UBC employment study shows white supremacy still exists in Canada
It was a story the media couldn’t resist: UBC study discovers that employers discriminate against applicants with non-English names.
It generated a ton of coverage, as it should have. The researchers sent 6,000 mock resumes in response to 2,000 on-line job postings in the Greater Toronto area. Those with English-sounding names like John Martin or Jill Wilson were called back 40 percent more often than those with Asian names, such as Sana Khan or Le Li.
This should put an end to any suggestion that we live in a postracial society in Canada.
The reality is that Canada was well on its way to becoming a multicultural country in the 19th century. There were many former slaves who moved to Victoria. Chinese and Japanese immigration was adding an Asian dimension to the population.
Bill Chu of Canadians for Reconciliation told me recently that 20 percent of the nonaboriginal population in B.C. in the 1881 census was Chinese.
South Asians, primarily from Punjab, moved to B.C. where they helped build the forestry and agricultural industries.
Then there was the backlash. Legislation was passed requiring immigrants to make a “continuous journey”. This made it illegal for people to come from South Asia because you couldn’t travel from the Indian subcontinent to Canada without stopping for provisions. It culminated in the Komagata Maru incident, when a boat full of Indian immigrants was turned aside from Vancouver's harbour.
It wasn't just the South Asians who were targeted. In 1908, the Canadian government secured an agreement with Japan to limit immigration to less than 1,000 people per year.
By now, we all know about the Chinese head tax, which was designed to discourage people coming from China. It started at $50 in 1885 and eventually reached $500. When that didn’t achieve its objective, the federal government virtually banned Chinese immigration from 1923 to 1947.
So what was all this about? It was white supremacy, plain and simple. People of Chinese, Japanese, and South Asian descent weren’t allowed to vote. They weren’t allowed to join the professions. And they weren’t allowed to take their rightful place in our country.
Similar discrimination was heaped on aboriginal people, who were rounded up and placed on federal Indian reserves.
Canada could have become a very multicultural country 100 years ago, but the Anglo-Canadian establishment stopped this from happening. As a result, we squandered untold human capital.
The country has never fully acknowledged that the end of the 19th century and much of the 20th century was Canada's era of white supremacy. This white supremacy wasn’t like that of the Ku Klux Klan in the southern United States. People weren't lynched because of their race.
Nor did it resemble the white supremacy witnessed in Nazi Germany, where victims were sent to the gas chambers.
No, this was a different form of white supremacy. We should never forget that it was very pernicious and it held people back from achieving their potential.
This latest study from UBC on discrimination by employers is proof that we still have a ways to go before we’ll erase this blemish from our country. The first step along the way is to call it by its proper name.
The second step is for the media to look at other areas where this type of racism exists, such as in our at-large method of electing city councillors, park commissioners and school trustees. In Vancouver, this has resulted in tremendous discrimination against qualified candidates of South Asian descent.
It stuns me that nobody in the legislature sees this as an issue worthy of their concern.
Comments
21 Comments
emywn
May 21, 2009 at 2:31pm
whats legislature supposed to do? force a company to have 50% of there work force to have non-english names? Its an attitude and the only way that changes is with time.
Rex
May 21, 2009 at 8:17pm
This is a sad situation but the solution is extremely simple: just change your surname to a British one and problem solved, not just for yourself but for your children and grandchildren, too. Then the playing field is levelled once and for all.
Binder dundatt
May 21, 2009 at 11:04pm
in america they call this reverse affirmative action
everywhere else its called institutional racism
up until about 20 years ago women were not allowed in the vancouver club.
and they say that Canada is a meritocratic society.
phooey
bgthom
May 22, 2009 at 9:12am
The author's hyperbole is a little much, but it is a real problem. Vancouver is still a pretty segregated place, and there is a lot of mistrust on both sides between Asians and Caucasians. If you sent 2000 European-sounding names to Chinese-owned businesses, do you think the result would be different? This will change over time, but for now, the Asian and white worlds tend to exist in two solitudes. The problem is deep on both sides, even deeper because people are uncomfortable about acknowledging it.
Mike Blue
May 22, 2009 at 9:28am
Canada has come so far and to suggest that we aren't multicultural is a shame. No one but white males used to be able to vote, and look where we are today. As a white male in Vancouver, I feel like a minority almost anywhere I go. Yes, it took Canada a while to become more cultural and accepting, but to think that one day there will be no discrimanation in any country is unfortunately a dream. There will always be white supremacy everywhere around the globe, just as there will always be all types of supremacy, Chinese, Japanese and South Asian supremacy included.
BillS
May 22, 2009 at 8:44pm
Every group that attains power seeks to protect what they have secured and consciously or subconsciously promotes their own kind. Right now just look at the women in power in the BC Government : just look at http://dir.gov.bc.ca/ and look at ANY Ministry of Branch. Fair ? This is normal human behaviour - help your tribe.
Davey Jones
May 22, 2009 at 11:03pm
I'm a white guy with an Anglo-Saxon name and I've struggled for years to establish a career. This pattern 'discovered' by the academics does not apply to all.
RodSmelser
May 24, 2009 at 3:14pm
In the last few days since news of the study by Prof Oreopoulos came out, I have heard people defending the practice of passing over resumes with non-anglo names. They say it's a low cost way for the employer to screen for language skills.
But are the employer's interests the only ones at stake in the hiring process? And to what degree do errors, that is, assuming a non-anglo name means poor Englsh language skills when in fact it doesn't for some applicants, result in lost productivity through the mistaken hiring of less-qualified people who do happen to sport the signal of an anglo-name?
Rod Smelser
Joey
May 25, 2009 at 7:00pm
This study is a bunch of B.S. Go to ANY Gov't office or the office in ANY large Corporation and you will see that whites are in the MINORITY. As a matter of fact, at Rev. Canada they routinely put up postings that say "for visible minorities", which means that white people need not apply. Tell me thats not racist!
Ram
May 28, 2009 at 5:01am
"The author's hyperbole is a little much, but it is a real problem. Vancouver is still a pretty segregated place, and there is a lot of mistrust on both sides between Asians and Caucasians."
That is because Asians are the largest minority. That has not prevented a disproportionate of white men from dating Asian women in Vancouver, although vice versa is rarely accepted. So much for minstrust. Also some of the citizens of BC with English sounding names are directly descended from colonialists who lived a life of privilege in Asia and Africa and the contempt is passed over generations. In the US discrimination against the Asians is a lot less than that of African Americans or Hispanics. However, if for some reason these two groups disappeared, Asian Americans will be targeted for discrimination.