Council passes motion against police checks
City council passed a motion on Monday against arbitrary police checks, which have been shown to be done disproportionately on those of African, Native or Arab appearance as listed in the report CBC describes below. It’s not a binding rule, though.
Update: My apologies. I have seen various takes on this story, before and since the motion was passed, and various phrases have been used to describe the groups stopped most often by police. I am sorry if anything I have written here has offended, and will return to the source material as soon as I can to give direct quotes.
Here is a CBC story on the report that led to the council motion.
Later: As Le Devoir cites the report, it’s “les Autochtones, les Noirs et les Arabes.”
Ephraim 09:36 on 2019-11-19 Permalink
African appearance? First time I have ever seen that reference. The majority of black Canadians are Caribbean in origin and proud of that origin. The split between the two communities is why we call them Black Canadians, rather than use other terms.
Kate 10:03 on 2019-11-19 Permalink
Ephraim, I did not mean to be offensive. By chance, many of the black people I’ve known, and worked with, have actually been African.
Michael Black 10:25 on 2019-11-19 Permalink
There used to be a local weekly or monthly newspaper called “The Afro-Can”. It existed in the eighties, disappeared at some point. “Community Contact”has the same role today, I always wondered if there was some continuity between the two papers.
Kate 10:32 on 2019-11-19 Permalink
Afro-Can was produced in the Westmount Examiner shop. The Examiner was a weekly, so on a couple of days a week, other papers would sometimes contract to use the production facilities. Afro-Can was in for awhile, and there was also a paper in English and Ukrainian, a periodical for doctors and other things.
Ephraim 10:51 on 2019-11-19 Permalink
Kate – I assumed that you didn’t. It’s just not a term that I have ever heard. There is a rift in those two communities and the Caribbean don’t like being called African, which is why they call themselves black. One community is Caribbean-Canadian and the other African-Canadian.
Blork 10:52 on 2019-11-19 Permalink
Black Caribbeans are black because they are African. There were no black people in the Caribbean before the slave trade. So Caribbeans are “African” the same way that African-Americans are “African” (and virtually all white people are “European”). As to whether or not black Caribbeans like the term, that’s a separate question and has more to do with social issues and identity than ethnographic ones.
Ephraim 11:01 on 2019-11-19 Permalink
Maybe, but they don’t like being called African-Canadian.
Blork 11:02 on 2019-11-19 Permalink
And BTW, I get it WRT to Caribbeans not necessarily liking being called “African.” After all, there is African culture (with is weird to say because there are many African cultures) and there is Caribbean culture, and they’re quite different, and Caribbeans naturally identify with the Caribbean, not Africa. But when you’re only speaking of “appearance” and are painting with broad stokes, “African appearance” shouldn’t be offensive.
I’m white, and I never set foot in Europe until I was in my 30s, and I in no way identify as “European.” But if someone said I had “European appearance” I’d just shrug and think “I suppose so.” Because “North American appearance” really means native American appearance. (On and on…)
(@Ephraim, not arguing, but nobody here called them African-Canadian.)
Chris 11:05 on 2019-11-19 Permalink
>Black Caribbeans are black because they are African
Rather, because their ancestors were.
Anyway, I am reminded of a favourite George Carlin bit: https://youtu.be/Pc0ZHsoHAlE?t=1622
Ephraim 11:12 on 2019-11-19 Permalink
@Blork – No, but I’ve never before seen the term “African…. appearance.”
I’ve never really seen statistics about it, do the police not stop Asians disproportionately? Indians, Sikhs, Chinese, etc?
Kate 11:19 on 2019-11-19 Permalink
Ephraim, I gather they tend to stop 3 categories: people of African/Caribbean appearance, people of indigenous appearance, and a category even harder to define: brown people generally. The reports said Arabs, but I suspect the category is a broad one, and would stretch to include non-Arab people like Iranians and people from the Indian subcontinent.
I have a feeling that east Asians – Chinese, Vietnamese and others from southeast Asia – are not regarded as potential troublemakers in the same way here. At any rate they were not mentioned in this matter.
Meezly 11:32 on 2019-11-19 Permalink
I agree with Ephraim. The ctvnews article only refers to the targeted minorities as “black or Indigenous” and makes no mention of ‘African’ appearance. ‘Native’ is also an outdated term, which has generally been replaced by Indigenous or First Nations (https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/indigenous-peoples-terminology-guidelines-for-usage).
East Asians historically are not regarded as ‘criminal’ types here, and generally considered a ‘model minority’. In Greater Vancouver, they may get profiled by the police.
qatzelok 11:50 on 2019-11-19 Permalink
@Eph: “they don’t like being called African-Canadian.”
Most people from Africa I know smile if you call them “African-Canadian” because, first of all, you’re speaking English, and secondly, you are calling them something other than their name.
This obsession with “the correct term” is very 80s dorm discussion as terminology does nothing to help anyone except maybe your English teachers. If you really want to “help” Africans, make sure that our government stops helping other rich white countries bomb, sanction, and coup d’etat African nation states.
Mark Côté 11:57 on 2019-11-19 Permalink
The variety of “African appearance” is huge from the north of the continent to the south.
Ephraim 12:03 on 2019-11-19 Permalink
@Mark – generally they mean Sub-Saharan Africa. But it’s all a muddle anyway… these terms are so archaic… just like the discrimination by our police…. archaic things that just have to end.
Meezly 12:38 on 2019-11-19 Permalink
Actually, the ‘obsession’ with the correct terms for non-white peeps came about when non-white minorities became recognized as actual persons rather than as ‘other’.
The desire to be called by a term that most accurately describes someone’s racial or cultural background comes from a wish to have some agency in how they want to be recognized by society. I say ‘they’, but I could say ‘we’ as I’m a visible minority, or POC, or whatever term is current right now. Personally for me, to make an attempt to use the correct term is a sign of respect to those we rub shoulders with in our day to day. No one is trying to save the world here.
To dismiss this as an obsession is – to quote an actual outmoded term from the 80’s dorm culture – is a totally gay thing to do.
Thanks for making the corrections, Kate!
qatzelok 12:55 on 2019-11-19 Permalink
Meezly, not only are the PC terms for “others” outdated, they’re useless. Our government and industries – the most powerful actors in our society – show zero respect for foreigners in that Canada helps destroy democratically elected and pro-local-culture forces all over the globe. This hasn’t stopped or even slowed down since college students started enforcing vocabulary words on guilt-ridden friends.
A strict political vocabulary (PC) has, as its main effect, served to eliminate working class people and the poor from political discussions. Perhaps this was its main purpose in the first place.
Meezly 13:26 on 2019-11-19 Permalink
Perhaps the college students are onto something then, if they are studying gender politics, ethnic/ racial/ cultural studies, sociology and intersectionality. esp. courses that are taught by professors who are neither white nor male. Labels and names have power esp. for those with less power in a milieu of systemic racism and sexism, so I would not dismiss them as useless. I do not know why you keep blaming the college students. Maybe those who are suspicious of so-called ‘PC terms’ see it as an educated vs non-educated issue (not dissimilar with rich vs poor). I really don’t see how using more accurate terminology for racialized people eliminates working class and poor people from political discussions when a noticeable proportion of working class and poor people tend to be non-whites? Why is it when a discussion about a certain marginality makes people feel like it’s taking the spotlight away from another person’s marginality?