The impact of colonization
Contemporary impacts of oppression: Structural racism
“Clearly racism has influenced the political, economic and cultural circumstances of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Racist ideologies have fostered a social hierarchy in which Indigenous peoples are denied resources while dominant groups maintain authority and power. In Canada, race based colonizing powers have attempted to socially isolate, culturally assimilate, and politically decimate Indigenous peoples as a way of rationalizing colonialism.”
Indigenous Experience with Racism and its Impacts fact sheet from National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health (NCCIH)
Structural racism in Canada
Structural racism refers to economic, social, and political institutions and processes of a society that create and reinforce racial discrimination. The establishment of ‘Indian reserves’ and inadequate investment in those reserves serve as examples of structural racism whereby socio-economic inequities and conditions of disadvantage are created and perpetuated.
Engage with the following video titled ‘How to change systemic racism in Canada’.
In this 5-minute and 7-second video from CBC, Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, tells us the story of Jordan River Anderson and why she continues to fight the Canadian government to gain rights for Indigenous children.
To further delve into this topic, you can explore the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry.
About the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry
In April 1988, the Manitoba Government created the Public Inquiry into the Administration of Justice and Aboriginal People, commonly known as the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry. The Inquiry issued its report in the fall of 1991. For more information: The Aboriginal Justice Implementation Commission.
Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair was co-commissioner for the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry. In this CBC News story, “Change called for in Aboriginal Justice Inquiry ‘not going to occur in my lifetime’: Murray Sinclair”, he speaks about this important investigation into racism in the justice system.
If decades of trauma are to be healed, systems such as justice and health need to address racial prejudice at all levels and move towards embracing the unique cultural traditions, healing and needs of Indigenous people.
Teaching and learning application
To explore how new technologies continue systems of oppression today that affect your teaching and learning practices, you may want to check the following book:
Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of oppression: How search engines reinforce racism. New York University Press.
In Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya Umoja Noble challenges the idea that search engines like Google offer an equal playing field for all forms of ideas, identities, and activities. Data discrimination is a real social problem; Noble argues that the combination of private interests in promoting certain sites, along with the monopoly status of a relatively small number of internet search engines, leads to a biased set of search algorithms that privilege whiteness and discriminate against people of color, specifically women of color.
Sources:
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).
