The impact of colonization
Contemporary impacts of oppression: Interpersonal racism and violent racism
“Racism is a belief that one group is superior to others performed through any individual action or institutional practice which treats people differently because of their colour or ethnicity.”
Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF)
In the Indigenous Experience with Racism and its Impacts fact sheet from the National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health (NCCIH), Samantha Loppie, Charlotte Reading, and Sarah de Leeuw explain how Indigenous people in Canada experience racism in interpersonal, structural, and sometimes violent ways. They examine racism within government policies, healthcare, and judicial systems and explore the unique ways that racism is experienced by Indigenous peoples and how it impacts their well-being.
In this page we will explore interpersonal racism and violent racism. In the next page, we will explore structural racism.
Interpersonal racism
There are several negative stereotypes associated with Indigenous people, including:
- Assumptions about the pervasiveness and cause of alcohol and drug addiction, unemployment, and violence.
- Depiction of Indigenous peoples as willing ‘wards of the state,’ dependent on others and ultimately better off when the federal government oversees their affairs.
According to a 2019 report from the Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics (Statistics Canada):
- One-third (33%) of Indigenous people experienced discrimination in the five years preceding the survey, more than double the proportion for non-Indigenous, non-visible minorities (16%).
- More specifically, 44% of First Nations people had experienced discrimination in the five years preceding the survey, as had 24% of Métis and 29% of Inuit.
- Common reasons for the discrimination experienced by Indigenous people included ethnicity or culture (15%) and race or skin colour (14%).
- In addition to race and ethnicity, Indigenous people perceive discrimination or unfair treatment due to their physical appearance (14%), physical or mental disability (7%), and religion (5%).
For more information, visit Discrimination among First Nations people, Métis, and Inuit.
As part of our exploration of interpersonal racism, please engage with the following video titled ‘Top 5 Stereotypes Toward Indigenous Peoples in Canada’.
In this 1-minute and 44-second video, Wab Kinew (Manitoba Premier as of 2025) debunks five common stereotypes toward Indigenous peoples in Canada that unfortunately feed interpersonal racism.
Violent racism
There are many instances of violent racism towards Indigenous peoples in contemporary society:
- As a group, Indigenous men are two to three times more likely than non-Indigenous men to experience violence by authorities or individuals.
- Indigenous women who bear the brunt of racialized violence in Canada, experiencing three to four times more interpersonal violence than non-Indigenous women.
- Indigenous women also face ‘racialized misogyny’ (the hatred of racialized women), which fosters and legitimizes physical and social violence perpetrated against them by virtue of their exponentially diminished social status (i.e., being a woman and being Indigenous).
Engage with the following video titled ‘Manitoba prepares to search landfill for murdered Indigenous women’.
In this 1-minute and 47-second video, produced by CBC News: The National, they report that preparation work has begun in the search for four Indigenous women whose remains were dumped by their killer in a Winnipeg-area landfill.
Teaching and learning application
Indigenous peoples currently lead many Indigenous Rights movements and local Indigenous Social Justice initiatives.
Click on the following links to learn more and get involved:
Sources:
Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics (Statistics Canada). Experiences of discrimination among the Black and Indigenous populations in Canada, 2019. Available at: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2022001/article/00002-eng.htm#a9 (Accessed: 27 February 2025).
Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF). Glossary of Terms. Available at: https://www.crrf-fcrr.ca/en/resources/glossary-a-terms-en-gb-1 (Accessed: 13 February 2025).
Indigenous experiences with racism and its impacts (no date) National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health. Available at: https://www.nccih.ca/docs/determinants/FS-Racism2-Racism-Impacts-EN.pdf (Accessed: 10 July 2024).
