ETHNOCULTURE (Vol.1, 2007 pp. 15-26)
RACE RELATIONS AND PUBLIC POLICY IN RURAL ONTARIO
Stanley Barrett
University of Guelph
I have a dream: Anthropology has become as indispensable to the health of society as is the practice of medicine; the gap between pure and applied belongs to ancient history as field workers, basking in the glow of an appreciative citizenry, routinely direct public policy and fix the social machinery required to keep society on an even keel.
Then reality sets in, and the elegant simplicity between the analysis of and solutions to human problems gives way to the stubborn complexity that often confounds social engineering. My aim is to demonstrate such complexity with regard to the impact of social change on race relations in a small town in rural Ontario. For most of its history, Paradise, as I call the town, has been remarkably stable. Founded in the late 1800s by British immigrants, its population in 1901 was 1188; in 1951 it was 1184. By the late 1980s, its population had tripled. How to explain? Paradise was caught up in a process well-documented in other parts of the globe, including the U.S.A. (Schwarzweller 1979), Britain (Pahl 1970), and Europe and Japan (Blakely and Bradshaw 1981), referred to variably as reverse migration, inmigration and the great population turnaround, as urban residents relocated to rural society. In Canada every census from 1871 to 1971 had revealed a proportional decline in the rural population. But in the 1970s, for the first time in the country’s history, the population increase in rural society (14.5%) was higher than in urban society (12.3%). Most of the reverse migrants, as Dasgupta (1988) has pointed out, have settled in the towns and villages, or on country estates, swelling the nonfarm rather than the farm population.
The sharp and sudden increase in population had a dramatic impact on Paradise, no more so than on race relations. While the majority of newcomers were European in origin, they were no longer uniformly British. Moreover, included among the newcomers was a sizeable contingent of visible minorities, especially African-origin citizens and people from India and Pakistan. As I shall argue, each of the four categories of Paradise residents—the British-origin natives, the European-origin newcomers, the African-origin newcomers and the Asian-origin newcomers—had its own unique perspective on race relations; each of these perspectives, in turn, reflected social experiences and interests peculiar to its category. With the shift from ethnic homogeneity to ethnic heterogeneity came an increase in racial tensions in Paradise, and my final argument will be that in view of the range of perspectives and experiences across the four categories of residents, no single policy initiative to improve race relations is likely to be efficacious.1
Natives
In order to draw an unambiguous dividing line between natives and newcomers, the former were defined as those who had lived in Paradise before 1960, which predated the first wave of newcomers by 10 years. Almost all of the natives (98%) had been born in Canada, most of them in or near Paradise. The same percentage traced their origins to Britain, nearly half of them to Northern Ireland, and were overwhelmingly Protestant. Only a handful of Catholics made Paradise home, and two of them regularly attended the Anglican and United Churches. In the 1950s the Orange Lodge was still a going concern, and the annual Orange Parade was a major social event. At that time the few families that were not British in origin stood out for all to see. These included a Chinese, an Italian, a Norwegian, and an Estonian family, plus a single French Canadian man. Some of the residents were partly German in origin, which in the wake of the Second World War they often tried to conceal. Since 1900, one or two Jewish families usually could be found in Paradise. It should be added that in the farming community surrounding Paradise, there was a sprinkling of “ethnics” from Holland and eastern Europe.
“You’d never see that in the past.” These were the words of an elderly shopkeeper whose customer, a black person, had just left the premises. There was a time, the merchant ruminated, when even the local Italian family was regarded as peculiar, but now the place is starting to resemble Toronto, with immigrants from every corner of the globe, including “the coloureds and the Pakis.” When a young man on welfare was asked if there was any racial prejudice in Paradise, he replied: “Oh, there’s plenty of it in this town.” He proceeded to talk about a black woman who has been forced out of business because people avoided her specialty shop. His wife expressed similar sympathy for the black woman, and for visible minorities in general, but added: “I feel they’re taking our jobs, and our housing…and they’re filling up our daycares; they have so many children.” At that point her husband chimed in: “When it comes to the fact they’re taking our jobs, I don’t like it.”
Much the same attitude was expressed by another person on welfare, a single parent. She was particularly sympathetic to the plight of Aboriginal people. When asked why a disproportionate number of them are in prison, she remarked: “Same as a lot of Negro people. There’s prejudice there.” But then she went on to claim that visible minorities, bankrolled by government handouts, are taking all the best jobs: “I’ve heard they get government assistance to do a lot of these things---the gas stations and these things. When they can walk in and buy a gas station and a new home, where do they get the money? The government.” What worried her was that “the turbans and coloureds” would soon be running the country: “What I mean, we’re becoming the race---I mean, the foreigners; we white people.”
