Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Excellent synopsis. Just as I suspected. I am a white American who is quite interested in Canada and talks to many Canadians. The questions I get from Canadians about situations in the United States concerning recent disorders makes me strongly suspect you are right.
Canada is more racist than the USA (this coming from a black person who has lived in both for decades!). There's also data out there demonstrating Canada is objectively more racist than the USA. Reply if you would like more details of that data?
Canada is more racist than the USA (this coming from a black person who has lived in both for decades!). There's also data out there demonstrating Canada is objectively more racist than the USA. Reply if you would like more details of that data?
In 2020, the number of anti-black hate crimes in the US per one million black people amounted to about 60 (the rate of anti-black hate crimes in the US - per year - has been between 50 - 60 per one million blacks for DECADES now! So it has basically flatlined!).
In 2020, the number of anti-black hate crimes in Canada was an astonishingly high 265 per million black people. That's more than four times the rate than anti-black hate crime in the US!
And I cannot possibly think of a more objective measure of racism (and country-to-country comparison) than the rate of hate crime victimization. This serves as a excellent gauge of the overall racism of a society - especially as compared to a different society.
Before it rises to the level of hate crime, there's obviously underlying friction, racial micro-aggression, and the likes. Hate crime is just a more extreme expression of "micro-aggression".
To be clear, any given year, a random black person neither in Canada nor the US can expect to be victimized by an anti-black hate crime. It involves an actual crime happening (not just being called a name). So it's certainly not something I would expect to be victimized with every day...that's for sure!
The difference is that a black American has his odds of being victimized by an anti-black hate crime MORE THAN QUADRUPLE once he or she crosses over the international boundary into Canada. And that sounds to me like Canada is not only a more racist country than the US - but a MUCH more racist country than the US!
Would you like more reinforcement to demonstrate just how widespread and intense overall racism is in Canada vs the US? Then let's compare anti-Asian hate crime.
Vancouver has been dubbed the anti-Asian hate crime capital of North America - and for very good reason! Vancouver isn't even that big of a city. Yet, in absolute numbers, in 2020, Vancouver had more anti-Asian hate crime than the 10 largest cities in the US COMBINED! Canada, in general, has a much higher rate of anti-Asian hate crime than the US. It's just that Vancouver is fabulously off-the-charts, especially when compare to the US.
These numbers don't at all surprise me since I have always felt MUCH more hostility in Canada than I EVER have in the US. It's simply has been no comparison to me!
Data Sources: Pew Research Center; FBI; Statistics Canada; Bloomberg; et al...
I don’t know where exactly you got your proportional hate crimes stats or which year they are for, or how the definition of “hate crime” under the law determines which crimes are classified as such in each of the two nations being compared and whether it means that more or fewer crimes are classified as hate crimes in either country. Because of America’s sweeping First Amendment rights to free speech, there are many things a person can legally say to another person in the US that would be considered hate crimes in Canada because of our hate speech laws. Did you do any research into this discrepancy in the definition of hate crimes and how it affected total numbers? Did you compare each country’s laws and how they classify the broad term of “hate crime?” I mean, the murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin looks a lot like a hate crime, but it wasn’t charged as one. The very definition of what constitutes a “hate crime” in Canada vs. the US could be quite different, which would lead to different statistics.
Regardless, reading from the FBI’s website on hate crimes and Statistics Canada’s website on the same, it appears that in 2016, 50.2% of the 4,229 reported crimes against people based on racial or ethnic bias were perpetrated against black or African American victims. That’s a total of about 2,115 hate crimes perpetrated against black people in the US in 2016 (Source: https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2016/...ntsandoffenses) It’s also important to note that these numbers reflect actual “incidents” of hate crimes, which I’m going to assume means someone was charged and convicted. You’ll see why this is important in a moment.
