Thursday, January 29, 2015

he doesn't know what you're talking about; he thinks you're asking him if he's a white supremacist.

fwiw, the statistics are pretty clear that white privilege does not exist in canada. it certainly does exist in the southern united states. but, statistically, whites are not at the top of the income ladder in canada. they're not even second.

this has largely to do with the immigration system that was introduced during the pearson government, which abolished racial categories on immigration and restricted it to highly educated people. so, there's actually an inversion of the situation in the united states (where people of colour were historically enslaved). canada does have a history of slavery, but the percentage of people in canada that are descendents of african slaves is statistically insignificant. i think it's about 0.2% of the population. almost all black canadians are recent african or caribbean immigrants, and they require advanced levels of education (and in most cases concrete employment opportunities) to enter the country. in canada, our non-white population has a much higher level of education, a much higher window of opportunity and much higher incomes. our white population, on the other hand, is mostly composed of the traditional working class, which has been eased into low income work over the last few decades.

somebody working on a critical legal theory in the southern united states would not have cared about whether their ideas were applicable in canada or not. whatever else you think of these ideas, this generalization is our error, not theirs. a critical legal theory should exist in canada, but it should be developed out of an understanding of the relevant history and data.