‘Visible minority’ is an offensive term

Re: The search for diversity, Dec. 30.

Can a person be white and a visible minority at the same time? Yes, in Canada and only in Canada. If you don’t believe it, take a look at the photos of councillors George Darouze and Mike Qaqish that ran with your articles.

The “visible minority” classification is uniquely Canadian, not found elsewhere across the globe. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in March 2007, described the term as racist because it singles out one group: non-Europeans.

“Visible minorities” have nothing in common except one thing; They don’t originate from Europe. Bureaucrats who invented the concept did not want to use the repulsive “non-European” terminology and so came up with this term instead.

White and European are not the same. The terms are related, but not identical, as numerous white people are not European — such as Latin Americans and Arabs. If we know that a visible minority person is really a non-European by origin, does it not follow, that a Canadian of European origin should be labelled a “non-visible minority”? Especially in places like Vancouver and Toronto where they are losing majority status?

Some people who are considered visible minority in Canada are counted as white in the United States. The U.S. Census Bureau defines white as “a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa.”

And what do you make of the fact that at each census, Americans self-identify as to which racial classification they think they belong, while in Canada, people are placed, by fiat, into a racial pigeonhole by the government based on its visible minority definition.

In my opinion, the government’s visible minority category is Eurocentric; has got its facts wrong, because one can be white and non-European; is deceitful, because it is a euphemism for non-Europeans; is paternalistic and autocratic because people are branded: and is divisive, as it differentiates between Canadians. Charles N. Farah, Ottawa