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Lecture 7
AP SOSC 1210 (lecture) Wednesday,
January 14th, 2010
review kallen nov. 9th -techniques of domination
1. control of immigration as a means in which the dominant group controls
2. control of land
3. control of opportunities in Canada
Model of Competitive Racism
1. Majority assumptions: inferior, culture/ race, threat to dominance, dangerous
2. Rationale: whitest= brightest= right(s)
3. Interiorized attribute: culture/ race
4. Invalidation ideology: racism
5. Majority Policy: malevolence:
a. Containment through segregation, prosecution, and or exclusion
6. Human rights violations: individual and categorical/ collective;
a. denial of educational, political rights
7. Internalization and self-fulfilling prophecy
Film: Shadow of Gold Mountain
•Many Chinese were forced to pay the Head Tax in Canada –up to $500
•Used as a tool to monitor Chinese immigration to Canada
•Chinese came to Canada in large part because of interest in the benefits of the Gold
Rush
•Many Chinese labourers lost their lives- had to use dynamite to blast through Rockies
to access channels
•No need for Chinese immigration and labourers upon the completion of the Railway
•Justified that the Chinese were driving skilled workers out of employment
•People payed willingly within the context of the Immigration Act
•Upon arrival Chinese brought to a “pig house” detained, only released via bribery
•Head tax certificate demonstrated ones citizenship
•Experienced discrimination in almost every aspect of life
•British families were given land for free, while Chinese required to pay head tax
•July 1st 1923- Chinese first group within Canada excluded because of race- for 24 yrs
•Took away Chinese right to return to Canada if you left Canada without returning for
2 yrs
•Tax pays at times died of starvation
•Chinese went to war to prove their citizenship and to demand rights and inclusion w/i
society
•Wives and children of Chinese deemed as citizens were able to come to Canada
•1947 Chinese immigration act repealed
•1982- PM Trudeau introduced new charter- sought inclusion of Chinese under Charter
•Approx. 23 million dollars, collected from over 81, 000 Chinese immigrants
•Groups sought individual compensation, apology and guarantee this doesn’t reoccur
•When gov instituted the head tax initially they were not forced to pay
•1994- gov decides not to grant financial compensation for Chinese Canadians; state
resources will be used to improve current problems
•Chinese file a law suit
•Suit went to SCC; turned down – charter cannot be retroactively be used, and applied
to the Chinese head tax
•No Chinese entered Canada btwn 1923-1947 only after the war
•Canadian gov has so far refused to change its policy surrounding Head Tax
compensation
Dimensions of Racism- Control of “settled land” the racialization of space
Techniques of Land control
1. Ownership restrictions
2. Segregation
3. Persecution
4. Expulsion
Outcome: economic marginalization for radicalized groups and the initiation of an ethno-
racial hierarchy
•Redress movement was denied when case taken to SCC
•Leading up the appeal, claim heard in Ont. Superior Court- justice unable to help;
charter wouldn’t be applied retrospectively
•Community continued to politically lobby
•Have not received a formal apology within the House or any compensation
Techniques of Land Control
Ownership Restrictions
•land in Canada and the USA is considered a form of private property
•‘crown land’ include areas like parks
•Means the Property can be owned, transferred, severed and sold at a profit
•Form of private capital
•Originally, land was used as a means to sustain the group rather than the individual-
not private property
•Land isn’t necessarily privately held in all countries; some countries only allow you to
occupy, or rent the land, ultimately its state owned
•Private property is a social construct that applies in terms of land control in Canada
•Land becomes a source of wealth and potential accumulation of wealth for an
individual
•Many ways in which land can be controlled even in a private property regime
1. One can deny access to land; state can refuse to grant or sell land
2. Denied access to the means that make ones land valuable
3. Persecution of the person who owns the land; makes the use untenable- cant
stay
4. Expelled from the land by authorities; evicted or expropriated
•Canada began to develop its transportation infrastructure through the construction of
the railroad
•Land became valuable; could move raw resources to markets quickly
•Railway critical to securing lands from aboriginal peoples and moving white settlers
onto it
•Radicalized hierarchy created by controlling the ascendancy, accumulation of
wealth of certain ethno cultural groups; dominant group retains control
•when a country is made up of many cultural groups, each should be
represented
•British offered free-slaves land and money if they fought on Britain’s side vs
America, however they only got 20 acres of un-farmable land while whites received
120 acres of farmable land
•Racialization of space- manifest itself in refusing to sell or trade with blacks, left
population vulnerable to white land owners who hired them at low wages
•Results in Racial tensions; blacks being accused as undercutting white wages
•In period during and after Underground railroad, blacks forbidden to purchase land or
hold licenses; not considered citizens; in a period where land had been given to
settlers
Segregation
•Africville contained garbage dumps, slaughter houses, railway line, hosp. For
infectious diseases
•City refused to estb. Waterline, sewage systems and building permits to improve the
quality of life
•this created a slum that took on a racialized other existence legitimating the
treatment by the dominant group; self-fulfilling prophecy
•this shows us the dominant group uses law in relations to land to racialize the
space and justify taking the land
•having a place to call home was not important to the gov.
•Africville residents argued that this was their home when being evicted, but
told it was a slum so they had to leave
•Archival records display that at no point that there was any reason that the
destruction of the Africville should be carried out or justified, just f the sake of
industrialization.
•At no point did it occur to the city that it was home to a people, that it was wrong and
a violation of the people.
•moved to an integrated neighbourhood
•they were now renting houses, no longer home owners
•Restricted covenants; you cannot sell property to certain people; commonly jews,
“objectionable race” legal until 1950
•Systemic racism plays out in the way in which police deal with black male youths in
their own neighbourhoods
•Black youths are stereotyped as violent, more prone to crime, therefore must be
watched more closely; routinely stopped
•Often treated differently by police because of the stereotype
•This evokes a hostile response which in turn reinforced the acceptation that they are
prone to violence; thus a self fulfilling prophecy
Persecution
•Persecution is used to restrict movement, or drive people out. Jews, blacks, Chinese
and Japanese Canadians have all been subjected to this kind of treatment.
•lacks were encouraged to leave once the civil war ended in the USA, and they left
because conditions here were worse than expected.
•Means for government to control land
•To restrict movement or drive them out
•In the late 1790s the situation with blacks were so bad that many black left to sierra
Leone
•Blacks were encouraged to leave when the civil war ended in the us
•Life experiences here were worse than anticipated that in US
•By 1920 the Japanese community were to be seen as large economic threats, that
the BC government eliminated almost half of their fishing licenses
•Riots in BC lead feds to pass the continuous journey rule
•Toronto- put signs up where the dominant group didn’t want to see Jews; signs in the
beaches