Criticizing Immigration Laws Is Not Racist

Summary

“I’m not racist, but”, “I don’t want to sound racist, but”, is what I’ve been hearing from some of my Canadian friends in recent conversations. Growing up in Canada, our immigration policy was a source of pride. We had a robust system that made sure we took in highly educated immigrants from all over the world. I remember in high school, my math teacher had immigrated from Algeria, and had a PhD in computer science. Canada even welcomed a modest amount of refugees from oppressed countries, and I would hear stories from Uber drivers tell me how grateful they were to be in Canada. Now, however, recent headlines show that the majority of Canadians think there is too much immigration? How did this shift happen? First, as the title of this blog post claims, I’d like to emphasize the fact that you can critique government policies, and even immigration policies, without being racist. It is not de-facto racist to do so. Second, I’d like to point out that it is actually a great concern that people are afraid to speak up. As we saw in the USA recently, the backlash against this sort of “cancel culture” leads to populism in a mix of projection, reactance and self-fulfilling prophecy. Finally, I’ll advocate that the least we can do is talk about it. While “freedom of speech” has been a right wing talking point of late, it really shouldn’t be. One of the greatest things about the West, and in this case Canada, is the fact that we have the freedom to discuss important topics, this being one of them. Is it Racist? Now, when I claim that it isn’t racist to criticize immigration policy, am I saying that this is 100% always the case? No. Of course not. But that should go without saying! In the Canada I grew up in, people had respect for each other and tried to argue in good faith. What I’m saying is that it’s wrong to assume the worst in people who disagree with you. I think that the political environment these days tends to put kindle to the fire, so to speak, on these kinds of issu...