Rod wrote: >I never said there was no class segregation in Canada. The is in fact plenty >of it. My point was to suggest that race and class are more intertwined than Rod seems to think. >He does not have the studies at hand, because they do not exist. I will post >later a list of studies that show that "race" has no significant effect on >income. The simple corelations that he quotes on language, not "race" are >misleading. Look at the multivariate analysis and then tell me that "race" >is an issue. It fact the latest studies show that there is a slight positive >effect on income for those who the government calls "visible minorities". The Shapiro/Stelcner results were not simple corellations but multiple regressions (I quoted the results with and without 'controlling' for education.) I am actually not a fan of so-called multivariate analysis on these issues because, as we know, they assume the 'independent' variables are also independent of each other (and for the life of me I can't understand the claims to adjust for this). The fact that in a majority French-language nation, unilingual francophones have a lower educational attainment than unilingual anglophones is actually additional evidence for - what do you prefer, systemic discrimination? - not less of it, as the smaller regression coefficient implies. Rod is probably more capable then I am of evaluating the validity of multivariate studies so I hope he notes any limitations along these lines in the studies he will post. On these questions, I think that usually the simpler the statistic, the more useful it is (when used properly, of course). A simple corellation can speak volumes. But Rod's real point is that I quoted results by language rather than 'race'. It is true that the national oppression of Quebecois/e is not the same thing as white vs. Other racism. I understand Rod to say that race does not exist, that it is a socially-constructed differentiation based on arbitrarily selected superficial characteristics. So what is the real difference between racism and when when francophone workers are paid less than anglophones in Quebec? Pierre Valliers called his famous 1960s book about Quebec "White Niggers of America". I've heard "speak White" addressed to francophones. Face it, anti-French/Quebec sentiment is the Canadian form of racism. As I said before, racism is both different and similar in Canada. >There are few treaties in British Columbia but that is not the case in the >rest of the country. One of the conditions that B.C. agreed to enter was >that it be allowed to keep its pre-Confederation Indian Policy. That the >right of conquest allowed the occupation of the land. This 120+ year old argument by B.C. - that Native title to B.C. land was "extinguished" (the B.C. policy) when it joined Canada - is precisely what the Supreme Court of Canada *rejected* in the 1997 Delgamuuk (sp?) ruling. I mistook Rod to suggest that systematic racism against Natives was mainly in the past. He wrote that "Canada's treatment of native people is scandalous but otherwise there appears to be no widespread identifiable systematic racism". I missed the qualifier "otherwise". My apologies. But we evidently still disagree on other racisms. Partly this seems to be how high to set the bar for defining widespread, systemic etc. racism - not for cheap political propaganda, but as an important political issue that requires concrete solutions like affirmative action more than it does declarations that "race" does not exist. >Bill may not place much hope in the "bourgeois" school system. But where >else is going to place his hope. The educational system if the method that >has dissolved the "legacy of racism" that Bill sees everywhere. It is system >that working class activist for many generations have fought to achive. It >is not perfect, but it is sure a lot better than the alternatives. (which at >the moment seem to be a private, segregated system, operated for profit.) I'm with Rod on defending the public school system. (Though let us not forget that until recently part of that system was residential schools for Native children in Canada whose conscious aim was to turn them into not-Indians.) But surely it is struggles against racism (e.g. civil rights movement in the U.S., anti-Apartheid movement in S. Africa, Mohawk blockages at Oka in Quebec) that have disolved some of its hold, and these gains in turn are reflected in the public schools. I was trying to say that indoctrinating children to repeat that race does not exist is unlikely to accomplish much, and that the bourgeois state's schools (they are, after all) are not likely to be the place where less racist ideas *begin*. >My objection to affirmative action programmes is not that their are subject >to "racist objection." But because they introduce an obvious point of >division among the poor, when programmes that would achieve the same >objective, could be designed that are not defined in racial terms. The divisions are not introduced, they already exist. Affirmative action is to overcome the divisions which 'universalist' measures can't always do, though I'm with Rod on the general idea of improving conditions from the bottom up. >And for all Bill's rhetoric, there is not one solid proposal. I wrote my >piece because, Jim Devine challenged me to outline the policy conclusions of >my abstract claims. I would challenge Bill to do the same what is your >concrete proposal. I've repeated my point on affirmative action (I think a good example of this is the language laws in Quebec that require French to be the language of work in large workplaces, and has (arguably) reduced the income gap between francophone and anglophone workers). It is always important to respond to cases of police racist brutality and similar instances. Here in B.C. defence of Native self-determination is a key issue right now. Rod may find this ironic but this includes defending the right to "separate". Malcolm X said something about Blacks having to unite with each other before Blacks can unite with whites and I think this sometimes applies. Without pre-judging the studies on race and income Rod has promised to post, I think economists can help debunk the economic studies that show racism is not a problem. As Joan Robinson said, the purpose of studying economics is to avoid being deceived by economists. Most of us are in the education system and have a wonderful opportunity in our classes to debunk the concept of race, and I agree with Rod on that. Actually, I'd appreciate more discussion on this issue of race as a category, so I can do a better job on this than when I tried last semester. Bill Burgess
