By Doug Skeggs 
The four pillars of the CFIC are secularism, scientific skepticism, critical thinking, and community building.
You will note that human rights and anti-discrimination are not overtly referenced there. But I think the protection, promotion, and defence of human rights and social justice are inherently part of what it means to be a humanist, an atheist, an anti-theist, a secularist, a critical thinker, or whatever labels we or others apply to what we care about.
So I was very pleased and proud to see CFIC actively engage in the recent explosion of protest over systemic racism with an anti-racism social media campaign. CFIC also joined Humanist Canada and Dundurn Publishing to sponsor an anti-black-racism online webinar July 20, featuring activists Scott Fraser and Dr. Ajamu Nangwaya.
As a Canadian, it seems easy to just shrug, look the other way, and dismiss racism issues as “something that is a problem south of the border.” But Canada has very real racism issues and it is time we had a very public conversation about it.
Just this week Global News published the results of an Ipsos Reid poll on racism in Canada. The poll indicates that 60 percent of Canadians believe we have a serious racism problem in this country. Global News gave the story a slightly positive spin by saying this is up from only 47 percent one year ago.
I guess we can take some comfort in the fact that more than half of Canadians are now aware of racism in this country and its impact on Canadians. But what I take from this is: If I’m in a room with nine other random Canadians, four of them, either intentionally or otherwise, are completely oblivious to the problem of racism in Canada. And that is not good enough.
I can’t say that I understand what it is like to live on the receiving end of overt personal or pervasive systemic racism. But I am trying to understand. Personally I have adopted the advice of a black activist in the U.S. who said “Right now, as we have this conversation about racism, white people need to shut up and listen.”
But I do have personal experience with the other side of that coin…privilege. As a financially secure older white guy, I have white privilege, male privilege, economic privilege, and age privilege. I know that. I recognize it almost every day.
I like the way Michael Enright recently used a baseball analogy to explain privilege on CBC Radio. “Privilege is being born on third base and living your life thinking you’ve hit a triple.”
As we work through this, and strive to build a better society that respects and protects the rights of all Canadians regardless of their skin colour or ethnicity, let’s not forget about perhaps the most pervasive, deeply entrenched form of racism in Canada: the deplorable, historic, and systemic marginalization of indigenous people.
Thank you to CFIC for stepping up and taking a public stand against racism in Canada.