Of racial nepotism and other hypocrisies

In his book Ethnic Conflicts Explained by Ethnic Nepotism, sociologist Tatu Vanhanen describes the term “ethnic nepotism” as a human tendency toward in-group bias or favoritism among people of the same ethnicity in a multi-ethnic society. To put it another way, ethnic or racial nepotism explains the biological phenomenon of human beings preferring to associate with others of the same ethnicity or race.
There is an understanding that employment equity is about bringing more ethnically and racially diverse people into public organizations. However, as Michael Franchetti suggests in his Master’s degree thesis “White Nepotism: Interrogating “corporate culture” in the Toronto census metropolitan area labour market », because of the existence of “racial nepotism” in the workplace, racialized individuals may have great difficulty accessing upward mobility within an organization where senior managers are primarily white. In such instances, racial or ethnic nepotism serves as an “escape route” for those who are “uncomfortable” working with “the others”.
As American economist Matthew S. Goldberg puts it in his book Discrimination, Nepotism, and Long-Run Wage Differentials, I believe that “Racial nepotism, not racial animus, influences most of the discrimination experienced by
“Black people”.
While “direct” racism is still alive and well in the workplace, in my view, racial or ethnic nepotism forms the backdrop to most of the incidents described in the recent denunciations of racism by City of Montreal employees.
For example, the testimonies of Baptiste, who was grabbed by the collar by one of his colleagues and publicly called crisse de “savage”, “monkey”, “macaque”, or of Diango who ended up leaving the borough in 2021 after having his name written in “large letters on a garbage van next to a grotesque caricature of a Black man” are concrete examples of “raw” racism.
However, the case of Ms. Nathalie Carrénard who was “deeply shocked and humiliated” by employees who used a racism and discrimination awareness workshop as an opportunity to “vent” their racist views without any consequences, emanates from a more insidious racism.
Among the denunciations mentioned above, the case of Maria meets the mark for “ethnic nepotism”. Maria said that she has often heard derogatory comments about immigrants who are labeled as “freeloaders and incompetent”. In addition, Maria was told by her supervisor that her “accent” and “personality” would hinder her career with the City of Montreal.
Although some would argue that “race” does not exist and is simply a social construct, it does little to eliminate its real effects in the lives of people living in societies marked by the legacy of colonialism and slavery.
In Dusk of Dawn, W.E.B DuBois calls race a “label” that all those who share experiences or memories of “discrimination and insult” are forced to wear. For example, Alberto Syllion, one of the few black firefighters in Montreal, will never forget the racist comments he had to endured during the 2008 U.S. elections when Barack Obama was a candidate: “Are we going to end up with a black man in the White House? Are they going to shoot him so that we stop talking about it?
Today Alberto says that it’s not enough for someone to say: “I’m not racist.”
They must be “anti-racist.”
Sadly, despite multiple commitments and promises to act on the issue from city administrators and elected officials alike, it seems to me that these stories reflect the racial and ethnic nepotism that seems to have existed for years in the workforce of the City of Montreal. It looks as if we cannot even discuss diversity in a neutral way, because it is imbued with racial nepotism.
In the workplace, racial nepotism when it puts an employee at a disadvantage, even when done unconsciously without intent, is still discrimination. Diversity is not the issue. The problem is the persistence of white supremacy based on the belief that this diversity is unequal. As I often say to those who will listen, you cannot talk about diversity and inclusion in a workplace where there is racism and discrimination!