These natives all fell into the lower class, but this does not mean that prejudice
was absent in the higher classes. For example, a wealthy merchant observed that
blacks and whites cannot live side by side because they think and act differently,
and no amount of education will change things because the differences are “natural.”
He was especially disturbed by the “natural” proclivity of black
people towards violence. Another merchant remarked that it is deplorable that
blacks are genetically deprived---the least intelligent race of all---but “the
facts are the facts.”
To sum up, while there was not much difference among the classes in terms of
the degree of prejudice, there was a difference in the language employed and
in the rationalizations behind prejudice. Those in the lower classes referred
to members of visible minorities as “Pakis” and “turbans”
and sometimes “niggers,” and the prejudice they expressed had a
clear economic connotation. For those in the middle class and upwards, members
of the visible minorities were regarded as potential customers or clients, not
economic competitors. Many of them employed the textbook language---Caucasoid,
Negroid and Mongoloid---and most of them offered a biological rather than economic
interpretation of racial discord.
Despite the widespread evidence of racism in Paradise among the natives, there was something else going on of considerable significance. This was the tendency of people to soften their prejudice and even to make friends with people of colour when they got to know them. Consider the case of an immigrant from India who purchased a gas station near Paradise. The previous owners, also from India, had gone bankrupt, and the gas station had been closed for several months. For a while it was touch and go whether the new owner could keep the business afloat. This was partly because of its past reputation for sloppy and discourteous service, and partly because of the reaction of the local population, most of them farmers. One of them told him: “People like you, you’ll never make it.” Others expressed disgust that white people didn’t own the business. There was a small coffee shop attached to the gas station, and over a period of two years I observed the interaction between the Indian immigrant and the natives. At first, the latter were skeptical and cautious. Yet as time went by, more and more of them began to hang around the coffee shop. It was obvious that they had begun to enjoy the company of the owner, who was intelligent and witty, blessed with a pleasant personality, and capable of talking in colloquialisms and swearing with the best of them, much to the delight of the locals.
Another example concerns an African Canadian couple who lived on a farm, although
the husband commuted to the city for work. When they moved to the farm, they
attempted to make friends with their nearest neighbour, a retired professional
man. He made it crystal clear that he despised black people, and initially rejected
every overture at friendship. As time passed, he confessed that he had made
a mistake: his neighbours were not the scum of the earth after all. Within a
few years, the two families had become inseparable.
A third example again concerns a gas station. A wealthy businessman, a Muslim
immigrant from Pakistan, had encountered the usual opposition from the locals,
but in his case there were additional obstacles. Because of business commitments
in Toronto, he could not himself operate the gas station. He hired another Pakistani
immigrant to do the job, but this man was unable to overcome the hostility of
the locals, and the business floundered. Desperate, the owner replaced the hired
hand with a young man raised on a nearby farm. Business did improve, but only
moderately. As the young man explained, people were aware that the Pakistani
Canadian was still in charge behind the scenes, and made it clear that they
would get their gas elsewhere.
The local man hired to run the gas station, a high school dropout, confessed
that he used to share his neighbours’ attitudes towards people from Pakistan,
but working for the man from Toronto had been an eye-opener. He had learned
to admire the owner, whom he described as a shrewd businessman, but honest,
fair and decent, and he regretted the prejudice and discrimination harboured
by the people among whom he grew up.
Although it would be wrong to conclude that all (or even most) of the natives
underwent a change of heart towards African and Asian Canadians as a result
of meaningful interaction, it by no means was a rare phenomenon, and it was
one of the fundamental differences between the natives and the European-origin
newcomers.
European-origin newcomers
The largest category of newcomers in Paradise consisted of people of European
descent. While most of them (80%) were at least partly British in background,
one in five was non-British. About half of the latter originated from western
Europe, the other half from eastern Europe. Although 81% of the newcomers identified
themselves as Christians, this did not mean that they breathed new life into
the Anglican and United Churches; fully 20% of the newcomers were Catholics,
and the Protestants among them included evangelicals and fundamentalists. Compared
to the natives, the newcomers had a slightly higher level of formal education
and were younger, but they were not captains of industry. The vast majority
fell into the working class, and 63% of them, compared to 16% of the natives,
were commuters, making the arduous daily trek to the urban centres in the south,
such as Toronto.
During the 1950s and earlier, the terms British and Canadian were synonymous.
