Racial harassment in the workplace, a discursive exploration

grantor: University of TorontoRacial harassment, a significant obstacle facing racial/ethnic minorities in the Canadian workplace, continues to be ignored as a social problem worthy of serious attention. Within the Ontario Human Rights Commission, Officers and Boards of Inquiry regularly dismiss complaints. In workplace training programs, the problem remains largely buried under race, colour and power evasive discourses. In this thesis, I explore the discourses and discursive practices within these sites that normalize and justify racial harassment, and allow people to secure innocent status for themselves. I argue that because the judiciary and workplace training programs play a significant role in shaping popular understandings of racial harassment, they must employ new discourses that name racial harassment as serious violation. They must also establish victim's perspectives as the basis for assessing harm. I propose that as a powerful tool for social change, anti-racism education offers the most potential as a practical strategy to effect this change.M.A