Bringing colour to a black and white issue : locating frameworks of colour-blindness in Canadian racial profiling cases

Abstract

This study focuses on the processes of systemic racism in present-day Canadian society through an analysis of three key cases of racial profiling. My study uses three of Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s frameworks of colour-blindness to provide an understanding of systemic racism in Canadian society. I apply the frameworks by an analysis of the actors in each case: the judge/inquiry panel, the police and the complainants. In my study I use the frameworks on their own and in combination in ways that explain systemic racism, and therefore racial profiling exist in Canadian society. I demonstrate how unconscious processes of systemic racism can begin to be analyzed and measured through the use of the colour-blindness frameworks. These frameworks demonstrate existing tools, processes, and strategies that enable racism to exist in contemporary society in a colour-blind fashion, limiting the accountability of white dominance and privilege as major factors in the existence of racism.