Limitations in the Canadian Social Imaginary: Swaths of Hate Cut by Racism and the Road Beyond
Location
Littlefoot A Room 124A
Start Date
21-4-2023 1:00 PM
End Date
21-4-2023 2:15 PM
Publication Date
2023
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | Law | Social and Behavioral Sciences
Description
Canada has long had an international reputation as a benign and welcoming country. There are many who have experienced welcome and new opportunity in the embrace of our imaginary of diverse peoples, weaving a variegated social tapestry of inclusion and belonging. However, at critical junctures in the national story, lines of exclusion fuelled by hatred of the Other in the context of an unconscious xenophobia have had dire outcomes for a variety of communities. Indigenous, settler and newcomers have all been included- although not equally so- in the swath of marginalization cut by differing manifestations of legalized, systemic, and personal racism. This paper considers the ideal of multi-culturalism as a defining Canadian motif and, more importantly, how that vision has lived (problematically) on the ground in relation to legalized, systemic and personal racism.
A consideration of racially motivated exclusion and harm necessarily leads us in this paper to the response. How is Canada finding pathways for limiting racially motivated hate? Canada’s nascent response has been two-fold: the legal system and education. With the criminalization of hate added as part of the criminal code in 1970, and the introduction at both the federal and provincial levels of Codes of Human Rights in the latter part of the twentieth century, it is courts and tribunals which have become the last line of defense against hate- a line which social and religious groups have been unable to draw. Plato and Aristotle both decried the need for judicial intervention as reflective of the most poorly evolved societies. While it is not my view that Canada fits that label (our democracy works effectively in many respects), Canada has not been able to contain hate without a structural stick. More recently, companioning the stick, Canada is witnessing grassroots movements, largely led by victims of hate, and supported by increasingly conscious others, which advocate and promote the essential role which education must play in supporting long lasting change. Such change summons all of us toward a society where hate is not tolerated, and all shall live with opportunity, dignity, and respect.
This paper concludes with a consideration of the emerging impact of these movements leading to a new social imaginary: a plurality of voices empowering genuinely plural society, supported by a legal code which does not tolerate hate.
Description Format
html
Recommended Citation
Fletcher, Wendy, "Limitations in the Canadian Social Imaginary: Swaths of Hate Cut by Racism and the Road Beyond" (2023). International Conference on Hate Studies. 21.
https://repository.gonzaga.edu/icohs/2023/seventh/21
Full Text of Presentation
wf_no
Media Format
flash_audio
Session Title
Strategies and Approaches to Challenging Hate
Type
Panel
Limitations in the Canadian Social Imaginary: Swaths of Hate Cut by Racism and the Road Beyond
Littlefoot A Room 124A
Canada has long had an international reputation as a benign and welcoming country. There are many who have experienced welcome and new opportunity in the embrace of our imaginary of diverse peoples, weaving a variegated social tapestry of inclusion and belonging. However, at critical junctures in the national story, lines of exclusion fuelled by hatred of the Other in the context of an unconscious xenophobia have had dire outcomes for a variety of communities. Indigenous, settler and newcomers have all been included- although not equally so- in the swath of marginalization cut by differing manifestations of legalized, systemic, and personal racism. This paper considers the ideal of multi-culturalism as a defining Canadian motif and, more importantly, how that vision has lived (problematically) on the ground in relation to legalized, systemic and personal racism.
A consideration of racially motivated exclusion and harm necessarily leads us in this paper to the response. How is Canada finding pathways for limiting racially motivated hate? Canada’s nascent response has been two-fold: the legal system and education. With the criminalization of hate added as part of the criminal code in 1970, and the introduction at both the federal and provincial levels of Codes of Human Rights in the latter part of the twentieth century, it is courts and tribunals which have become the last line of defense against hate- a line which social and religious groups have been unable to draw. Plato and Aristotle both decried the need for judicial intervention as reflective of the most poorly evolved societies. While it is not my view that Canada fits that label (our democracy works effectively in many respects), Canada has not been able to contain hate without a structural stick. More recently, companioning the stick, Canada is witnessing grassroots movements, largely led by victims of hate, and supported by increasingly conscious others, which advocate and promote the essential role which education must play in supporting long lasting change. Such change summons all of us toward a society where hate is not tolerated, and all shall live with opportunity, dignity, and respect.
This paper concludes with a consideration of the emerging impact of these movements leading to a new social imaginary: a plurality of voices empowering genuinely plural society, supported by a legal code which does not tolerate hate.