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Expert Says Canada Not Ahead of US in Eliminating Systemic Racism

Thursday, 16 July 2020 16:06

Image Source: Google Images

As one of America's most familiar sports franchises finally confronts its controversial identity, experts warn against assuming Canada is farther along than the United States in combating racist attitudes towards Indigenous Peoples.

Washington's National Football League team confirmed this week it would drop its 87-year-old name and logo, long called offensive to Native Americans.

The decision comes with the United States at the centre of a global reckoning with long-standing systemic and institutional racism against Black people and other racialized communities.

Lynn Gehl, an Indigenous author and scholar in Peterborough, Ontario, says Canadians should resist the belief their country is any further along than the U.S. in acknowledging and protecting First Nations, Inuit and Metis communities.

Gehl says both the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a public inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls concluded  Canada has been engaged in acts of genocide.

The CFL's Edmonton Eskimos are under pressure to change its professional name long considered a derogatory, colonial-era term.

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