RACISM DIFFERENT IN CANADA THAN IN USA: UNITARIANS

March 21 International Day for Elimination of Racial Discrimination

As part of the continuing process of developing autonomy, the Canadian Unitarian Council has discerned that racism in Canada involves some different tensions than racism in the US. "In the US, racial equality work tends to focus on tensions between the White majority and the African-American minority," said CUC President Elizabeth Bowen. "While there is undoubtedly discrimination against Black people in Canada, the most blatant racism tends to be against Aboriginal people and immigrants."

When asked in a recent survey to name the most pressing racial issues in their communities, responses from seven congregations mentioned discrimination against First Nations or aboriginal people; three pointed to treatment of Asian or Indo-Canadian students or immigrants; and two named discrimination against Black people. Two congregations said that they had held special Sunday Services to observe Black History Month.

Unitarians commonly work with inter-faith groups in their area, which often include immigrant faith groups such as Buddhists or Muslims. The CUC reached out to Islamic communities after 9-11, pledging friendship and support for their right to practice their religion.

"The first step to eliminating racism," said Bowen, "is to locate it and name it." Since social justice work is intrinsic to Unitarianism, the CUC encourages all congregations to analyze and combat racial discrimination in their own communities and to recognize how racism plays out differently in Canada than in the US.

The Canadian Unitarian Council/Conseil unitarien du Canada (CUC), is an association of forty-four congregations located across Canada with 5,200 individual members. Arising out of the work of outspoken reformers and dissenters within the Christian tradition five centuries ago, the Unitarian movement today includes Universalists and flows in a broad religious stream augmented by Humanist, earth-centred, Buddhist and other progressive beliefs.