Racism doesn't end just because we had an election

Posted on 20 October 2015

So the forty-second federal election is over.
During the past 78 days, I  saw a lot of people expressing shock- SHOCK!- at some of the racist and xenophobic sentiments being expressed by people during the campaign. You could see it in the Twitter feeds and comments sections on stories about immigrants, Muslims, and Canada’s indigenous people.
Here’s the thing: THOSE SENTIMENTS STILL EXIST. They aren’t Conservative or Bloc or NDP or Liberal. They are Canadian.
They exist outside of politics. They are part of Canada. You just didn’t know about it. And they aren’t gone. You don’t vote for someone and then racism ends. It’s much, much harder than that.
It’s on every level of our society. It’s in our bones. Nobody “won”. A woman in a niqab was still attacked. Indigenous people are still underrepresented. This is everywhere. This wasn’t on the party in power. It’s on ALL of us. We are all in a society that is inherently, structurally, discriminatory. We have to work to address that every day.
We can do better Canada. The party in power has nothing to do with it. WE have to do better.

Filed under: Canada