At that time the assessment rolls divided residents into two categories: British
Subject and Alien. By the 1980s the number of ethnics had expanded to the point
where they no longer could be considered exceptional cases, and most of them
remarked that the days were gone when they had to downplay their ethnic origins.
By then, the ethnic conceptual map in Paradise had been redrawn. The category
of “real” Canadians had been expanded to include a wide range of
people of European origin and the term “British” had given way to
a vague image of “white people,” assumed to constitute a separate
race. No doubt this process was stimulated by the novel presence of visible
minorities in the countryside.
Another consequence of the influx of newcomers was a turn towards xenophobia
among the natives. As an elderly woman, a former school teacher, stated, she
had grown too frightened to walk alone on the streets. While at first she said
it was the rampant crime that worried her, it soon became obvious that what
made her uneasy was the presence of so many strangers: “It’s not
that we’ve heard anything, but it’s just that, well, who’s
out there? We don’t know.” Xenophobia, it should be added, was not
a one-way street. While the majority of the newcomers initially approached Paradise
with a vision of crime-free streets and friendly neighbours, some of them eventually
underwent a change of mind. As one woman stated: “I used to be little
Miss Brave in the city.” What surprised her was that she actually had
become more apprehensive in Paradise than in the city. In her words: “You
know what makes me scared up here? A lot of people who are a bit odd, outcasts,
live up here.” Then she made an acute observation: perhaps the difference
between the city and the small town is that what crime does occur in the latter
becomes public knowledge so fast, giving an exaggerated impression of its range.
As she concluded: “Because it’s a small town, you hear about it
the next day.”
In terms of prejudice and discrimination, the same distinction between the lower
and the higher classes found among the natives was repeated by the newcomers.
While all class levels displayed some degree of racist attitudes, the lower-class
newcomers tended to express their views in economic terms---the Africans and
Asians were taking their jobs---while the higher-class newcomers more often
turned to biological explanations---the visible minorities were genetically
inferior. That was about all the natives and newcomers had in common. While
50% of the natives expressed at least a mild form of racism, the figure for
the newcomers was 61%. The difference was much more dramatic regarding those
whose views about visible minorities resembled the attitudes normally associated
with white supremacist groups. While only 3% of the natives took this more extreme
position, 28% of the newcomers did so. Of course, this does not put them in
the same camp as the Ku Klux Klan. There is a huge gap between expressing one’s
private views and committing oneself in public to the goals of racial supremacy.
Few, if any, of the newcomers would have been prepared to bridge that gap.2
These findings, derived from in-depth interviews, were consistent with the motives
the European-origin newcomers gave for relocating to rural Ontario. While the
fundamental motive was economic in nature---the desire for affordable housing---it
was not the only one. A secondary motive for many of the newcomers (for several
of them, the primary motive) was to escape from people of colour. One woman,
for example, said that the house had been the main attraction, but nearly as
important was the pleasure of being able to live in an all-white environment.
Then there was the young couple who openly stated that they had moved from Toronto
to rural Ontario for one basic reason: to get away from black people. Referring
to the African Canadians in the area where they had previously lived, the woman
remarked: “We’re by no means prejudiced people. But it was a main
concern.” She claimed that blacks had turned that area into a war zone
overnight, with gang wars and stabbings in the malls. Her husband chimed in:
“The plaza was full of blacks. I don’t know how these people did
it. They had mansions. All black people! You know, I’m not a prejudiced
person, but you can judge a kind of people by their actions.” This man,
who had attended university for two years and expressed a keen interest in genetics,
evolution and physical anthropology, said that what finally made them decide
to move out of the city was their belief that their son’s safety was in
jeopardy: “The blacks, they changed the high school. Like I said, I’m
not a prejudiced person. I work with black people, with Indians. I judge a person
as an individual. But what happened, you know, the crime and that. I had black
kids walking down the front lawns. When they came to my car, they walked over
the top of it, and urinated on it like dogs.” Ironically, accompanying
this family to rural Ontario were members of visible minorities.3
African-origin newcomers
Although the families of a handful of the African-origin newcomers to Paradise
in the 1980s had been in Canada for several generations, most were first-generation
immigrants from the West Indies. Almost all of them identified themselves as
Christians, but worshipped in churches beyond Paradise. The majority lived on
rural acreage or in new suburbs near Paradise, rather than in the town itself,
and while a couple of families kept animals, none of them was a full-time farmer.
They made their living in the same way that most other newcomers did: by commuting
to jobs in the city. However, they tended to be more solidly middle class than
the European-origin newcomers, at least as measured by education and occupation,
and while the prospect of purchasing an impressive house on a few acres of land
was their primary motivation, it was not the only one; they also craved the
peace and tranquility of the countryside, and warm relationships with their
neighbours.
