The Face of Discrimination: New Insights on Immigrant and Indigenous Experiences in London

A few weeks ago we released the first of several blog articles to mobilize information from a recent report on experiences of discrimination for Immigrants, Visible Minorities and Indigenous Peoples in London and Middlesex. That blog introduced the contexts in which these groups reported experiencing discrimination locally. This week, we release the second part to this series. Here, we will discuss the presumed bases of discrimination, and how it occurs.

Respondents that reported having experienced discrimination in at least one context over the last three years were asked to indicate what they thought the presumed basis for this discrimination was.

Immigrants and Visible Minorities were most likely to indicate that the discrimination they had experienced was based on their race and skin colour, ethnicity and culture, or accent. Similarly, Indigenous Peoples indicated that the discrimination they had experienced was most often based on Indigenous identity, race or skin colour, and ethnicity or culture.

Further, respondents were asked to indicate whether they had experienced specific types of discrimination. This was in an effort to understand how these acts of discrimination are being expressed.

Immigrants and Visible Minorities indicated that inappropriate jokes, derogatory language, verbal abuse and verbal threat were the four most common and most prominent ways they have experienced discrimination. Indigenous Peoples expressed similar patterns with derogatory language, inappropriate jokes and verbal abuse being the top three ways in which discrimination has been shown towards them. However, for Indigenous Peoples physical threat was indicated as the fourth most common type of discrimination.

This research is important because it moves beyond simply knowing that discrimination is occurring and where it is occurring in our community, to also gain deeper insight into how it is occurring. Knowing this information can ultimately assist in improved bystander intervention strategies, more effective policies to make safer spaces, and the appropriate development of training, supports and resources.

To read the full report Discrimination Experienced by Immigrants, Visible Minorities, and Indigenous Peoples in London and Middlesex from the London & Middlesex Local Immigration Partnership (LMLIP) and the University of Western Ontario's Network for Economic and Social Trends (NEST), click here.

For tips on bystander intervention including do's and don't for action, click here.