Time for action on ‘profiling’
It’s not just carding. Forms of racial profiling are all too common in Ontario in every walk of life — from the workplace to hospitals, schools, the courts, public transit and even shopping malls.
Anew report from the Ontario Human Rights Commission-paints a disturbing picture of how negative racial and religious stereotypes are “pervasive” throughout society. Those on the receiving end — including black people, indigenous people and those with a Middle Eastern or South Asian background — suffer various forms of overt or subtle discrimination.
If it sounds familiar, that’s because it is: Researchers, activists and members of minority communities have complained for years about the effects of this kind of negative stereotyping. It includes everything from being stopped on the street or while driving to being targeted for searches at airports or even being eyed suspiciously when “shopping while black.”
Still, the commission’s survey serves as a powerful reminder that this toxic situation persists, despite hand-wringing and half-measures taken by institutions and governments.
The commission surveyed 1,500 people from minorities in the summer of 2015. Necessarily, the findings are subjective; they represent the experiences of those who answered. In any particular story about being stopped while driving or turned down for housing, there’s no proof that racial profiling was at work.
Nonetheless, taken together the findings are persuasive. Almost three-quarters of black people said they have been racially profiled, as did 57 per cent of indigenous people and 63 per cent of those with a Middle Eastern, Arab or South Asian background.
Many of them reported deep feelings of anger or resentment at being effectively placed under suspicion while going about their daily business — riding the bus, looking for an apartment, or browsing in a store.
Others worry about their children being at risk if they come into contact with police, or say expectations about bad behaviour can be a self-fulfilling prophecy: if young people think others believe they will act badly, they well may. “It is a vicious cycle,” a black woman told the commission. “It produces in the young people anti-social behaviours that serve only to cause more problems for them.”
All this is unfair and unjust — even illegal in many cases. Beyond that, the commission concludes, it harms people’s physical and mental health. It eats away at the sense of belonging that binds us together as a society. And it undermines trust in key institutions like the police and the courts and produces a profound sense of alienation among those targeted by stereotypes.
Much of the solution lies in changing social attitudes, but that’s hardly enough. The behaviours that add up to “racial profiling” are not just the result of bad personal attitudes. They can be baked into institutions and policies in ways that amount to systemic problems, which must be confronted in a more fundamental way.
A key part of that is collecting race-based data in a host of areas — from policing to child welfare to health. That will allow policymakers to better understand the sources and effects of discrimination and design ways to fight it.
The Ontario government has promised such an approach as part of the “anti-racism” strategy it announced in March. Michael Coteau, the children and youth services minister who heads the province’s anti-racism directorate, says that will be key to developing “concrete steps” toward ending systemic racism in government institutions.
The Human Rights Commission’s new report shows the government was right to get moving on this front. The evidence that discrimination is widespread is compelling. What’s missing is determined action to end it.
The Ontario Human Rights Commission’s new report shows evidence that discrimination is widespread. What is missing is determined action to end it