When I asked the African-origin newcomers about their experiences in rural Ontario,
nearly all of them expressed a degree of disappointment that bordered on bitterness
and anger. The general opinion, at least initially, was that there was more
racism in rural society than in the urban centres where they had previously
resided. As one man commented: “I’ve never been called ‘nigger’
in my life until I came here. I tell you, there’s more racism here by
far.” Then he mused that perhaps it isn’t the case of a greater
degree of racism, but instead a more obvious reaction to “coloured people”
(his term) because they are such a novelty: “I don’t think they’re
more racist. It’s just that it shows up more. Whatever comes in here that
is different, like us, they’re going to catch hell.” Referring to
the elegant subdivision in which he lived, this man, a semi-retired successful
entrepreneur whose family roots in Canada dated back more than 100 years, remarked
that nobody had put out the welcome mat for them. Typical, he said, was a nearby
neighbour, a professional man, who habitually stared at him without speaking.
For a while one of their daughters lived with them, but while shopping in a
local store she too was called “nigger.” She reacted violently and
a fight broke out. Shortly after, she moved back to Toronto, vowing never to
live in Paradise again.
Another man, an immigrant from the West Indies who moved his family from Toronto
to the rolling hills near Paradise, stated: “When we first came up we
made a big barbeque and invited all the neighbours.” Their initial disappointment
was that only one of these neighbours ever invited them back. Five years later,
they still felt almost as isolated as they had been when they settled on their
rural acreage. When it was pointed out to them that social life in rural Ontario
had changed, with visiting among neighbours reduced to a minimum, partly because
so many residents, like themselves, were newcomers and commuters, the man retorted
that the emphasis placed on privacy was a convenient cover for people to hide
their racism. How else, he asked, do you explain why the children on a nearby
farm were not allowed to play with his own children? Perhaps, he mused, he should
be more content, because at least people waved at him when they passed by in
their cars.
My third case is atypical, because it concerns a family, originally from the
West Indies, who not only lived in town, but owned their own modest business.
For 18 years they had resided in Toronto, struggling to raise their four children
on the man’s salary as a construction worker, and later as a transport
driver. His wife contributed by taking in foster children. They decided to move
to rural Ontario because the man’s health had declined, and he wanted
a slower pace of life and more meaningful interaction with his neighbours. It
was after they had made the move, the man revealed, that racism hit them square
on the jaw. Some of their clients, he said, repeatedly called him “nigger”
and “black bastard.” Others simply boycotted his business. Commenting
on racism in the small town, he remarked: “It’s not subtle, but
it’s not outright. It’s somewhere in between.” After reflecting
for a moment, he added: “I think you feel it stronger up here than in
the city.” Elaborating, he confessed that he felt lonely and isolated
in the town, whereas in the city he could at least visit fellow West Indians
and have some human contact. What this man did not realize was that it was not
only in the countryside but in town as well where meaningful interaction between
neighbours had been reduced to a minimum. When I pointed this out to him, his
reaction was two-fold. What is the purpose, then, of living in a small town,
and how does the privacy factor account for the prejudice and discrimination
which he and his wife have encountered?
Asian-origin newcomers
While not all of these newcomers traced their backgrounds to India and Pakistan,
the vast majority did so, and I shall limit my analysis to them. Their religions
ranged from Hindu to Sikh and Muslim, with the last a clear minority. All of
them had been born outside Canada, but had lived in or near Toronto for many
years before relocating to the Paradise area. There were more university graduates
among them compared to the other two categories of newcomers, and in terms of
income they fell solidly into the middle class. Like the African-Candians, most
lived in the countryside surrounding Paradise, rather than in the town itself.
Unlike the African-Canadians, they did not commute for a living; instead they
owned and operated one of three businesses: gas stations, motels and variety
stores.
Two aspects of the perspective of the Asian-origin newcomers regarding race
relations stood out. First, they did not think there was more racism in rural
than in urban Ontario; most people said that in their judgment there was no
difference, and some of them thought rural Ontario was actually more hospitable.
Second, they did not appear to be agitated or angry because of the racist experiences
that they had endured, whether in the city or in the countryside, because their
attitude was that racism is natural---something that is universal and simply
has to be accepted.
