[fatso]

Originally Posted by polak

They certianly deserve the same treatment as everyone else, but how do you stop a population from fearing and therefore hating a certian group that is responsible for a staggeringly disproportinate amount of crime in their province? It's all well and good to say "treat everyone the same", until you consistently see the same easily identifiable group (race is the first thing you see when you look at someone) repeatedly fulfilling these violent, disorderly and unfavorable stereotypes.

You dismiss anecdotal evidence like it doesn't mean anything but guess what, when it's YOUR anecdote, it means everything. If you get mugged by a group of natives and your walking down the street and see another group of natives, are you going to think "Ahhh, I shouldn't treat them any differently" or are you going to think "#### that, I'm going to walk another way". Even if it's just someone you know that got mugged, you will probably think twice.

You know what would fix the racism and unfair treatment of native people? Going after the root cause that creates these stereotypes instead of trying to get people to ignore their deep rooted and statistically substantied fears.

Fix the the stereotype.

I'm sensing you don't want to read the article. But if and when you do, would your answer to Tina's mother (of the article) be, "there is a stereotype. If people like you fix it this won't happen". Do you think that's right in a society?

Or what about this:

The problem is far more insidious than childish taunts. A few years ago, the federal government investigated claims that indigenous Winnipeggers were being denied housing due to discrimination. The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation pulled together a random survey of Aboriginal renters. The results were damning. One in three told the CMHC that after showing up to visit an available suite they were told it had “just been rented.”

Even if stereotypes are properly acted on, is this ok with you? Is it fair to you that a law-abiding First Nations individual may be denied housing because of the renter's reasonable (in your view) stereotypes of all aboriginal people? How can you advocate fair treatment and think this is acceptable?

I'm not disputing that people develop stereotypes of groups based on their interactions with them. I'm also not holding out the answers. But it is damned sure more complicated than "fix the stereotype" and I think the article does a good job of explaining why (and why there is hope for change).