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Canadian Race Relations Foundation Case Study

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Founded in 1988, the Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF) was created as one of the terms of agreement in the Japanese Canadian Redress Agreement. In it, the Government of Canada and the National Association of Japanese Canadians agreed that the Japanese Canadians during and after World War II were treated unjustly and were disregarded of their human rights. The Canadian Race Relations Foundation Act was then proclaimed into law by the federal government on October 28, 1996 and the foundation formally opened in November 1997 (CRRF, About CRRF). The CRRF then is a standing promise of the Canadian federal government to “foster racial harmony and cross-cultural understanding and help to eliminate racism (CRRF, About CRRF). To achieve its …show more content…

Their Board of Directors are quite diverse in terms of race and ethnicity, in comparison to other institutions that over represent white males. Furthermore, their 150 stories initiative gives an opportunity for people whom are not normally heard in Canadian society a voice. It gives them a platform to share their story and subsequently present our similarities as human beings. The demonstration of our shared identities as human beings is quiet significant as it disrupts the program that has been installed in us, which is to focus on differences and respond to it with fear and loathing (Lorde, “Exceprt from Age, Race, Class and Sex”). Therefore, the Canadian Race Relations Foundation is a crucial step towards the advancement of equity, but falls short in its execution. The organization tends to sustain the status quo than disrupt …show more content…

Unsurprisingly, multiculturalism is glorified and Canada is painted as the “tolerant” racism-free country. Bromberg defines multiculturalism as the “coexistence of diverse culture and acceptance of cultural differences” (13). The Canadian Race Relations Foundation’s glorification of multiculturalism erases the plethora of systems of oppression that racialized bodies and Indigenous people face in Canada. Bromberg associates multiculturalism for Canada’s high rank in “inter-ethnic trust and friendship, comfort with ethnic diversity…and low levels of support for anti-immigrant political parties or movement” (14). This is obviously a stretch as illustrated by the media representation of black people and Aboriginals, particularly in Toronto. In the Muzik nightclub shooting after the OVO Fest on August 2015, 2 people were shot: one was a girl named Ariela Navarro-Fenoy, who was portrayed as the “beautiful, smiling girl,” and the other was Duvel Hibbert, a black man whose death highlighted his past crimes rather than being a victim of a shooting (Matis, “Collateral Damage”). Media coverage of gun violence have been under scrutiny by lawyers, criminologists and media critics as it sustains the stereotype that Black people, specifically Jamaicans, are violent gang members that are a threat to the streets of Toronto (Matis, “Collateral Damage”). This glorified

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