SOCIAL JUSTICE
THERE’S ANTI-OPPRESSION AT WORK Experts call for stronger efforts against racial discrimination in Canadian workplaces
S
ince George Floyd’s death and the activism work done by organizations such as Black Lives Matter, many workplaces have become interested in addressing their own racism. Despite that interest, many still fall back on strategies such as diversity training and hiring practices that feel more like “checking a box” than the true antioppressive change experts say is needed.
ANGELA LACKEY alackey@cjournal.ca
RACISM Mohammed Hashim, the executive director for the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, said racism is everywhere, especially in workplaces. “It plays itself in different ways. Some people don’t get promoted for certain things. Some people are promoted with lower expectations because of their race. Some people’s objectivity is questioned because of their race. And some people face outright racism because people in positions of power or fellow coworkers just have racist tendencies,” said Hashim, whose organization is dedicated to eliminating racism and all forms of racial discrimination in Canadian society. THE FACTS In fact, a 2019 report prepared by the Environics Institute for Survey Research, in partnership with the CRRF, shows close to half surveyed reported experiencing racial discrimination themselves at some point. It also shows 40 per cent of those surveyed witnessed racial discrimination of others in the workplace. Another report by the Public Health Agency of Canada in 2020, references a Quebec study that found job candidates with Franco-Quebecois names were called for an interview 38.3 per cent more often than those with African names. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, these results can be explained by a tendency towards “sameness, preservation of status quo, and underlying racism,” which can lead employers to claim “lack of fit” as a justification for not hiring highly qualified racialized candidates.
“Checkmark.” ILLUSTRATION: STEVE SARVAJC
WHERE IT’S GONE WRONG The spike in interest in a less racist, more diverse workplace followed the horrific images or George Floyd’s death, and what it represented. Whether you participated or watched, the BLM movement grew and evolved across our country and reminded Canadians that it’s time for action, and it’s time for change. But what do action and change look like? Marcie Hawranik, founder and president of Canadian Equity Consulting, a diversity, equity and inclusion strategy firm, warns against the “traditional” company expectations of just conducting a pre-packaged diversity training session. “It’s more of that checking a box, you know, let’s roll out an unconscious bias training and that should be it,” she said. It also shouldn’t be the responsibility of non-racialized human resources generalists to navigate workplace diversity without the proper know-how. Nor should a company simply allow their female or black employees to create an employee network, like an unpaid diversity
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