'I've been racially profiled by police': Why some people downplay their cultural identity
A CBC poll reports 39 per cent of Indigenous respondents said they downplay their identity
Jason George said it was years ago in the back of a police car where he experienced one of the most overt racist experiences of his life by a police officer.
"I've been racially profiled by the police in London," said George. The 44-year-old man said his mother is of Irish descent, while his father is from Kettle and Stony Point.
George said he and some friends happened to match the description of someone the police were looking for and George was curious about why he was being detained.
"I had asked what I had done and he was really nice to me until he got my ID and saw my status card and he switched just like that," George said, snapping his fingers.
George said it was at that point the officer's tone took a sinister turn.
"His answer to me was 'Well you're native, you're an Indian, you're automatically a criminal to me,'" he said.
It's an overt example of the kind of unfair treatment a large majority of Canadians who self-identify as Indigenous reported in a CBC-commissioned survey by Environics.
The ground-breaking survey is the first of its kind in Canada to look at race relations at a national level, examining Canadians' experiences, attitudes and perceptions about a topic that often isn't discussed.
In the survey, 73 per cent of people who identify as Indigenous said they felt people in their group are treated unfairly often, or sometimes because of their race or culture. Four in 10 said such incidents happen often.
For George, he said it happens often to him and his wife, who is from Oneida of the Thames First Nation, on shopping trips.
"She's visible a minority and [we're] being followed around the store thinking we're going to steal something," he said.
'People look at me different just because of my appearance'
For Joel Kennedy, a 35-year-old London man from Oneida, that kind of treatment happens so often, he claims he doesn't even notice it anymore.
"You get to a point where don't even think about it anymore," he said. "It happens so often, you just accept it for what is."
That changed in 2010 when he went with his wife to Masonville Mall, a place Kennedy said he tries to avoid because he attracts so much attention because of his appearance.
"People look at me different just because of my appearance. I don't know if it's my long hair, my darker complexion, who knows? I never actually stopped someone to say 'why are you looking at me?'
His wife wasn't able to brush it off as easily.
"She was so surprised by how often I got stared at, just walking through Masonville Mall," he said. "For me I'm desensitized to it, but she was like 'why are people staring at you?'"
"I had to explain it to her," he said.
Maybe it's why three in 10 non-white Canadians who responded to the CBC commissioned poll said they regularly or from time to time consciously downplay being someone of their race or cultural group. The figure was even higher for Inidigenous people, at 39 per cent.
Kennedy said he believes he couldn't downplay his identity, even if he really wanted to.
"I think it's impossible for me to do that," he said. "Even if it was [possible], I never would."
For Jason George, who identifies as having Indigenous and European heritage, he said there was a time he wouldn't disclose his cultural background on employment applications for fear he wouldn't get the job.
"I felt every time that I did that, I didn't even get an interview, but when I didn't disclose I would get the interviews and I would get a job, so it kind of speaks to itself."
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