During the same year in Canada - 2016 - there were about 215 police-reported hate crimes against Black Canadians (source: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/.../00002-eng.htm specifically, Chart 6) . Police-reported is not the same as incident. Or is it? It’s hard to tell because no definition is given. However, let’s pretend for a moment that it is the same. That would mean that ten times the number of hate crimes were perpetrated against black people in America in 2016 vs. Canada in the same year. If we look at both country’s respective black populations - approximately 1,000,000 in Canada; 46,000,000 in the US - there are 46 X the number of black people in the US vs. Canada. If we take the approximate black Canadian population of 1,000,000 and divide it by the reported hate crimes against black people in Canada in 2016, we get one reported hate crime for every 4,651 black Canadians. If we do the same for the US, we get one hate crime incident per 21,749 black Americans.
If we break down the numbers this way, we arrive at a rate that is similar to the one you arrived at - proportionally 4 times more in Canada vs. the US. However, as I noted earlier, those numbers can’t be compared side-by-side because they mean different things. For one, calling a person an ethnic slur in Canada could be considered an instance of hate speech, which is a crime. However, in the US, because of blanket First Amendment protection, the same incident would not be considered hate speech or be considered criminal. Second, Stascan numbers for hate crimes calculate police reported incidents while the FBI tabulates statistics simply referred to as incidents. Is there a difference? Is Canada counting all reports of hate crimes, while the FBI is counting convictions? We can’t simply speculate and make a determination based on speculation. But that’s what you did, in addition to using your anecdotal impressions of the hostility you feel in Canada as a factor in your determination that Canada is the more racist country.
The truth is, racism is a subjective experience. It depends on where one lives in a country, what the law qualifies as a hate crime, the number of people who report hate crimes, and what an individual’s experience is of the place they live in. It is impossible to objectively claim one country is more racist than the other, even with sticky statistics about hate crimes that may not mean the same thing in the countries being compared. Canada’s hate speech laws alone ensure that there are going to be proportionately more hate crimes in Canada vs. the US because a whole category of hate crime exists in Canada that does not exist in the US.
It’s also worth noting that you have taken the opportunity to define racism in your own terms. You decided that the number of hate crimes = the amount of racism in a given country. That approach is completely lacking in nuance, and as I explained, it’s problematic given the diverging definitions of what constitutes a hate crime in Canada vs. the US as well as whether the numbers represent an actual incident that ended in a conviction or a reported incident. I hope I don’t have to explain to you why the difference matters. Using your own subjective impressions as further evidence to support your assertion undermines your claims even more because it demonstrates that you have a subjective belief in your claim which behooves you to try and prove objectively in order to validate your subjective experience.
Finally, if you’re going to cite sources, tagging a few names on to the end of your post doesn’t make your claims more reliable because you haven’t cited the actual sources where you got those figures so that others can check your sources and methods. If you want to present something as truth, you should use academic-level citations to allow readers to check your work.
If you feel that Canada is more racist than the US, it’s your prerogative to feel that way. However, if you want to prove it objectively, I think you need to use more rigorous methods than you did in the post I’m replying to.
I don’t know where exactly you got your proportional hate crimes stats or which year they are for, or how the definition of “hate crime” under the law determines which crimes are classified as such in each of the two nations being compared and whether it means that more or fewer crimes are classified as hate crimes in either country. Because of America’s sweeping First Amendment rights to free speech, there are many things a person can legally say to another person in the US that would be considered hate crimes in Canada because of our hate speech laws. Did you do any research into this discrepancy in the definition of hate crimes and how it affected total numbers? Did you compare each country’s laws and how they classify the broad term of “hate crime?” I mean, the murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin looks a lot like a hate crime, but it wasn’t charged as one. The very definition of what constitutes a “hate crime” in Canada vs. the US could be quite different, which would lead to different statistics.
Regardless, reading from the FBI’s website on hate crimes and Statistics Canada’s website on the same, it appears that in 2016, 50.2% of the 4,229 reported crimes against people based on racial or ethnic bias were perpetrated against black or African American victims. That’s a total of about 2,115 hate crimes perpetrated against black people in the US in 2016 (Source: https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2016/...ntsandoffenses) It’s also important to note that these numbers reflect actual “incidents” of hate crimes, which I’m going to assume means someone was charged and convicted. You’ll see why this is important in a moment.
