TORONTO, December 19, 2002 -- Despite Canadian progress toward multiculturalism and racial equality, a "colour line" in the job market continues to relegate most Blacks to low-paying, dead-end jobs, excluding them from some segments of the job market altogether, according to a new book on Blacks in Canada. It calls for greater enforcement of federal equity guidelines in the workplace.
Black Canadians: History, Experience, Social Conditions (Fernwood Publishing, 2002), by York University Professor Joseph Mensah, says the federal government itself is "among the worst violators" of national employment equity policies, citing a 1997 study sponsored by the Canadian Human Rights Commission on the prevalence of racism in the public service.
"Systemic workplace discrimination impacts Blacks more than any other form of bigotry in Canada," says Mensah, a cultural geographer and assistant professor in the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies at York. He uses data from the 1996 census, the first to identify Black as a racial category and provide a sufficient amount of reliable empirical information to make meaningful statistical comparisons.
Contrary to popular belief, Mensah says, the educational attainment of Blacks is not much different from that of the Canadian average. He cites statistics showing that fewer Blacks (8.29 per cent) than Whites (12.05 per cent) completed less than Grade 9, and 22.11 per cent of Blacks have some university education, compared to 22.97 per cent of Canadians overall. Yet 19.3 per cent of Blacks are unemployed, compared to the national jobless rate of 10.4 per cent. He says the average income for a Black Canadian is $19,133, compared to the national average of $25,000.
While acknowledging that many factors contribute to unemployment, Mensah insists that racism is the more significant factor. He says it is an enduring Canadian myth that there is less racism in Canada than in the United States. "As Canadians, we tend to ignore our racist past and dismiss contemporary racial incidents as aberrations in an essentially peaceful, egalitarian nation."
Mensah says the absence of race-based riots in Canada in a Black population, now estimated at 573,860, is less a characteristic of Canadian tolerance than an indication of the diverse national origin of Blacks in Canada, their lack of political organization, and the fear of police and public backlash against activism and resistance.
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For further information, please contact:
| Prof. Joseph Mensah | Susan Bigelow |
| School of Social Sciences | Media Relations |
| Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies | York University |
| York University | 416-736-2100, ext. 22091 |
| 416-736-2100, ext. 66344 | sbigelow@yorku.ca |
| 905-495-9426 (H) | |
| jmensah@yorku.ca |
YU/118/02