My first example concerns a Sikh about forty-five years old who had emigrated
to Canada in the 1970s. For several years he worked in a factory on the outskirts
of Toronto. After rising to the position of supervisor, he found himself without
a job: “They let me go, because they wanted to promote a white guy. And
he don’t know nothing.” The same thing, he claimed, happened in
two other jobs. Eventually he bought a variety store in Toronto, and with his
wife employed as a nurse in a hospital, the family prospered. Several of his
friends had gone into the gas station business, and he decided to do the same.
He sold the variety store and rented a service station near Paradise, with the
option of purchase. He attempted to hire local help, but claimed that he could
not find anyone willing to work for him: “I’m sorry to say it: these
white people don’t want to work.” He himself put in about fifteen
hours on the job everyday, rising at 5 a.m. and closing the station at 9 p.m.
Business was brisk enough at first, mainly because local people, curious to
see who had taken over the station, stopped to buy gas. Eventually they boycotted
him, and he was left with the trade of people in transit. It was sometimes clear,
according to the man, that neither the locals nor the travelers were very pleased
to find a person of his ethnic background handling the gas pump: “People
don’t tell you that to your face. But you can feel it. They don’t
like it when I own this business.” The exceptions were the customers who
did more than stare---those who cursed him soundly for taking work away from
white men. Like some of the operators of the gas stations, he had to endure
the rumour that he added water to the gas. Yet these signs of prejudice and
discrimination, when they were evident, did not bother him very much. His attitude
was that racism is natural, and therefore not worthwhile getting upset about
it: “It’s everywhere. Even back home too. Nobody can stop that.
It’s the nature.” This interpretation of racism seemed to pervade
all aspects of his life. He explained that he never talks to his children about
racism. They may be subjected to name-calling in school, he commented, but if
so he did not want to know about it. His rationale, again, was that racism is
universal and inevitable, and his children simply have to learn to cope with
it.
In 1991, a former native of Paradise, on a sentimental voyage to the land of
her youth, checked into a local motel and fell into a state of mild shock: the
owners of the motel were Sikhs from India. As she made clear, the people in
the world she most despised and feared were the Sikhs. This woman was much too
gracious to make her feelings explicit, and if her hosts detected anything peculiar
about her reaction to them, they kept it to themselves.
The woman who ran the motel (her husband continued to live and work in Toronto,
joining her on weekends when he had time) had no major complaints about prejudice
and discrimination. Certainly, she revealed, some clients stared at her, and
sometimes they made it obvious that they did not appreciate her national origin,
but she just ignored the implied racism, noting that it was “human nature.”
She did, however, take action when a youngster began to telephone her two children
on a regular basis, berating them with foul language and racist terminology.
She eventually discovered the caller’s identity---a schoolmate of her
children---and put an end to the nonsense by contacting the principal.
This woman stated that she had rarely experienced what appeared to be outright
racism in Canada, but when it had occurred, the setting had been the city, not
Paradise. For example, on one occasion after moving to the motel she traveled
to Toronto to shop, taking the opportunity to wear her native clothes.4 Several
white youth accosted her on the street and began to shout, “Paki, paki.”
As she smiled thinly, they didn’t even realize she was from India.
My example of owners of variety stores concerns a Hindu couple, both of them
university graduates, who had moved to the town of Paradise after having previously
lived in Toronto for about 20 years. Occasionally, they revealed, they had to
cope with rowdy youth who sometimes abused them verbally, but thought it was
the alcohol or drugs talking, not racism. Indeed, they expressed great pleasure
with Paradise, and insisted that it was altogether benign as far as prejudice
and discrimination are concerned. For example, although their two children had
gone through a period of adjustment, they apparently had been treated well by
their peers and excelled in their studies. Yet the two adults remarked that
they did not have any friends in town. The reason, they explained, was a lack
of time: the store was open from early morning until late evening. Yet they
did find time to periodically visit old friends in the city, and to maintain
their contacts in the East Indian community. In this respect, they were a carbon
copy of virtually every other Asian couple who had taken over businesses in
rural Ontario. When they took a breather from work, they did not venture onto
the streets of Paradise or drop in to see local residents. Instead they visited
other motels, gas stations and variety stores run by people of similar national
origin, or drove south to spend time with their relatives in the city.
It was apparent that the degree of prejudice towards visible-minority newcomers
gradually diminished from the cases of the gas stations to the motel business
and finally to the variety stores. Why should this be so? One possible explanation
is that the owners or operators of the variety stores were university graduates,
which may have enhanced their reputations among the locals, and made them more
knowledgeable about how to communicate across cultural divides. Yet most of
the motel owners also were university graduates; besides, it was improbable
that many of the locals even knew who among the Asian Canadians possessed university
degrees. Another reason might concern the personal qualities and behaviour of
the people who operated the variety stores. The individuals whom I interviewed
were pleasant, diligent and sober; these same qualities, however, were prominent
among most of the motel owners, and among many of the gas station operators
as well.