During the same year in Canada - 2016 - there were about 215 police-reported hate crimes against Black Canadians (source: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/.../00002-eng.htm specifically, Chart 6) . Police-reported is not the same as incident. Or is it? It’s hard to tell because no definition is given. However, let’s pretend for a moment that it is the same. That would mean that ten times the number of hate crimes were perpetrated against black people in America in 2016 vs. Canada in the same year. If we look at both country’s respective black populations - approximately 1,000,000 in Canada; 46,000,000 in the US - there are 46 X the number of black people in the US vs. Canada. If we take the approximate black Canadian population of 1,000,000 and divide it by the reported hate crimes against black people in Canada in 2016, we get one reported hate crime for every 4,651 black Canadians. If we do the same for the US, we get one hate crime incident per 21,749 black Americans.
If we break down the numbers this way, we arrive at a rate that is similar to the one you arrived at - proportionally 4 times more in Canada vs. the US. However, as I noted earlier, those numbers can’t be compared side-by-side because they mean different things. For one, calling a person an ethnic slur in Canada could be considered an instance of hate speech, which is a crime. However, in the US, because of blanket First Amendment protection, the same incident would not be considered hate speech or be considered criminal. Second, Stascan numbers for hate crimes calculate police reported incidents while the FBI tabulates statistics simply referred to as incidents. Is there a difference? Is Canada counting all reports of hate crimes, while the FBI is counting convictions? We can’t simply speculate and make a determination based on speculation. But that’s what you did, in addition to using your anecdotal impressions of the hostility you feel in Canada as a factor in your determination that Canada is the more racist country.
The truth is, racism is a subjective experience. It depends on where one lives in a country, what the law qualifies as a hate crime, the number of people who report hate crimes, and what an individual’s experience is of the place they live in. It is impossible to objectively claim one country is more racist than the other, even with sticky statistics about hate crimes that may not mean the same thing in the countries being compared. Canada’s hate speech laws alone ensure that there are going to be proportionately more hate crimes in Canada vs. the US because a whole category of hate crime exists in Canada that does not exist in the US.
It’s also worth noting that you have taken the opportunity to define racism in your own terms. You decided that the number of hate crimes = the amount of racism in a given country. That approach is completely lacking in nuance, and as I explained, it’s problematic given the diverging definitions of what constitutes a hate crime in Canada vs. the US as well as whether the numbers represent an actual incident that ended in a conviction or a reported incident. I hope I don’t have to explain to you why the difference matters. Using your own subjective impressions as further evidence to support your assertion undermines your claims even more because it demonstrates that you have a subjective belief in your claim which behooves you to try and prove objectively in order to validate your subjective experience.
Finally, if you’re going to cite sources, tagging a few names on to the end of your post doesn’t make your claims more reliable because you haven’t cited the actual sources where you got those figures so that others can check your sources and methods. If you want to present something as truth, you should use academic-level citations to allow readers to check your work.
If you feel that Canada is more racist than the US, it’s your prerogative to feel that way. However, if you want to prove it objectively, I think you need to use more rigorous methods than you did in the post I’m replying to.
I am not going to get into a whole lot of detail except to say that I did not speculate anything (as you claim)! It’s criminal justice 101 (plus the fact that I wrote actual incident reports in the security industry).
That is to say…the term “incidents”, as used in criminal/legal jargon, is based on formal incident reports and can be used to serve as supporting source documentation for actual “incidents” of hate crime. They are completed-and-filed pre-trial and most certainly pre-conviction stage in BOTH countries!
I could go through everything else you’ve said with a fine-toothed comb but have neither the time nor the grant money to do so.
For now, I just want to say that you did not address the fact that Canada – especially Vancouver – has an exponentially higher rate of police reported anti-Asian hate crime than the USA.
I used the same sources as the news reports that follow to determine the exponentially higher rate of police reported anti-black hate crimes in Canada (exponentially higher than the USA!).
So I am curious what your criticisms of the following anti-Asian hate crime news reports are?...
