Michael Adams is a statistics researcher with Environics. He's been looking at the survey results from all sorts of sources, especially his organization, with a special focus on multiculturalism in Canada. His conclusion? That talk of the fraying of the multicultural fabric of Canada is unfounded.In his view, facts like the increase in intermarriage rates refutes the anecdotal data that discrimination in Canada is a problem. In other words, saying things like "all non-white people in Canada face discrimination that prevents total inclusion in Canadian culture" is not representative of the statistics and the surveys. There is economic disparity, but the gap exists within groups and not just between groups. Some new Canadians are not faring well, but others are doing much better, in their own words, than were back home. In other words, there's differentiation of all kinds across, within and between all groups. So, because of such things, Adams has hope.
In his hope, he expresses concern over the notion of considering such things as terrorism and Islam as aspects of the same thing. He also warns against using foreign examples as future Canadian possibilities. Case in point, the Paris riots. Adams says that if the black people of France, many of whom come from African countries, felt totally included in the French culture, as opposed to discriminated by people such as the police, then the riots would not have occured. On the other hand, if black people and muslims in America felt totally included in American culture, the World Trade Centre attacks of 9/11 would still have occured. There is an essential difference between terrorists and minorities, where minorities, in a white-majority society don't necessarily become terrorists. This is an important distinction that Adams was careful to point out.
To confuse the issue is to lose effectiveness against terrorism (by focusing on multiculturalism) and to lose sight of the positive effects of multiculturalism, by thinking every muslim is a terrorist. The same can be said of every group.
The important skill to have, then, is to not blanket every group with myopic stereotypes, and to not assume that an individual, just because he/she has some qualities that may fit in with stereotypical mental-schemas (our projections), doesn't mean that that person is what that stereotype dictates an individual somewhat affiliated with a certain group to be. The onus falls upon the observer to make accurate observations, not prejudices.