While the impact of education, personality and behaviour cannot be dismissed entirely, two additional, and possibly more profound, explanations for the different degrees of prejudice exist. One concerns the amount of interaction between the Asian Canadians and the local population (plus the European-origin newcomers). There may have been less hostility on the part of the locals towards the owners of the motels compared to the owners of the gas stations because the former’s business consisted primarily of outsiders and transients; the locals simply did not come in contact with them. In contrast, they had to buy their gas somewhere, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to do so in a station owned by whites. Of course, that does not explain why the owners of the variety stores, who also had regular interaction with local customers, appeared to experience the least prejudice of all. At this juncture we must introduce the second explanation: sheer economics. Both the gas stations and the motels were regarded by locals as important, lucrative businesses. The variety stores, in contrast, were seen as low-prestige affairs, where one counted in pennies rather than dollars---hardly the focus for envy and hostility.
Discussion
Each of the four categories of residents in and around Paradise embraced a
distinctive perspective on race relations. The British-origin natives tended
to be ethnocentric, while the European-origin newcomers displayed a weakness
for white supremacy. From the perspective of the African-origin newcomers, rural
Ontario was racist to the core, whereas the Asian-origin newcomers regarded
it as little different than the city, and perhaps even more benign.
How to explain? It is often assumed that racism is based on ignorance, and that
its solution is education. In my judgment, that assumption applies much more
to ethnocentrism than to racism. Ethnocentrism flourishes in isolated and homogeneous
communities, but is vulnerable to education in its widest sense. Thus, the natives,
confronted for the first time with a sizeable number of visible minorities,
went through a learning experience which sometimes broadened their outlooks
and even resulted in friendships. Racism, on the other hand, is based on power
and privilege, and it can thrive when contact among people of different national
origins is dense and constant. Thus the European-origin newcomers, with their
experiences in the multicultural city, often carried with them to rural Ontario
a perspective on race relations that had become hardened into an ideology.
On one occasion when I was visiting a gas station owned by local whites, a man
drove up to the pumps, got out, and exclaimed (presumably with considerable
hyperbole): “This is the eleventh place I’ve tried tonight. If this
place had changed hands, and somebody with a cloth on his head walked out, I’d
give up.” This anecdote is important, because it suggests that the different
perspectives on race relations embraced by the African and Asian newcomers were
not a result of more favourable treatment towards the latter. The fact is that
neither the natives nor the European-origin newcomers drew a distinction between
the two categories of visible minorities. In order to explain the disappointment
of the African Canadians and the indifference of the Asian Canadians, we must
once again examine the distinctive environments in which they worked and lived.
The Asian Canadians who were dispersed around Paradise constituted a community
(or at least a quasi-community). They were connected to each other by an informal
network of communication, the efficiency of which I experienced first hand.
Sometimes I would stop at a gas station or motel primed to explain that I was
conducting research in the area, only to be informed by the owners that they
had been expecting me. This never happened among the African Canadians. While
black families living in close proximity usually knew each other, and may even
have been aware of others in the area, there was no black community per se.
This essential difference between the Asian and African Canadians can be explained
partly by the fact that the former were concentrated in three types of high
profile local businesses, whereas the majority of the latter were commuters.
In other words, the African Canadians were much less sociologically visible
to each other.
The community status of the Asians helps to explain three puzzles. First, why
unlike the African Canadians did they make little effort to become integrated
into local society? Secondly, why did the African Canadians, unlike the Asian
Canadians, think that racism in rural society was widespread? Thirdly, why did
the Asian Canadians assume that racism is natural and inevitable, while everything
about the African Canadians implied that they thought otherwise? The African
Canadians, lacking even a quasi-community, were essentially isolated and vulnerable.
As normal human beings, they craved contact with others, and when their overtures
to their neighbours were rejected, they drew firm conclusions about the level
of racism in rural Ontario. The Asian Canadians were not regarded any more positively
than the African Canadians by their white neighbours. But because they rarely
attempted to socialize outside their community, they did not test the degree
of prejudice and discrimination that existed. Finally, their assumption that
racism is natural was in many respects a boundary mechanism. It rationalized
their lack of effort to make friends among the local people, while simultaneously
strengthening their dependency on their own community.
