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Toronto Star – March 26
`Justice is white'
A new book says racial profiling
is a sad fact of Canadian life
BYJIM RANKIN
From the Japanese internment camps of World War II and a law that once made it illegal for Indians to be intoxicated off the reserve, to the perils of travelling while Arab in a post 9/11 world and being young, black and male on the streets of Toronto today, The Colour of Justice: Policing Race in Canada makes one thing clear: "The colour of justice in Canada is white."
University of Windsor law professor David Tanovich, 40, uses hundreds of studies, news stories, commissioned reports, and tales of household names like Neil Stonechild, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter and Maher Arar to buttress his argument.
The author recently talked with the Sunday Star via email.
How far do you think we've come in Canada since internment camps and the days of racial segregation in schools, public and private spaces?
The sad reality is that we have not come very far at all. Slavery, segregation and internment camps were all overt forms of racial profiling grounded in stereotypical and irrational assumptions about who required surveillance and control. It seems that reliance on these same assumptions continues today, albeit less overtly and in different forms. Today, racial profiling is largely manifested in the over-policing of racialized communities on the street, in schools, in shopping malls, and at the border. Today, the chains of slavery have been replaced with the orange prison garb. One of the many consequences of this over-policing is the fuelling of the gross over-representation of blacks and Aboriginals in our provincial prisons, even though the overwhelming majority of drug, property and violent crime is committed by whites.
Why is racial profiling, or racially biased enforcement, a poor investigative tool?
Let me use the war on terrorism as an example, because in this context, we often hear that racial profiling is necessary to prevent the next catastrophic attack. The problem is that the profile of the terrorist tells us very little. Names can be changed, accents can be hidden, and most of us would probably fail miserably trying to predict who is Arab or Muslim based on appearance. It is easy to point to the demographics of those who committed the last terrorist act, but that was yesterday, and those demographics keep changing with each attack. In the book, I document a pre-9/11 meeting between Osama bin Laden and Jack Roche, a white Australian terrorist, at a training camp in Afghanistan. Bin Laden wanted Roche to recruit white terrorists. Clearly, the terrorists are aware of our reliance on profiling and will take advantage of it. And so, in addition to being a gross violation of human rights, it is inefficient and unreliable, and will only make us more vulnerable to an attack.
Kingston police Chief Bill Closs did something no other police chief in Canada has done: study who his officers were stopping and why. Why have Canadian police and their civilian police boards been so slow to do the same, unlike in the U.S. and U.K., where this is almost a non-issue?
Police forces across this country have tried to take steps to address racism. They have made concerted efforts to incorporate anti-racism measures in training and to hire more racialized officers. So why not take the next step, which I and others have argued is the most important one to take in order to address racial profiling?
The cynic in me would argue that the police are all too aware of what is going on and that they either believe that some kind of profiling is necessary in order for them to do their jobs, or they are simply afraid of what the results will show.
Last week, this paper, for one, gave prominent play to the story of a wealthy white woman who sent a cautionary email to friends describing a night-time home robbery by suspects she described as being masked and black. Police included skin colour in describing the suspects. You have a "modest proposal" for when race should be part of suspect descriptions.
This case reveals the problem with using race as part of a suspect's description. How does the fact that the perpetrators were black assist the police when they were masked and could never be identified even by the victim in a line-up, for example? The fact is that the case will never be solved unless the police get information from someone who knows these two men. This has nothing to do with appearance but, rather, with police intelligence.
The point I raise in the book is that race is often used by the police as the dominant characteristic of the description, which results in the unwarranted stopping and harassment of many innocent individuals.
But to be clear, I don't argue that race should not be used as part of a suspect's description, only that the description must be detailed enough so as to prevent misuse and to be of some valuable assistance to the police.
What would happen if a wealthy black woman was robbed by two white suspects and sent an email to her friends that landed in the hands of the media?
I wish I could tell you that the reaction would be the same, but I do not think it would be. We know of many instances of racialized individuals coming forward with their stories of abuse at the hands of the police or other powerful individuals, and they are often ignored or not believed. It took 13 years, for example, for Saskatchewan to hold an inquiry into the death of Neil Stonechild, a young Aboriginal painter found frozen to death in the outskirts of Saskatoon.
