Racism

Race is a central concept in the subordination of Black people in Canada and the United States (U.S.). Yet, race has not always been considered to be a vital research variable in studies in North America.

Not only Americans, but Canadians need to have an “uncomfortable conversation” about racism and police violence against black people, particularly around who benefits from it.

During a white nationalists protest rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA on August 12, 2017, a 20-year-old man allegedly accelerated his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a woman, Heather Heyer, and wounding many others.

Racism is a serious world-wide issue and recently it was on display in Lethbridge, proving that racism is still alive in this community, despite efforts on many fronts to the contrary.

Before WW II, Japanese people had long suffered the sting of racism in Canada. Ever since the first Japanese person, a man named Manzo Nagano, stepped ashore in 1877 at New Westminster, white settlers in British Columbia tried to exclude people whom they considered to be “undesirables.

A serious criminal act in Lethbridge recently brought to the surface a long simmering discourse of racialized tensions in Lethbridge. When such situations are perpetrated by a person of colour, their whole culture and race are blamed.