Assignment 1: Social Diversity in Contemporary Canada (CSRV 13672)

This assignment examines social diversity in contemporary Canada, focusing on racism and sexual orientation as key aspects of social location. The student explores these topics through the lens of privilege and oppression, providing definitions and real-world examples. The assignment delves into the historical context of racism in Canada, including the experiences of African Canadians, Chinese Canadians, and others, and examines issues such as media representation and racial profiling by police. It also explores sexual orientation, defining terms like homosexual, bisexual, and heterosexual, and discussing the concept of unearned advantages. The assignment emphasizes the importance of acknowledging privilege and oppression when working and studying with diverse groups, and includes references to relevant academic sources.

Social Diversity in Contemporary Canada
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Table of Contents
Racism.........................................................................................................................................................2
Sexual orientation........................................................................................................................................3
Importance of privilege and oppression while working and studying with different people........................4
References...................................................................................................................................................5

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Racism
Racism is determined to be the belief in the advantage of one race over another that leads
to prejudice and discrimination towards people based on their ethnicity and race. Racism also
demonstrates a situation in society where a dominant racial group receives benefits from the
oppression of others. This is considered to be an issue of oppression, where oppression is a
system that maintains disadvantages and advantages related to memberships of a social group
(Rutherford, 2017). Racism in Canada possesses a long history starting from African Canadians,
Chinese Canadians, Japanese Canadians and South-Asian Canadians.
An example of disadvantaged oppression is of, Afro-Latina that refers to Latin
Americans of the African ancestry. In today's age, the Afro-Latin black people possess limited
media appearance. The media have been criticised for overlooking the African, multiracial and
indigenous populations. Moreover, anti-police prejudice is a major reason for the protests where
whites and blacks have different views regarding the causes of fatal encounters. Due to some of
the stereotypes, the Afro-Latina black women claims that Afro-Latina is revolutionary. On 26th
November 2009, the Afro-Latina people from Garifuna heritage arrived at the Cathedral
Metropolitana situated in Guatemala City for a church event. The primary reason for this event is
to stop discrimination against Afro-Latina people who are not determined to be part of the
Guatemala population.
Another example is of police stops, where the black people are usually stopped by police
either on feet or in cars. It clearly states that racism continues to be highly racialised as the proof
of racial profiling remains to accumulate. A black male among the age group of 25 or younger
possesses 28% of chances to be stopped by police, whereas a white male possesses only a 12%

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chance of being stopped. Such type of discrimination occurs due to some stereotypes that lead to
prejudice among black people.
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation refers to a person’s sexual and emotional attraction to a person of a
specific gender such as female or male. It is found to be one of the issues of privilege, where
privilege refers to the unlearned advantages available to some of the people among the social
groups. Usually, sexual orientation is classified into three categories they are, homosexual,
bisexual and heterosexual. Homosexual is the individuals attracted to the person of their sex,
whereas bisexual is the individuals attracted to the person of either sex. On the hand,
heterosexual are the individuals attracted to the person of either sex (Dharma & Bauer, 2017). It
involves the feeling of a person and a sense of identity-based on behaviour and appearance of a
person.
An example of having unlearned advantages is of a straight female. who is considered to
be real. According to sexological researchers, the straight female is more flexible as compared to
men. It has been observed that the heterosexuality of females is as straightforward as male
heterosexuality. Straight females possess more complex patterns of attraction and arousal. As per
most of the sociological research straight females possess enormous ability to sort out their
orientation by their own. Straight forward females are open minded that presents their feelings in
front of others without any hesitation.
Another example is of adolescence where they consider themselves as heterosexual. The
healthcare providers and paediatricians must be aware of the medical, social and psychological
issues that are to be faced by young people. All these issues occur through stigmatisation rather

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than orientation. It has been noticed that sexual orientation is not a diagnosis and it is not the job
of a paediatrician to create teen’s orientation. It is the responsibility of the practitioners to create
an environment where that would allow the adolescent to discuss any question.
Importance of privilege and oppression while working and studying with different people
It becomes essential to acknowledge privilege and oppression while working and
studying with different people because privilege develops an uneven playing field. While
oppression creates negative actions against a person due to their status within a social group.
While studying and working with different people, it is significant to acknowledge, accept and
critique their privilege. A person must understand his or her privilege while working or studying
with others who are different from them (Heuman, 2018). An individual’s privilege involves
ability, language, and country of origin, socioeconomic status, religion, sexual orientation,
gender and race.
Moreover, an individual could avoid being influenced by oppression while working or
studying with different people. Oppression occurs in the form of three levels such as individual
oppression, institutional oppression and cultural oppression. All these levels must be
acknowledged by an individual at the time of working or studying with different people.

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References
Dharma, C., & Bauer, G. R. (2017). Understanding sexual orientation and health in Canada:
Who are we capturing and who are we missing using the Statistics Canada sexual
orientation question?. Can J Public Health, 108(1), 21-26.
Heuman, A. N. (2018). Illuminating everyday performances of privilege and
oppression. Communication Teacher, 32(1), 30-35.
Rutherford, S. (2017). “We Have Bigotry All Right—but No Alabamas”: Racism and Aboriginal
Protest in Canada during the 1960s. American Indian Quarterly, 41(2), 158-179.