Lets have an honest conversation about racism.

So how many of you would admit that you're racist? What are some blatantly racist things you've heard at the office or around Charlottetown.

I found living in PEI that plenty of people were casually racist but would get incredibly offended if they were accused of being so. That whole PEI "sweep it under the rug and don't talk about it, it's not a problem" thing.

I myself am not racist.

I am appalled by the number of racist islanders. The biggest offenders tend to be 50+ year old males, the woman of that age group are more apt to not say bad things about people in comparison to men of that age (but they might be what I call closet racists). I find each generation is less intolerable (although some of the more die hard racist from the older generations do warp the minds of their kids/grandkids).

Guess we'd have to define "what is racist" before we go about admitting ourselves as such, or conferring that title on others.

For instance, if I (a white male) am walking down the street and a black person walks towards me, is it racist of me to simply take notice of the colour of his/her skin?

Is it racist to make a value judgment of someone (a stranger) who is of Asian heritage, and then immediately chastise oneself for doing so?

What if I make a similar value judgement of a white person who looks like s/he is from the welfare class? Or someone who looks like they might be mentally unstable? Or someone who looks like they are wealthy?

We are constantly making snap judgments of people all the time, based on our preconceived notions of how they look.

But what constitutes racist / sexist / obesist / classist thoughts?

There's no PEI outside Charlottetown?

Yes because that was the point.

Everyone has heard a racist comment here or there.
Personally, I think that if someone is racist we should let them speak and then let them realize on their own how illogical their racist beliefs are. Far too many people try to shut down racist speech. Let them speak. Then let them feel dumb.

I am appalled by the number of racist islanders. The biggest offenders tend to be 50+ year old males, the woman of that age group are more apt to not say bad things about people in comparison to men of that age (but they might be what I call closet racists). I find each generation is less intolerable (although some of the more die hard racist from the older generations do warp the minds of their kids/grandkids)

I couldn't agree with you more. I have a personal story about racism. I'm a caucasian male. Born and raised until my mid 20's in Ontario. Upon relocation to PEI, I found myself, with my wife and family living in small town Eastern PEI.

I was employed by a small firm with 6-8 employees. One of these employees, A 55+ gentleman, made it his DAILY routine to call me and refer to me as THE IMMIGRANT from Upper Canada. This went on for approx 8 years.

I could tell it always made him feel good to get this out to people. Arriving at a customers home to work, and being a new face of course the customer would want to know my name, where I'm from etc. And before I could say anything my working partner would say oh he's JUST an immigrant from upper Canada and smile.

I should state that this didn't really bother me, because I simply came to realize he was jealous of me, my education and skills were superior to his. My customer interaction was miles ahead of his, and after a couple of years working under him, I moved past him, perhaps not in seniority but in responsibility from our boss.

He was very very racist towards other skin colors and races, so It wasn't just myself but a racist personality in general.

Upon hearing one of his sons was dating an Indian women while going to University in Halifax, I couldn't contain my enjoyment to inquire on a regular basis how her visits went to his family home on weekends, you wanna talk for getting a guy going..... I loved it.

In a sad twist this gentlemans working career was cut short, by a
minor motor vehicle accident, caused by himself, while I was driving.

I encountered more racism when I lived in Montreal.

How can that be? Everyone knows all Islanders are backwood hicks and don't even get me started on those outside the mighty capital of Charlottetown.

[/sarcasm]

Racism exist on PEI. Not to the point of the KKK but there are certainly racist remarks being made.

The ones making the remarks are usually older generations so thankfully, I don't hear it a lot.

Then again I say to my wife that bigotry is alive and well however if you are not exposed to racism on a daily basis,you can have flashes of it.In Summerside(yes there are OTHER places than Charlottetown) I have had professional white collar staff come up to me and say that TOSH will be having a great basketball team in about 15 years.This as I'm sure you can see is based on the Storm being in the city since last year.
Does not take too much to see that racism/bigotry is alive and well even in the non-urban areas which I assume Charlottetown thinks is anyone besides themselves.

Calling that racist is stretching the definition pretty far. It is an attempt at a joke made in bad taste. Of course it exists everywhere and we on the island are pretty lucky in the fact that we are very accepting of other cultures in general and it exists on a small scale.

I must say that an area of the country where I was absolutely shocked at the level of racism (especially towards native canadians) was Alberta via born and bread Albertans.

Complete understatement! I have been there 2 times in the past year and I was shocked to the point of jaw dropping.

When did you live in Montreal? I think that might be important.

Your posts have no merit or substance. I mentioned Charlottetown because it's where the majority of Islanders live, keep running with whatever point you're trying to make though. It's super useful.

This will be deleted because the admins think that telling someone who obviously trolls every single topic that their posts are a waste of space is somehow offensive.

Good priorities, terrible moderation.

If you can do that without sinking to the same level of the posts that you are criticizing, then you have no worries.


Why thank you! We try our best to be terrible.

I told him that his posts are a waste of space. I stand by it and I feel the majority of the users of this board would agree. He posts gif responses, never responds to any questions when he makes outrageous claims and derails discussions with nonsense like that Charlottetown comment that had nothing to do with the topic.

Yet you delete that part of my post, because god forbid he gets offended.

Not racism specifically, but certainly homophobia is alive and well here (as can be found in the comments section of the Guardian story about PEI becoming more gay-friendly in the tourism sector).
My guess is that if an individual displays intolarance for one group, it's not a far stretch that they could be biased against another.

Let's see, I grew up in Pointe-Claire but as an adult lived in various places across the island. I lived on Clossé St. when I was going to school downtown, then for a while in NDG, then Montreal West, then a while in Snowden before moving back out to the West Island ... Dorval for a couple of years, then Dollard-Des-Ormeaux for a couple of years then I headed further west to Ville Ile Perrot for 5 or 6 years. I was living in Pincourt when the opportunity arose to come to PEI.

The central West Island (P-C, D-des-O, Dorval) was probably where I saw/experienced the fewest examples of racism.

Does that guess include "older" generations, too?