
regretable error, mostly due to administrative oversight. The expulsion of
the Acadiens? Long ago. Internment of Japanese in WW2? An exception.
Torture-murder of Somali children by Canadian 'peacekeepers'? A totally
isolated incident; besides we expelled the Nazis in that unit. Racism
today? Its all in the past, except what come up from the U.S.



I am sceptical of placing much hope on the bourgeois school system's
ability to indoctrinate children from an early age that race is a stupid
idea. Rod seems to feel affirmative action is too vulnerable to racist
objections, so why would he think schools can do any better than some
watered-down version of liberal equality? Again, saying races do not exist
is true in one sense but race remains a central social fact and affirmative
action is a necessary part of overcoming the legacy of racism.

Bill Burgess




Rod Hay
rodhay@xxxxxxxxxxx
The History of Economic Thought Archives
http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html
Batoche Books
http://members.tripod.com/rodhay/batochebooks.html
http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/





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