Lost In The Political Shuffle

Racism raises its malevolent head everywhere, though we had thought that good will and a more emergent civility of late had muted it to the extent that it hardly existed but on the fringes of a resistant minority within society. At the very time, for the black community, for example, that finally, in America, a black candidate for the presidency was considered by an emphatic majority of voters as representing the future, black communities world-wide are still experiencing overt incidents of racism.

Recent world-wide events of attention-grabbing terrorism enacted by violence-and-death addicted Islamist jihadists had seemed to turn universal attention to visual identification of those who might fit the physical description of someone from the Middle East clinging to a repugnantly violent version of Islam that singled out hirsute, dark-complexioned men for suspicion. And those communities felt the sting of condemnation and suspicious grievance.

Muslims in Europe and North American began to work hard at earning a reputation for untrustworthiness, rejecting the values and imperatives of the social contracts most communities expected of their citizens, as an increasing number of restively aggrieved young men demonstrated their willingness to accept the mantle of 'martyr', wreaking havoc in their adopted countries as well as those abroad where the infidel were slaughtering their co-religionist jihadists.

And Jews living in Israel and beyond began to realize once again how easy a target they will always be for the unleashing of fresh onslaughts of anti-Semitism, attempting to defend themselves from the never-ceasing bloody antagonisms of Muslims incensed at the presence of a Jewish state within an Islamic geography. The rise of anti-Semitism at the very time that the larger Jewish community began to breathe a sigh of released tension at its long absence, has re-awakened them once again to reality.

Muslims have adopted their own inimitable version of nomenclature to describe the sudden increase in the world's attention on all things Muslim, and more to the point and most particularly the very direct threats unleashed against the world of the West, by Islamists. Islamophobia has become their catch-word, as they lament the plight they feel themselves to have been exposed to, through profiling, to being harassed at every turn, they claim.

And then, there are the black communities who find themselves suddenly still defending themselves against racism, but this time the spotlight of universal attention and support has been mysteriously absent, and they find themselves without the political defences they have learned to rely upon. And had every expectation to re-discover, in traditional support from traditional sources.

In Ottawa, over 150 black academics, legal experts, social workers and activists have been congregating at a policy conference to which black youth representatives and others have assembled from across the country. Their mission has been stated; to grapple with the unending issues of racial discrimination and public instances of racist denigration, causing the larger black community no end of frustration and concern.

The organizers of the conference had issued invitations to attend their conference, to politicians at every level. The result was not one single acceptance from any politician, municipal, provincial or federal. The matter of black Canadian racism has appeared to have completely dropped off the agenda altogether. Yet the themes coming out of consultations highlight the incendiary hate crimes the black community is contending with.

In 2006 Statistics Canada released figures showing that race or ethnicity is the most common motivating factor for the commission of hate crimes in the country. At that time, almost half of all such crimes were committed against blacks. "Anti-black hate crimes are on the rise" a lawyer with the African Canadian Legal Clinic informed the audience at a panel discussion.

"The effects are deep and long-lasting for the individual directly involved, and send a deep chill of fear through the rest of the community." The charges of demonstrated racism run the gamut from graffiti to violent assaults, and workplace harassment along with lack of opportunities for professional advancement. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems, and it's abundantly clear that the black communities owe much to themselves, as much as they demand from politicians.

It's obvious too, however, that Canadian politicians need to react to this heads-up with a renewed commitment to engage in assisting the black community to feel more protected and cared for within this country. Governments at every level might see their way clear to liaising with the African Canadian Legal Clinic in a concerned and concerted bid to allay their concerns and commit to greater involvement in pursuing the needs of this community.