Overt racism still shock-worthy
A woman’s racist rant at a Mississauga doctor’s clinic aroused widespread horror among Canadians this week, after they watched her demand — in front of her young child — a white doctor who spoke English and didn’t have brown teeth.
Overt racism still shocks people, especially those who don’t experience racism themselves. While easy to castigate such offensiveness, this vulgar display is nothing compared to the more serious aspects of racism. Racism — which breaks up families, cripples generations, keeps them impoverished and continues to have deadly consequences — is structural, systemic and largely invisible except to those who experience it.
Being affronted by this instance of racism in Mississauga might signify individual decency, but does not meaningfully erase complicity with benefitting from racist structures.
Still, this is the shock wave of the moment, and openly demanding to see a white doctor is obviously racist.
I wrote a column attempting to peel back another layer of bias inherent in seeking an English-speaking doctor when those at the clinic were already speaking English.
Hundreds of readers commented on it on social media and in my inbox. Some shared their own hurt of belittlement by fellow Canadians.
“After moving to Brantford, Ont., in the early ’90s when I was released from the Canadian Armed Forces,” said one email, “I myself had a similar run-in with a nurse at our local hospital. She apparently loved my dialect and thought it would be a great pastime to see if she could somehow guess where I was from. After four to five attempts ranging from Scottish to Irish to South African, the nurse seemed enraged when my Irish-born wife told her that I was a Newfoundlander.” From among those who found reason to disagree with my criticism of the saga, a few key themes emerged:
1. “Why are you protecting this racist woman by blurring her face?”
We are not. We are attempting to protect the identity of her son, who is a minor.
2. “To assume that the behaviour of an individual is indicative of widespread racism is completely ludicrous.”
Welcome to the world of the nonwoke. I don’t know whether to shake my head at the ignorance this statement carries or to be envious of the privilege it signifies. Individual acts of racism are the tip of the iceberg, but they offer some hope that they will force racism deniers to accept the obvious.
Someone said we need to give this woman a chance. Another said maybe she’s fed up with the “special treatment” other groups are receiving. Still others said she might have mental-health issues. She might. I don’t know, but it’s a particular weapon of the racism deniers, a benefit of the doubt afforded only to a select few, whether it’s to the man who kills six people in a Montreal mosque or one who kills nine Black people praying in a Charleston church.
3. “Like nobody else regardless of colour asks for a certain type of doctor?”
Others were more direct. Why do women get to ask for female doctors? Is it sexist — and therefore discriminatory — to do so? There isn’t an equivalence there. Asking for a white doctor assumes a doctor of another race would not be able to offer the quality of care required. Asking for a female doctor — and you get one only if available — has nothing to do with race nor does it mean male doctors are inadequate. It’s about comfort and about affording equal access to health care.
4. “While I’m pleased that immigrant doctors are finding a place in our society, and pleased because in many cases they have the patience to listen to their patient, I find that their accents tend to get in the way of we who can’t hear past the accent and therefore don’t completely understand.”
Everybody has an accent. Understanding it is a matter of exposure. If what the doctor says genuinely sounds like garble, one can always politely request another practitioner. Or write down everything you think they are saying and show them so there is no misunderstanding.
Another person wrote to say she has a hearing problem “and have great difficulty or cannot understand someone who has a significant accent. I hope that in this situation, the request, on its own, for a doctor or other service provider who speaks without an accent would not automatically be considered to be racism.”
It wouldn’t. I would call that a request for accommodation.
5. “I really can’t see anything wrong with asking a person of colour where they are from. Same goes with the accent. I love talking to people of different ethnic origins and find asking the question, ‘Which country are you from?’ or ‘What kind of an accent is that?’ is a good conversation starter.”
You may love talking to people of different ethnic origins, if they are your friends. If they are strangers, why do you assume they are eager to educate you on their exotic ways? Just as “How much do you earn?” is in poor taste, “Where do you come from?” can also come across as a crude effort to size up another’s worth.
New immigrants may not find the question offensive. However, it is most often asked of those considered different by some yardstick or the other, who might have well been in Canada all their adult lives or were born here or whose families have been here 200 years or — the worst transgression — if they are Indigenous.
At what point do they become “Canadian enough” to not be asked that question? Shree Paradkar tackles issues of race and gender. You can follow her @shreeparadkar