When the odd case does receive some attention, there are often attempts to impugn the character of the victim or cast suspicion on the allegation. Maher Arar's ordeal immediately comes to mind; as does the case of Audrey Smith, a tourist from Jamaica, who was subjected to a humiliating and degrading strip search in public. When she filed a complaint, she was portrayed as a crack cocaine dealer.
Have you seen Crash? It certainly dealt with a lot of stereotypes and ignorance in a single day. What did you think of it? Did you see any of yourself in any of the characters?
I have seen the movie and like to think of my book as Crash in Canada. What I particularly liked about the movie was its portrayal of just how pervasive stereotyping is across all class, racial and ethnic lines, and the harm that it causes. While I can't refer to any specific character, I certainly recognize that I am, as we all are, prone to stereotype. The struggle is to recognize that this is happening and to try and take steps to become more culturally aware.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1143327032311&call_pageid=970599119419
University of Toronto News – March 27, 2006
President speaks on Islamophobia
University of Toronto condemns all forms of racism
by Michah Rynor
President David Naylor, in a strongly worded statement issued at the March 23 meeting of Governing Council, stated that the university condemns all forms of racism.
“Racism and discrimination on the basis of religion or ethnocultural identity are unacceptable on our three campuses,” Naylor said. “For decades, this university has placed a special emphasis on creating the most diverse academic community possible.
“I am concerned that a number of incidents in the past few weeks have made the current environment difficult for members of our Muslim community,” Naylor stated.
The president was responding to a number of recent instances of apparent Islamophobia on campus, including a verbal attack on a woman wearing a hijab, who also had a poster shoved into her chest; eggs being dropped from a residence onto three students, including two female students in hijab; and offensive fliers containing the infamous Danish newspaper cartoons of Muhammad.
The president told Governing Council that on March 17 he attended Muslim Jumu’ah prayers at Hart House “where they have been held for 40 years” and underscored the fact to those attending that “the University of Toronto is their home; that Muslim students, faculty and staff are integral to this learning community; that diversity and respect for difference is our advantage; and that the strength that they have shown in continuing to educate others about their community in the face of these difficulties has benefited us all.
“My considered view is that no amount of public rhetoric is a substitute for the private professionalism and commitment demonstrated so abundantly by members of the Student Affairs team and our campus police....Combating these myriad forms of racism and discrimination is the daily work for many members of your administration and it is a daily commitment made by countless members of the wider U of T community.”
Naylor stated that “we expect all members of this community to be mindful of the fine line between discourse that is provocatively reasonable and that which is unreasonably provocative because it targets individuals on the basis of their identity.”
Jen Hassum, vice-president (external) of the Students’ Administrative Council, told Governing Council she welcomed the statement by the president but felt the overall response by the university was lacking.
“Our students wanted the university condemning these actions as they had condemned unfortunate acts on our campus before. When hundreds of anti-Semitic pamphlets were discovered in the libraries of our institutions of higher learning, the university issued a public statement condemning hate and promised to take swift and appropriate action. But today, until now, we have not seen a public condemnation of these acts of Islamophobia on our campus.”
Governing Council member Susan Eng suggested that all student groups should be encouraged to work together to battle incidents of racism rather than all responding individually when they take place.
When asked by a member of council what penalties or sanctions exist at the university for committing racist acts, Professor Vivek Goel, vice-president and provost, responded that the university has guidelines containing a range of responses that can include suspension and outright expulsion from U of T.
Read More: www.utoronto.ca/racistandoffensiveincidents.htm
http://www.news.utoronto.ca/bin6/060327-2160.asp
CanWest News Service – March 4, 2006
Kirpan ruling gives Canadian Muslims hope for Hijabs
Jeff Heinrich
MONTREAL - Inspired by the Supreme Court ruling allowing Sikhs to carry ceremonial daggers in schools, Quebec Muslims say they should be allowed to wear hijabs in private schools and have prayer rooms set aside for Muslim students at universities in the province.
Calling the court ruling "reassuring for many Canadian Muslims, particularly those in Quebec," the Ottawa-based Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations said some Quebec private schools do not allow Muslim girls to wear the hijab headscarf, while McGill University has refused to give Muslim students a special room to pray.
"We hope that this [kirpan] decision -- a strong commitment to upholding religious freedom -- will resonate throughout Canada and cause educational and other institutions, both public and private, to respect the religious practices of minorities," the council's human-rights co-ordinator, Halima Mautbur, said in a news release after the ruling on Thursday….
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