Conclusion
The complex nature of race relations in rural Ontario in the 1990s does not
destroy the dream of moving beyond analysis to solution, but it certainly makes
it challenging. Not only does each category of residents require a unique policy
initiative, but the same is true for different sectors within each of the categories,
such as the lower-class natives who perceived race relations in economic terms
and the higher-class natives who thought in biological terms.
I have stressed the ethnocentric orientation of the natives, but ethnocentrism,
if not the same as racism, is at least its first cousin. What surprised me about
the natives, in view of their lack of contact with visible minorities in the
past, or even with “white ethnics,” was how readily they were prepared
to conceptualize the world in stereotypical racial terms. Thus, when I asked
them if there were different races, they not only unhesitatingly gave me their
classifications, but also indicated their criteria (with skin colour the main
one) as well as their ranking schemes. This led me to speculate that even in
ethnically-homogeneous communities, such as Paradise in the 1950s, where racial
contests were unknown, a racial capacity exists. If so, such a capacity amounts
to what might be called shallow racism, and the goal of policy makers should
be to try to prevent it from transmuting into deep racism.5 The way forward
would seem to be to deliberately establish the conditions that bring the natives
together with the visible-minority newcomers on a routine and frequent basis,
such as festivals, sports events, and cultural occasions, rather than leaving
it to chance. In other words, every opportunity should be taken to expose the
vulnerability of native ethnocentrism to education in its broadest sense.
It is improbable that a similar plan of action will have much effect upon the
European-origin newcomers, at least those who have carried a racist ideology
to the countryside. The only way to reduce their potential mischief is to make
certain the legal system is properly equipped with laws against racism, and
hope that such laws are not compromised by the lack of a critical mass of people
of colour in the countryside, or by the preferential treatment that often accompanies
settings of face-to-face interaction. The good news is that almost 40% of these
newcomers were at least neutral in terms of their attitudes towards people of
colour. Perhaps in their case the same community initiatives recommended for
the natives would do some good.
Some of the racism which the African Canadians claimed to experience was probably
not racism at all. They were strangers to the countryside, and like all strangers
they were initially on trial. They also were commuters, which meant that they
had little opportunity to interact on a regular basis with their neighbours,
even if the latter encouraged them. And as earlier pointed out, rural Ontario
itself has changed. There was a time when farmers visited back and forth, getting
together on Saturday nights for a meal and to listen to the radio, meeting on
Sundays at the country church, and helping each other out with the harvest.
That rural Ontario has long gone. People who reside in the countryside now live
largely private lives. Even in Paradise itself only the elderly citizens who
grew up there regularly enjoy each other’s company, coming together for
tea and a game of cards.
It is unlikely that anything can be done to change the above conditions. The
newcomers will remain newcomers, and they aren’t going to be presented
with the option of abandoning commuting for a job next door, nor is the rewarding
interaction of the past going to suddenly re-emerge, if it ever does. Yet if
a concerted effort on the part of community leaders---perhaps a service club
could assume responsibility---were made to help the African Canadians better
understand the social conditions that affected them, their dissatisfaction with
rural life might soften. Certainly everything that we know about these newcomers
suggests that they would welcome friendly overtures from community leaders.
Yet even if such overtures were forthcoming, they could only achieve a partial
solution. This is because to some extent the tepid reception of the African
Canadians was independent of their social circumstances. Its source was nothing
more complicated than their status as visible minorities. The only recourse
would seem to be the legal system, but I have serious doubts about its effectiveness
for a population as miniscule, dispersed and isolated as the African Canadians.
Evidence that the cold shoulder given to the African Canadians cannot be explained
solely by their status as strangers and commuters, or by the weak caliber of
social interaction that has emerged in rural Ontario, is reflected in the experiences
of the newcomers from western and eastern Europe. They too were strangers and
commuters, but they no longer were the targets of prejudice and discrimination,
as had been the case in the 1950s. To the contrary, they had been absorbed under
the newly-formed umbrella: white people.
The Asian Canadians present a different kind of challenge. Insulated by the
assumption that racism is natural, they did not complain about prejudice and
discrimination in rural Ontario. But at the same time they did not attempt to
integrate into local society. Occasionally I met African Canadians who were
close friends with whites; not once did I observe a similar relationship involving
Asian Canadians. Even those individuals whose warmth and wit attracted local
people to their places of business drew the line when they closed up shop for
the day. They spent evenings at home, or with fellow Asians nearby.6
My guess is that this state of affairs will not endure. There already is considerable
racial tension in the Paradise area, and there is little reason to think that
it will not increase if the exodus from the city to the country continues. Certainly
on theoretical grounds alone this is what we would expect. Rapid social change
has polar opposite consequences for two of the main dimensions of stratification:
social status and race. Under these conditions, status, as Weber himself pointed
out (1953: 73), weakens, providing a free rein to the marked-based class system,
while racism tends to expand and become more overt. The status system is dependent
on the capacity which stability provides for people to make subtle evaluations
about “honour.” Yet it is precisely when society is in turmoil that
xenophobia and scapegoating flourish. It should be added that a society in flux
is a risky business for the dominant social class. If the Marxian perspective
(Cox 1948, Miles 1982) is correct that racism divides the working class against
itself, an elevation of racial contests can serve as one of the ruling class’s
instruments to make sure it still is on top when the dust settles.