I am not going to get into a whole lot of detail except to say that I did not speculate anything (as you claim)! It’s criminal justice 101 (plus the fact that I wrote actual incident reports in the security industry).
That is to say…the term “incidents”, as used in criminal/legal jargon, is based on formal incident reports and can be used to serve as supporting source documentation for actual “incidents” of hate crime. They are completed-and-filed pre-trial and most certainly pre-conviction stage in BOTH countries!
I could go through everything else you’ve said with a fine-toothed comb but have neither the time nor the grant money to do so.
For now, I just want to say that you did not address the fact that Canada – especially Vancouver – has an exponentially higher rate of police reported anti-Asian hate crime than the USA.
I used the same sources as the news reports that follow to determine the exponentially higher rate of police reported anti-black hate crimes in Canada (exponentially higher than the USA!).
So I am curious what your criticisms of the following anti-Asian hate crime news reports are?...
To start with, I would say I don’t know enough about the issue to comment on it. I would also note that the videos you posted seem to be about Vancouver specifically. Obviously, I feel terrible that any Canadian city might be considered a center of hate against a particular ethnic group, but I don’t know enough about it to comment. I’d have to do some research.
To start with, I would say I don’t know enough about the issue to comment on it. I would also note that the videos you posted seem to be about Vancouver specifically. Obviously, I feel terrible that any Canadian city might be considered a center of hate against a particular ethnic group, but I don’t know enough about it to comment. I’d have to do some research.
Fair enough! I guess we're done here? There are also official hate crime police reports - by year - from some other Canadian cities that can be found over the internet (to help just in case you decide to do any extensive research?).
Many of these reports even describe the nature of the hate crimes. Most fall under the category of violent (like common assault, threats, etc.), OR Mischief/Property (for example, spray-painting a racial epithet on someone's property or an ethnic church). Most other categories barely hit the radar.
Anyway...have a good one!
Last edited by abcxyz423; 09-23-2021 at 09:12 PM..
I immigrated from the middle east and I have lived in both countries. My experience in Canada is mostly around the Toronto-Hamilton area where I lived there for 20+ years, while in the US it's mostly in the Chicago metro area where I live today. From my experience in Canada, most of the racism I've seen comes from the minority groups rather than the white Canadians, this also includes from my own ethnic group. In the US I have not seen much racism but the topic is beat to death much more down here to the point that you feel like you're walking on egg shells whenever the discussion comes up.
I immigrated from the middle east and I have lived in both countries. My experience in Canada is mostly around the Toronto-Hamilton area where I lived there for 20+ years, while in the US it's mostly in the Chicago metro area where I live today. From my experience in Canada, most of the racism I've seen comes from the minority groups rather than the white Canadians, this also includes from my own ethnic group. In the US I have not seen much racism but the topic is beat to death much more down here to the point that you feel like you're walking on egg shells whenever the discussion comes up.
It's definitely true that many individual minorities are infected with the discrimination bug, as well. That's especially noticeable in Canada. But it's definitely prevalent with white Canadians as well. If you're very non-white looking and can find a pretty white girl to go bar-hopping with throughout any city in Canada, please do so and come back to tell me the racism from white Canadians isn't as bad. But that's only a part of what I am talking about. Canadians are more racist than the US in virtually every measure in every recent racism study that's out there! I know that does not surprise YOU since you live in the US (now) and have already said you hardly notice any racism in the US. So I am glad you could chime in!
Last edited by abcxyz423; 12-03-2021 at 07:50 PM..
It's definitely true that many individual minorities are infected with the discrimination bug, as well. That's especially noticeable in Canada. But it's definitely prevalent with white Canadians as well. If you're very non-white looking and can find a pretty white girl to go bar-hopping with throughout any city in Canada, please do so and come back to tell me the racism from white Canadians isn't as bad. But that's only a part of what I am talking about. Canadians are more racist than the US in virtually every measure in every recent racism study that's out there! I know that does not surprise YOU since you live in the US (now) and have already said you hardly notice any racism in the US. So I am glad you could chime in!
I seems you hold a grudge and are venting about Canada all the time.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
