More on Race and Canada…
(avenue Mont-Royal, Montreal, QC)
If I had time to read something other than the Civil Code and articles about legal pluralism, I would have been reading these blogs: Restructure and Canadian People of Colour.
Over the last 8 months, I’ve had to quickly brief myself on Canadian history and culture, with a special emphasis on the anomaly that is this lovely province of Quebec. I never had the time to finish reading this book. At the beginning of the semester, someone asked me if I was anglophone or francophone. I said neither. Clearly, I speak both languages but I really had no desire to be put into one of those boxes. It felt like being weighted down by a history I’m just beginning to understand, mostly through the context of legal battles waged in court.
The comfort of living in a (relatively) diverse community has been balanced by the treatment of race and legal issues in the classroom. I’ve noticed two sticking points: a preoccupation with how race and racism is dealt with in the US (rather than focusing on the specificities of the Canadian context) and promoting the myth of a non-racist, multikulti Canadian society. One of the most bizarre moments of the year occurred when discussing the Toronto School Board’s approval of an Afrocentric based school. One of my classmates kept referring to Black people in Toronto as African-Americans, in order to not offend anyone. It’s a bit hard to talk about race and racism if you are trying to export the problem across the border.
The discussions have definitely sparked my interest. Now that I should have time (one exam to go!) to read non-law related material, these books are on my reading list:
Race, Rights and the Law in the Supreme Court of Canada: Historical Case Studies by James W. St. G. Walker
Canadian Critical Race Theory: Racism and the Law by Carol Aylward
[...] More on Race and Canada… « goldfish in a blender “two sticking points: a preoccupation with how race and racism is dealt with in the US (rather than focusing on the specificities of the Canadian context) and promoting the myth of a non-racist, multikulti Canadian society.” (tags: race Canada education multiculturalism racism US Quebec law school context) [...]