Thursday 10 May 2018

Racial stereotyping at the Toronto Star

Today's print edition of the Toronto Star contains not one but two articles accusing Canada of being a racist country, both written by women of colour.  Both articles riff off a nasty incident a few weeks ago in which a white woman at a Denny's restaurant in Alberta got into a shouting match with a group of Afghan immigrant men.  That raises an interesting question, of course: if racism is as all-pervasive across Canada as these two columnists claim, how come they both have to rely on the same small incident to make their point?

The woman in Denny's deserves to be named and shamed, which has now very comprehensively happened.  But does the whole country and every one of its citizens have to be called out too?  These columnists are using this one example, appalling as it is, to cast all Canadians in a very negative light.  Isn't that the very definition of racial stereotyping?

Ask yourself this: if a right-wing journalist were to pen a piece saying that all Muslims are terrorists or all Jamaicans are drug dealers or all Mexicans are layabouts, would the Toronto Star publish it?  Of course it wouldn't, and shouldn't -- and it should have thought long and hard about publishing these two articles as well. 

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