A PROVINCE LIKE NO OTHER
In 1871, this province joined the Canadian federation and, ever since, communities of Indigenous, Black, and other racialized peoples have waged protracted struggles against the dispossession of Indigenous lands, institutionalized discrimination, and the politics of exclusion. They have won many victories yet, 150 years later, we are witnessing yet another uprising against systemic racism.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the smoke-filled skies of a climate emergency reflect a deepening crisis out of which has arisen an anti-racist uprising that is both local and global. The Black Lives Matter movement that erupted after the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Chantel Moore and many others reflects increasing frustration with and renewed determination to stamp out systemic racism, including the police violence that is a perennial part of it. The movement against COVID-19-related racisms has brought to the fore young activists organizing to stop Sinophobic attacks and hate crimes targeting Indigenous or Asian peoples who appear “Chinese”. No longer are they willing to tolerate the treatment of non-whites as perpetual foreigners. Failure to address Indigenous concerns regarding COVID-19, or to consider and address the disproportionate and intersectional effects on racialized communities, are also forms of racism. The Wet’suwet’en actions to assert title over their traditional territories and stop the Coastal Gaslink (CGL) pipeline and the pan-Canadian outrage at widespread police violence that ensued represent a central point in the uprising against racism. It is only the latest chapter in a long history of Indigenous resistance to the continuing, violent dispossession of Indigenous peoples and the environmental racism that has accompanied dispossession in this province.
This upsurge, involving so many young people, is not an accident. It reflects a new generation’s changing values in a province where systemic racism remains widespread. How did this situation arise? We believe part of the answer lies in the failure of the province to fully recognize or appropriately address its history – the racisms associated with settler colonialism and white supremacy. In this resource we approach that history critically, with a special focus on how racialized groups, each in their own way, fought for justice and continue to do so in a province that, it turns out, is like no other.
A BRITISH COLONIAL PROJECT
This province’s origins as a separate British colony located on the Pacific resulted in a white minority negotiating unique Terms of Union with Canada in 1871. This often led to jurisdictional disputes with the federal government but, in the end, Ottawa capitulated, allowing a white minority here to impose what we call the Pacific politics of white supremacy. This resulted in:
- a particularly acute form of Indigenous dispossession amounting to genocide;
- everyday racism and policies that demolished and dispersed Black communities;
- voting laws disenfranchising Indigenous peoples and Asians in a manner that echoed the era of US slavery;
- anti-Asian immigration laws that allowed a white minority to become the majority; and
- the attempted ethnic cleansing of Japanese Canadians from the province.
This assessment goes to the heart of the province’s history of racism and is based on the lived experiences of racialized peoples and their ongoing struggles to survive and surmount systemic racism, past and present. In telling stories from diverse communities, with full references and supplementary community links, this resource strives to fulfill the call of the United Nations to get at the “deep roots of the history, culture and mentality of racism and discrimination”1 in “British Columbia.” We put that name in quotation marks and ask you to join us in questioning its origins and probing its past – does the term “British Columbia,” named after a colonizing empire and Christopher Columbus, not embody and project the history of racism in this province?
A Caution: In describing the historical dynamics of the past 150 years, we use racial categories that may mask the huge diversity within groups or communities. In following the seam of resistance to racism we are being selective in the stories we choose. Not every story can be told, nor every group represented. We hope this publication will facilitate the telling of a broader group of stories and will be a step in the development of inclusive, intersectional analyses to support decolonization.
