Le Canada est un pays qui se félicite pour son inclusion de plusieurs races et ethnies, qui aime s’appuyer fièrement sur le pilier du multiculturalisme, et qui aime fêter ses communautés culturelles d’un océan à l’autre. Les bavures de cette semaine ont fait ressortir les profondes racines de préjugés qui
Continue readingTag: The Race Card
The Adventures of Diva Rachel: Canada’s Selective Immigration Strategy: an Evolution (Part 6/6)
1991 – REFORM PARTY RHETORICThe Reform’s early policy proposals for immigration were seen as highly controversial in Canada including a policy pamphlet called Blue Sheet that was issued in mid-1991 stating that Reformers opposed “any immigration based on race or creed or designed to radically or suddenly alter the ethnic
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Canada’s Selective Immigration Strategy: an Evolution (Part 5/6)
1923 – THE CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT In 1861, a Victoria newspaper was welcoming: “We have plenty of room for many thousands of Chinamen. … There can be no shadow of a doubt but their industry enables them to add very largely to our own revenues.” But after the Canadian Pacific
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Canada’s Selective Immigration Strategy: an Evolution (Part 4/6)
1911 – BLATANT BARRING OF BLACKS As Canadians, we too often adopt morally superior attitudes toward our American neighbours. While Black slaves who escaped to Canada in the 1800s enjoyed a better life here, it wasn’t exactly Eden re-visited. In fact, Blacks were treated so inhumanely that after the U.S.
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Canada’s Selective Immigration Strategy: an Evolution (Part 3/6)
1906 — INDIANS NEED NOT NAVIGATE TO CANADAThen-Clerk of the Privy Council, Rodolphe Boudreau wrote on the restriction of immigration from the Orient, in particular British East Indians: “Experience has shown that immigrants of this class, having been accustomed to the conditions of a tropical climate, are wholly unsuited to
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Canada’s Selective Immigration Strategy: an Evolution (Part 2/6)
1898 – BARRIERS FOR BLACKSThere was — as government correspondence in Ottawa records now makes clear–a long series of letters exchanged among immigration authorities worried about how to be functionally anti-Black without seeming anti-Black. Since much of its recruitment of immigrants was done by mail, it became difficult for immigration
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Canada’s Selective Immigration Strategy: an Evolution (Part 1/6)
Canadians from coast to coast have expressed concern about the pending drastic changes to the rules surrounding immigration buried in the 400-page omnibus bill. As the House of Commons debates the voluminous bill, little time is devoted to dissecting the hundreds of policy changes. Those Canadians who study history regard
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: La semaine de la mode a Ottawa : le « blackface » sur scène
La semaine de mode Ottawa est un événement annuel qui prend de plus en plus d’envergure dans la région d’Ottawa-Gatineau, en créant une occasion unique de promouvoir le talent canadien dans l’industrie de la mode. Après y avoir assisté l’année dernière, j’ai constaté l’heureux mélange d’origines culturelles, de formes et
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Ottawa’s Fashion Week: Bringing Blackface Back
[Written Sunday, Feb 19 2012] Ottawa Fashion Week is a growing staple in the nation's capital, which brings together local residents and the burgeoning home-grown fashion industry in a unique style. Having attended last year, I noticed the mix of cultural backgrounds, shapes and sizes on both the designer and
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: The leveled playing field of educated workers in Canada
New immigrants are more likely to be unemployed than individuals born in Canada, according to data from Statistics Canada. While immigrants with more education face less unemployment, the disparity between them and individuals born in Canada is far gre…
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: HudaKKK and his all-white jury
Before an Ottawa crowd of about 50 people — most older and all white — Conservative leader Tim Hudak repeated his familiar patter about wasteful government spending and again zeroed in on the tax credit for immigrants, saying it offended Canadian …
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Xenophobe, Thy Name is Hudak!
Ottawa-Nepean PC candidate Randall Denley: "People who come from other countries, I guess I call them foreigners".Almost 30% of Canadians in Ottawa are immigrants. The 2006 census counted 47% of Toronto as "foreigners". Sir John A. …
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: 30 Years On: Bob Marley Still Matters
Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war and until there are no longer first-class and second-class citizens of any nation, until the color of a man’…
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Racists = Birthers, Part 294
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economyNow the more haunting question: How did this poisonous and not very subtly racist allegation get such a grip on our conservative movement and our Republican party?[…]I write as …
Continue reading