ARTIFACT 1:

BLACK TORONTONIANS ARE 20 TIMES MORE LIKELY TO

BE SHOT DEAD BY POLICE THAN WHITE RESIDENTS
The murders of George Floyd, Daunte Wright, Breonna Taylor, and many more sent
shockwaves throughout the globe. And while many Canadian outlets covered
these atrocities occurring in America, police brutality happening in our backyards
is rarely televised.

Less than 9 percent of Toronto’s population is Black. But they are more likely than
any other ethnic group to be arrested, charged, and killed by Toronto’s police,
according to a report by the Ontario Human Rights Commission. They found that
Black Torontonians are 20 times more likely to be shot dead by the police than
those who are white. Black residents are also over-represented in non-deadly force
actions taken by the police, they are:
• Four times more likely to be pepper-sprayed
• Five times more likely to be tasered
• Six times more likely to be taken down by a police dog
And according to a survey of 1,500 Ontarians, 72 percent of Black Canadians
report having experienced racial profiling, the act of being targeted and
mistreated due to negative stereotypes associated with Black people. The
over-policing and abuse of power towards Black Canadians further highlights a
systemic racism problem in Canada. And while many consider Canada to be
“better” than America when it comes to race relations, we have a lot of work left
to do before we can even begin to make that claim.
ARTIFACTS 2:

BLACK STUDENTS ARE FOUR TIMES MORE LIKELY TO BE

EXPELLED FROM A TORONTO HIGH SCHOOL THAN
WHITE STUDENTS.
Racial prejudices and stereotypes against Black people encourage the expectation
that Black students are more disruptive and less hard-working than their
non-Black peers. As a result, Black students are both disproportionately
suspended and expelled from school, which hampers their education by setting
them behind and making it difficult for them to catch up to their peers. Black
students make up 48 percent of expulsions in Toronto high schools, while they
only make up 12 percent of the student body; similarly, 42 percent of Black
students are suspended at least once, compared to just 18 percent of their white
peers.

Suspensions and expulsions are not the only ways that racism presents itself
within the Canadian school system. Black students receive two times fewer
“Excellent” ratings from their teachers, despite achieving the same scores on
standardized tests as their fellow students.

Underrepresentation in the classroom also goes beyond students, as Black

teachers only make up about 1.8 percent of Canada’s teaching staff, despite Black
people making up 3.5 percent of the Canadian population. This lack of diversity
among school staff can make Black students feel othered and discouraged, while
unconscious bias in non-Black teachers can result in them seeing their Black
students in a more negative light than their peers.
ARTIFACTS 3:

Over the past two decades, thousands of studies have demonstrated that
Blacks receive lower quality medical care than Whites, independent of
disease status, setting, insurance, and other clinically relevant factors.

Despite this, there has been little progress towards eradicating these
inequities. Almost a decade ago we proposed a conceptual model identifying
mechanisms through which clinicians' behavior, cognition, and decision
making might be influenced by implicit racial biases and explicit racial
stereotypes, and thereby contribute to racial inequities in care.

Empirical evidence has supported many of these hypothesized mechanisms,

demonstrating that White medical care clinicians: (1) hold negative implicit
racial biases and explicit racial stereotypes, (2) have implicit racial biases
that persist independently of and in contrast to their explicit (conscious)
racial attitudes, and (3) can be influenced by racial bias in their clinical
decision making and behavior during encounters with Black patients.

This paper applies evidence from several disciplines to further specify our
original model and elaborate on the ways racism can interact with cognitive
biases to affect clinicians' behavior and decisions and in turn, patient
behavior and decisions. We then highlight avenues for intervention and make
specific recommendations to medical care and grant-making organizations.