Interview with Niagara This Week on behalf of the Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association on racism in the Niagara Region https://www.niagarathisweek.com/community-story/10015804-how-prevalent-is-racism-in-the-niagara-region-/
How prevalent is racism in the Niagara region?
While current protests are against anti-Black racism in America, it exists in Niagara as well
Anti-Black racism protests that continue in the United States following the recent deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery – but also including those before them and those who may come after them – have begun to spread across Canada, including here in Niagara.
The protests happening across the region can be identified as locals wanting to stand up and stand with those impacted down south, but in reality, it has to recognize the systemic racism issues right here in Niagara as well. From policing, education, housing, hiring discrimination and more.
“Niagara has an issue with racism in the sense that a lot of folks in the region think they’re not racist and think that there’s no history here,” said Kattawe Henry, human rights and anti-racism advisor at Brock University.
“That fails to acknowledge the history that St. Catharines, specifically, and Niagara Region more broadly, have had with the Black community. It ignores the ways in which Niagara occupies Indigenous land.”
Henry said it starts with the comments and jokes that some people think they can laugh off, but “it really speaks to a deeper issue (as to how) racialized folks are seen in greater Western society and disenfranchised.”
Saleh Waziruddin, with the Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association, said people need to recognize that what’s happening in the U.S. could happen here.
“We’ve seen already in other parts of Ontario that there is deep systemic racism,” he said. “We know there’s a long history of racism right here in Canada, including anti-Black racism specifically.”
In the present day, Henry said, people are racialized through areas such as less job opportunities, the educational system and the way Black and Indigenous history is taught in the classroom – if there is Black history being taught, it usually comes in February, which is the coldest and shortest month of the year.
While some say kids are too young to learn about racism, Henry said “if you’re young enough to experience racism, you’re old enough to learn about it.”
When discussing less job opportunities, Henry referred to an experiment conducted with a white friend in which they both applied to the same job at the same time, and the friend received the job without an interview minutes after applying and Henry never got a call back, despite Henry having work experience and the friend having never held a job. That could be attributed to the look and spelling of their names, Henry said.
While the verbal jokes are easily identified as racist, there are also the nonverbal cues that racialized people notice but white people don’t.
“It’s clutching your purse when you go into an elevator, it’s following someone around in the store, it’s dismissing people's history, it’s implying that their culture is subpar,” Henry said, adding that body language, tone of voice and looks are examples of microaggressions, which articulate a narrative a person of colour will pick up on but a white person might not.
“I always say that the microaggressions of racism are the things that allow racism to have a heartbeat for another day,” Henry said.
Henry said being passed up for a job because of your name, teachers treating persons of colour differently and those non-verbal cues are examples of microagression.
At the policing level, Waziruddin said, there’s a lack of information that exists from carding and police checks to reported hate crimes.
Currently, through the Niagara Regional Police Service (NRPS) website, you can get redirected to cityprotect.com, which shows a map of NRPS-submitted incidents, including each crime as well as the date and type of crime. The map shows violent crimes, such as assaults and sexual offenses, property and theft, disorder and disturbance incidents and more, but not hate crimes or crimes motivated by hate.
“The NRPS should also designate hate crimes in its submission so we know when and where they took place, which protected group was attacked, and what the crime was,” Waziruddin said. “All we know is there were 17 hate crimes last year, but not where, when, who and what.”
He added that the St. Catharines Anti-Racism Advisory Committee has been working toward setting up reporting and monitoring channels to help better understand the extent of hate crimes. The work plan can be seen on page 32 of the city's Social Sustainability Committee meeting from Jan. 16.
While racism is prevalent in today's society and more data is needed to understand crime that exists, it’s also important to acknowledge the deep-rooted history of racism, said Henry.
“I think people like to deny colonial history because they don’t want to think out loud about the fact that this country’s very foundation is based on genocide and forced assimilation,” Henry said. “That would mean they have to acknowledge that there is systemic racism here and that we are not better than the United States.”
While there are a lot of layers that need to be fixed around the issue of racism that exists around the world and in Niagara, getting to the root of some problems could be a start.
Henry suggested that mental health resources in schools and in the community need to recognize racism in their programming, specifically including programs for people of colour by people of colour, but also that the curriculum collectively rectifies that it is foundationally racist.
Waziruddin added that the economic aspect needs fixing, as a recent study showed Black households are more than 3.5 times likely to be food insecure than white households, and twice more likely when adjusting for income, home ownership, education and immigration status.
Henry added that hiring practices must improve as well.
As a society, it’s acknowledging that racism exists right in your own home and that there is a need to call your friends and family out for racist behaviour.
“When you keep your mouth shut and don’t acknowledge it, and you turn your face away from issues of racism, you're condoning that behaviour, you're acting as a bystander and saying, 'I’m going to allow this to continue,'” Henry said. “What good is that, if someone else is being harmed in the process?”
Henry added that conversations about racism may not be comfortable for some, but nothing worth doing is.
If people want to learn more and be provided resources on anti-racism, Henry can be contacted at khenry@brocku.ca.
STORY BEHIND THE STORY
As Niagara communities begin to host their own anti-Black racism protests, following the events occurring in the U.S., reporter Satbir Singh looked into what racism in the region may look like.
Satbir Singh is a reporter and photographer covering the communities of north Niagara for Niagara This Week.
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