Comment 42166

By moylek (registered) - website | Posted June 18, 2010 at 10:42:21

"Anomaly" was referring more to the point that Linc's feat in the '60s hasn't been repeated since, anywhere in the city, as far as I know.

True. And I'd just as soon see it repeated: that kind of visible success is good for everyone. But again: given the demographics of Hamilton (approximately 87% pinky-beige, IIRC), we really shouldn't expect that it would be repeated any time soon. Hamiltons' black population, prior to the influx of West Indians and North Africans in the past 20 - 30 years, was small.

Hamilton's populations of non-pinky-beige people and of recent immigrants (and these are highly overlapping sets) are still relatively small. And both populations skew young (having higher birth rates than established Canadians of all shades and origins combined). And recent immigrants are more likely to be busy struggling to establish themselves socially and economically: public office and prominent community positions are mostly a generation away.

I really believe that we can explain much (not all) of the apparent "lack of representation" this way* ... rather than jumping straight to wringing our hands and fretting over how awfully unfair Canadian society must be. That's not smug complacency, it's just a sensible way to begin thinking about the questions of representations.

* Exceptions abound, of course. Just for example: there was the long-standing discrimination against blacks; we needn't enumerate the problems Native people face (granted, not immigrants :) ); and there are immigrant groups whose members tend (in aggregate - individuals are individuals) not to do well in school (some white, some not white), which presumably relates to underrepresentation later in life.

Comment edited by moylek on 2010-06-18 09:53:28

-- Kenneth Moyle Hamilton, Ontario

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