City to appoint systemic racism commissioner
The city’s going to appoint a commissioner for systemic racism; unlike Premier Legault, Valérie Plante recognizes that systemic racism is embedded in city structures.
-
Kate
Reply
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- SMD on Duluth Street enforces early closing time
- DeWolf on Police forces to fight extortion
- DeWolf on Duluth Street enforces early closing time
- Kate on Duluth Street enforces early closing time
- Chris on Duluth Street enforces early closing time
- Jim on Montreal most expensive town in Quebec
- jeather on Montreal most expensive town in Quebec
Pages
Other levels of gov’t
Sideblog projects
Enviro Montreal is a Bluesky feed that follows local environment news. Also available on Mastodon.
Archives
Pages rescued from montreal.com
Meta
Chris 17:07 on 2020-10-09 Permalink
What’s an example of ‘racism embedded in city structures’? The article doesn’t give any. She’s been in charge for 4 years. She *is* the system. One wonders if she’s only going along with the zeitgeist.
DeWolf 18:26 on 2020-10-09 Permalink
That’s ridiculous, Chris. Politicians come and go but the civil service is forever. Sue Montgomery’s case should be enough of an example of what happens when an elected official butts heads with career bureaucrats.
Myles 18:37 on 2020-10-09 Permalink
In addition to DeWolf’s point, the entire idea of systemic racism is that it doesn’t depend on individuals who are at fault. It’s in the culture of how various bureaucracies are run. It’s reflected in all the things governments do because “that’s how things are done” without necessarily knowing how they end up affecting ordinary citizens.
Meezly 10:49 on 2020-10-10 Permalink
Further to what Myles said, It’s also reflected in the kind of policies that are maintained or implemented (to benefit certain citizens over others), how agencies and programs get funded (to benefit certain groups over others), what kind of people wield power or get promoted (or get omitted)…
This all sounds very conceptual, but it has a trickle down effect for the whole of society, which may not result in overt racism but allows racial discrimination and attitudes to proliferate, ie. teaching a biased history to school children, how police are trained (why do they keep targeting certain groups) or how so many landlords tend to discriminate against tenants… and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
This is why Plante made history – there has never been a female mayor of Montreal before and there is a reason – hundreds of years of a patriarchal system disadvantaging women until recently. Obviously , systemic racism is not something that can be easily fixed in the span of 4 years, you need to overhaul much of how bureaucracies have been run for decades. And you need a succession of progressive leaders to oversee this structural change.
Systemic racism is also not something that can be easily explained as a side note in an article. This is why activists get tired of explaining things. If you want to expand your mind, you need to do the work.
Chris 17:06 on 2020-10-10 Permalink
>It’s in the culture of how various bureaucracies are run.
And the mayor has no impact on that? Then why appoint this commissioner? To impact her bureaucracy of course.
>This is why activists get tired of explaining things.
If activists want to sway people, it’s incumbent on them to do explaining. But anyway I was talking about the journalist(s). Are examples of ‘racism embedded in city structures’ hard to find? Why not explain in the article the kinds of thing they are discussing? Many people learn best by example.
Meezly 11:29 on 2020-10-11 Permalink
‘Then why appoint this commissioner?’ I don’t understand this question. Did you read the article? Or any local articles that have been highlighting the racial climate the past several years?
‘If activists want to sway people, it’s incumbent on them to do explaining.’ That’s a very passive, complacent attitude to have. Explaining racism to mentally lazy people is not what they want to devote their energy on. The responsibility to educate is on you.
Here’s an example with the media. When an election is being covered, journalists don’t provide a summary of the democratic process. It would take up too much precious page space. It’s assumed that citizens already have basic fundamental understanding of how elections work.
‘Are examples of ‘racism embedded in city structures’ hard to find?’ Not if you have an internet connection, know how to do google searches and can read. Many people learn best by wanting to learn and doing the work.
Chris 00:47 on 2020-10-12 Permalink
>Not if you have an internet connection, know how to do google searches and can read.
Great! Care to share a link to educate me? Sounds like it should only take a sec.
MarcG 09:55 on 2020-10-12 Permalink
https://ocpm.qc.ca/sites/ocpm.qc.ca/files/pdf/P99/resume-reds_english.pdf