Chapter 11. Race and Ethnicity Figure 11.1. The dastaar (turban) is a required article in the observance of the Sikh faith. Baltej Singh Dhillon (not shown here) was the first Sikh member of the RCMP to wear a turban on active duty. This sparked a major controversy in 1990, but today people barely bat an eye when they see a police officer wearing a turban. Race and ethnicity are part of the human experience. Do the signs of racial and ethnic diversity play a role in who we are and how we relate to one another? (Photo courtesy of Gurumustuk Singh/Flickr) Learning Objectives 11.1. Racial, Ethnic, and Minority Groups • Understand the difference between race and ethnicity. 454 455 • INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY - 2ND CANADIAN EDITION • Define a majority group (dominant group). • Define a minority group (subordinate group). 11.2. Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination • Explain the difference between stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination, and racism. • Identify different types of discrimination. 11.3. Theories of Race and Ethnicity • Describe how major sociological perspectives view race and ethnicity. • Identify examples of culture of prejudice. 11.4. Intergroup Relations and the Management of Diversity • Explain different intergroup relations in terms of their relative levels of tolerance. • Give historical and/or contemporary examples of each type of intergroup relation. 11.5. Race and Ethnicity in Canada • Compare and contrast the different experiences of various ethnic groups in Canada. • Apply theories of intergroup relations and race and ethnicity to different subordinate groups. Introduction to Race and Ethnicity Visible minorities are defined as “persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non- white in colour” (Statistics Canada, 2013, p. 14). This is a contentious term, as we will see in this chapter, but it does give us a way to speak about the growing ethnic and racial diversity of Canada. The 2011 census noted that visible minorities made up 19.1% of the Canadian population, or almost one out of every five Canadians. This was up from 16.2% in the 2006 census (Statistics Canada, 2013). The three largest visible minority groups were South Asians (25%), Chinese (21.1%), and blacks (15.1%). Going back to the 1921 census, only 0.8% of population were made up of people of Asian origin, whereas 0.2% of the population were black. Aboriginal Canadians made up 1.3% of the population. The vast majority of the population were Caucasians (“whites”) of British or French ancestry. These figures did not change appreciably until after the changes to the Immigration Act in 1967, which replaced an immigration policy based on racial criteria with a point system based on educational and occupational qualifications (Li, 1996). The 2011 census reported that 78% of the immigrants who arrived in Canada between 2006 and 2011 were visible minorities (Statistics Canada, 2013). Still, these figures do not really give a complete picture of racial and ethnic diversity in Canada. 96% of visible minorities live in cities, mainly Vancouver and Toronto, making these cities extremely diverse and cosmopolitan. In Vancouver, almost half the population (45.2%) is made up of visible minorities. Within Greater Vancouver, 70.4% of the residents of Richmond, 59.5% of the residents of Burnaby, and 52.6 of the residents of Surrey CHAPTER 11. RACE AND ETHNICITY • 456 are visible minorities. In the Toronto area, where visible minorities make up 47% of the population, 72.3% of the residents of the suburb of Markham are visible minorities (Statistics Canada, 2013). In many parts of urban Canada, it is a misnomer to use the term visible minority, as the “minorities” are now in the majority. Table 11.1. Visible minority population and top three visible minority groups, selected census metropolitan areas, Canada, 2011, p. 17. (Table courtesy of Statistics Canada’s Immigration and Ethnocultural Diversity in Canada report [PDF]) [Skip Table] Cities Total Population Visible Minority Population Percentage Top Three Visible Minority Groups Canada 32,852,325 6,264,755 19.1% South Asian, Chinese, Black Toronto 5,521,235 2,596,420 47.0% South Asian, Chinese, Black Montréal 3,752,475 762,325 20.3% Black, Arab, Latin American Vancouver 2,280,695 1,030,335 45.2% Chinese, South Asian, Filipino Ottawa – Gatineau 1,215,735 234,015 19.2% Black, Arab, Chinese Calgary 1,199,125 337,420 28.1% South Asian, Chinese, Filipino Edmonton 1,139,585 254,990 22.4% South Asian, Chinese, Filipino Winnipeg 714,635 140,770 19.7% Filipino, South Asian, Black Hamilton 708,175 101,600 14.3% South Asian, Black, Chinese Source Statistics Canada, National Household Survey, 2011. Projecting forward based on current trends, Statistics Canada estimates that by 2031, between 29 and 32% of the Canadian population will be visible minorities. Visible minority groups will make up 63% of the population of Toronto and 59% of the population of Vancouver (Statistics Canada, 2010). The outcome of these trends is that Canada has become a much more racially and ethnically diverse country over the 20th and 21st centuries. It will continue to become more diverse in the future. In large part this has to do with immigration policy. Canada is a settler society, a society historically based on colonization through foreign settlement and displacement of Aboriginal inhabitants, so immigration is the major influence on population diversity. In the two decades following World War II, Canada followed an immigration policy that was explicitly race based. Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s statement to the House of Commons in 1947 expressed this in what were, at the time, uncontroversial terms: There will, I am sure, be general agreement with the view that the people of Canada do not wish, as a result of mass immigration, to make a fundamental alteration in the character of our population. Large-scale immigration from the orient would change the fundamental composition of the Canadian population. Any considerable oriental immigration would, moreover, be certain to give rise to social and economic problems of a character that might lead to serious difficulties in the field of international relations. The government, therefore, has no thought of making any change in immigration regulations which would have consequences of the kind. (as cited in Li, 1996, pp. 163-164) Today this would be a completely unacceptable statement from a Canadian politician. Immigration today is based on a non-racial point system. Canada defines itself as a multicultural nation that promotes and recognizes the diversity of its population. This does not mean, however, that Canada’s legacy of institutional and individual 457 • INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY - 2ND CANADIAN EDITION prejudice and racism has been erased. Nor does it mean that the problems of managing a diverse population have been resolved. In 1997, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination criticized the Canadian government for using the term “visible minority,” citing that distinctions based on race or colour are discriminatory (CBC, 2007). The term combines a diverse group of people into one category whether they have anything in common or not. What does it actually mean to be a member of a visible minority in Canada? What does it mean to be a member of the “non-visible” majority? What do these terms mean in practice? 11.1. Racial, Ethnic, and Minority Groups While many students first entering a sociology classroom are accustomed to conflating the terms race, ethnicity, and minority group, these three terms have distinct meanings for sociologists. The idea of race refers to superficial physical differences that a particular society considers significant, while ethnicity is a term that describes shared culture. And minority group describes groups that are subordinate, or lacking power in society regardless of skin colour or country of origin. For example, in modern history, the elderly might be considered a minority group due to a diminished status resulting from popular prejudice and discrimination against them. The World Health Organization’s research on elderly maltreatment shows that 10% of nursing home staff admit to physically abusing an elderly person in the past year, and 40% admit to psychological abuse (2011). As a minority group, the elderly are also subject to economic, social, and workplace discrimination. What Is Race? Historically, the concept of race has changed across cultures and eras, eventually becoming less connected with ancestral and familial ties, and more concerned with superficial physical characteristics. In the past, theorists have posited categories of race based on various geographic regions, ethnicities, skin colours, and more. Their labels for racial groups have connoted regions (Mongolia and the Caucus Mountains, for instance) or denoted skin tones (black, white, yellow, and red, for example). However, this typology of race developed during early racial science has fallen into disuse, and racialization (the social construction of race) is a far more common way of understanding racial categories. According to this school of thought, race is not biologically identifiable. Rather, certain groups become racialized through a social process that marks them for unequal treatment based on perceived physiological differences. When considering skin colour, for example, the social construction of race perspective recognizes that the relative darkness or fairness of skin is an evolutionary adaptation to the available sunlight in different regions of the world. Contemporary conceptions of race, therefore, which tend to be based on socioeconomic assumptions, illuminate how far removed modern race understanding is from biological qualities. In modern society, some people who consider themselves “white” actually have more melanin (a pigment that determines skin colour) in their skin than other people who identify as “black.” Consider the case of the actress Rashida Jones. She is the daughter of a black man (Quincy Jones) but she does not play a black woman in her television or film roles.