I plan on traveling to Canada, but I do have this worry.

To be more specific, I’m not kinda black, my skin’s somehow white, but I have black relatives, which means I got wavy hair and some other things.

  • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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    5 days ago

    Remember… “planning on traveling to Canada” is like saying you’re planning on traveling to Europe… it’s a BIG place that spans four time zones and has all sorts of people.

    So you’re likely to spot some bigots, but there’s also plenty of welcoming people. Part of it depends on where you go. In general, cities are more multicultural and a little of more rural areas used to be very white, with indigenous reservations in the most unexpected places.

    Beside that, Alberta is “Little Texas” and BC isn’t that different from Washington and Oregon states. Manitoba is really friendly, Quebec tends to be welcoming in the cities and culturally insular in many of the rural areas. All the east coast provinces tend to be really friendly. The territories are very sparsely populated, so other people are treated like a gift OR like something the person is trying to avoid — race doesn’t tend to come into it.

      • assaultpotato@sh.itjust.works
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        5 days ago

        Generally, in cities you won’t have really any problems. My fiancee is Turkish and we live in the prairies and she’s never had anything happen. Folks stumble on her name sometimes but it’s not really racism.

        If you go rural, you always up your chances of encountering more racism. Rural PEI/NB will be accidentally racist, rural AB/SK will not care if they’re racist. Generally this is true unless you’re camping/hiking, when you wrap back around to people who are generally just happy to see fellow outdoorsmen.

        Much of North American racism isn’t from individual people but in systems. My fiancee’s experience is that European systems are more likely to be equitable but the people will be racist. In general, if you visit Canadian cities from Vancouver to Montreal, I wouldn’t expect you to have any racist encounters.

      • Reannlegge@lemmy.ca
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        5 days ago

        We have provinces, not states, and it really depends on what you are wanting to see.

      • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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        5 days ago

        Not really; racism in general isn’t the issue. Canada’s been multicultural from the beginning. Bigger issues are things like cultural sovereignty— indigenous and French mostly. Skin colour really doesn’t come i to it.

        Might help to know what you’re comparing it to though.

        Also, it might help to watch “Race Across The World Series 3” if you’re from the UK — and a good interview is here: https://www.canadianaffair.com/blog/canada-advocate-q-and-a-trish-and-cathies-race-across-the-world-adventure

        That show did a pretty good job of capturing the highs and lows of interpersonal relations in Canada.