Should the future in rural Ontario unfold in this manner, the Asian Canadians
may be forced out of their comfort zone. Their best hope is to lower the barriers
around their community and attempt to integrate into the wider society, at least
to a moderate degree. Most of these newcomers are successful business people
who would enrich the membership of business and service organizations, which
might well be the most effective point of entry, at least if the welcome mat
is put out for them.7 Once again, it is the local community, not the legal system,
that holds the greatest promise for salutary race relations.
One final issue: if I am right in thinking that racial contests are only going
to increase in rural Ontario, what about the prospects of a combined African
and Asian response to defend themselves? In my judgment, such a response is
quite improbable. On one occasion I was chatting with a woman from India when
a black person arrived with the message that he wanted to organize people of
colour, both Africans and Asians, so they could present a common front against
racism. The woman appeared to be perplexed, and when the man departed she made
it clear that she did not think unkindly about black people, but wondered what
in the world the man thought they had in common. Sometimes attitudes between
African and Asian Canadians were less generous. One African Canadian, a university
graduate, ventured the opinion that East Indians and Pakistanis were unable
to integrate into Canadian society. The obstacle, he thought, was culture, not
biology: people from these two countries did not seem to have the high level
of sanitation standards expected in Canada. That unflattering appraisal was
returned full force by an Asian Canadian, who also was a university graduate.
The stereotypes about black people, he insisted, are accurate: they have no
respect for the law, they openly use and sell drugs, and they are prone to uncontrollable
violence.
Even if the African and Asian newcomers did succeed in forming a common front, this in itself would not terminate racial strife in the countryside. But it would serve notice that such strife has become a reality, and this hard fact in the long run might mobilize good-hearted men and women, natives and newcomers alike, to search for a solution. What they would discover, at least if they managed to travel into the heart of the matter, is that a “one size fits all” policy has all the earmarks of a dead end.8
NOTES
1. This paper is based partly on my book, Paradise: Class, Commuters and Ethnicity in Rural Ontario (1994). The number of formal interviews was as follows: natives 122, European-origin newcomers 107, African-origin newcomers 28, Asian-origin newcomers 36.
2. For examples of these attitudes, see Barrett 1987.
3. It is relevant to point out that Fliegel and Sofranko (1984) characterized the process of reverse migration in the United States as “white flight.”
4. Several of the Asian Canadians donned Western dress in the countryside in order not to antagonize their customers.
5. For an attempt to explain the sources of this racial capacity, see Barrett 1994: 268-270 and 2002: 57-59.
6. It is interesting to note that the “ethnics” in and around Paradise in the 1950s also had a tendency to interact with each other rather than with their “British” neighbours.
7. It can not be assumed that this will automatically be done. I followed the case of one newcomer whose application to join a service club was rejected because he was a Jew. Of course this was not the reason provided for the rejection.
8. This paper, focusing as it does on policy issues, is intended to be an exercise in applied anthropology. Yet unless one has gone beyond the analysis of problems and their solutions, and actually conveyed these ideas to people in the community and played a role in their implementation, it is dubious whether the applied label is justified. It might be countered that this standard is too demanding, and if followed would disqualify most academic work from the applied label: what really counts is whether or not an article or report has applied implications. Yet this makes little sense to me because all scholarly products, even the most abstract and theoretical, contain applied implications, regardless how vague, silly and impractical. To reiterate, it is one thing to write policy and recommend solutions; it is quite another thing to participate at the ground level in efforts to render these solutions a reality.
One expert (Nolan 2002: 307 and 314) defines policy as: “An overall plan or course of action, usually based on clearly-stated values or beliefs, intended as a guide for decisions and plans.” And applied anthropology as: “The use of anthropology for problem solving outside the boundaries of the discipline itself.” This paper might qualify for the former, but hardly for the latter. Also see Nolan (2003) for an exceptionally clear guide book for students wishing to engage in anthropological practice.
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