(Barbados Nation) Far too many Blacks from the Caribbean are catching hell in Canada largely because of institutional racism and poverty.
The problem is hitting hard at black youth, the sons and daughters of West Indians, who are not doing well in schools, are often perceived as violent, and are finding it difficult to move up the economic and social ladder.
That depressing picture of conditions under which many Blacks are living in the Greater Toronto area, Halifax, in Nova Scotia and other areas of Canada, was painted by Barbadian academic and social scientist, Professor Renaldo Walcott, associate professor and chairman of the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies at the University of Toronto, one of Canada’s premier educational institutions.
Though Walcott pointed out that some West Indians were still doing well, he charged that a large number of immigrants had fallen through the economic and social cracks.
“If you are doing well, you don’t have to worry much. There are all kinds of things you can avoid if you are doing well. But basically what’s happening in this country is that the kids of the parents who came as immigrants are under-achieving . . . and kids who are born here, if they from solid middle class families, they are not making it through the school system in any substantive way that is going to lead to a future of at least economic success.”
But that dire picture of black poverty wasn’t shared by Reverend Don Meredith, Canada’s latest black senator in Ottawa, who urged Blacks to take advantage of the plethora of opportunities available.
“I look at Canada and the opportunities that are here for Blacks, it is for us to embrace those opportunities,” said Meredith, a Jamaican-born immigrant who was recently appointed to the upper chamber by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
“Yes, there is racism and discrimination in any country. There are still challenges, and that’s true of Canada. But I tell people, you need to embrace, you need to circumvent, you need to go around those challenges to get where you need to go.
“As a businessman, I came here over 35 years ago from Jamaica when I was 12. Look at where I am today. Have I faced some obstacles? Absolutely.
Sometime ago, Walcott, often hailed as a fearless social scientist, spoke out against the treatment of Blacks, triggering an avalanche of criticism from many Blacks and some whites in Canada.
“My comments back then obviously touched a nerve, largely with Barbadian and other Caribbean people, who had migrated, especially to Canada and were catching hell but they don’t want family back home to know,” he said.
He cited data from Statistics Canada, a major government department, which showed that a black person with the same undergraduate university degree as a white person, even if the Black was born in Canada and the White, an immigrant, the latter would make between CAN$15 000 to CAN$20 000 more than the Black.
