Jean Rivard - University of British Columbia

Books in Review
and social conscientization. It consists of
nineteen articles, originally written
between 1979 and 1991, drawn from a variety
of sources, among them Canadian
Woman Studies, Fuse Magazine, Canadian
Ethnic Studies and Canadian Forum, and
now reprinted. Although the collection
contains abundant notes and a useful list of
further readings, it unfortunately has neither
an index nor any bio-bibliographical
details about the contributors. The
strengths of the volume lie both in the heterogeneous
group of authors assembled—
recent immigrants, Native, South Asian and
Caribbean voices, as well as academics
(overall an even balance of male and
female)—and in the very diverse selection
of texts, bringing together personal reminiscence,
academic discourse and journalism.
Such a selection some might think
uneven, but it does have the advantage of
making the reader very aware of the personal
dimension of racial discrimation,
which would be absent in an exclusively
academic volume.
Organised in five major sections—personal
reflections, historical and structural
aspects, the interaction of racism with gender
and culture, and the future of racism in
Canada—the volume opens up an exceptionally
wide perspective on its theme. A
fifth-generation black Canadian recounts
her experience of institutional racism; a
native woman artist shows how racism has
politicised her art. There are accounts of
the attempt to prevent the immigration of
blacks from Oklahoma to Alberta in the
first decade of this century, of the Chinese
workers' resistance to racism in Vancouver
before World War II, and of the effects of
antisemitism on Jewish social cohesion
since 1884. "Structural Racism" considers
more contemporary matters, such as the
enlightened, if short-lived tenure of David
Crombie at the Ministry of Indian and
Northern Affairs under Mulroney, the
teaching of "race-science" at Canadian universities
(by such as Philip Rushton) and
the relationship of the rhetoric and policies
of the radical right to racist views held by
the wider society. In the belief that racism
must also be viewed in the context of gender
and culture (a perspective hitherto
neglected, as some contributors contend),
the editor includes reports on the difficulties
experienced by women of colour in
aligning themselves with a Western feminist
movement perceived as white and middle-class,
on reactions to the controversial
ROM "Into the Heart of Africa" exhibition,
which put on show artifacts brought back
by soldiers and missionaries, on the exclusion
of native artists from the dominant
culture, on the effects of colonial capitalism
on Indian societies, illustrated from the
sexual and economic exploitation of Indian
women in the fur trade, and on the way in
which Western cinema has demeaned
women of colour. The final section
"Racism's Future in Canada" then explores
ways by which racism might be overcome
through such measures as human rights
codes and governmental intervention.
A record of racial discrimination makes
for depressing reading: there is little pleasure
to be gained from accounts of the
exposure of black children to racist taunts,
from a black Canadian's assertion that
"racism is, and always has been, one of the
bedrock institutions of Canadian society,"
or from the experience of recent immigrants
who "live among racists everyday"
or "begin to live a life of fear." The evidence
of a long history of racial discrimination
against blacks in Canada is unfortunately
all too damning, witness the appalling
hypocrisy with which a federal cabinet
passed an order seeking to prevent black
immigration on the grounds that the climate
was deemed unsuitable! There is, too,
"a long and ignoble tradition of discrimination
in the workplace, particularly, but
by no means only, against Asian workers."
It is the commonly held view of all the
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