What is Anti-Indigenous Racism?

Anti-Indigenous racism (AIR) is defined by the Canadian government as being the ongoing discrimination, negative stereotyping, and injustice experienced by Indigenous peoples within Canada and includes ideas and practices that establish, maintain and perpetuate power imbalances, systemic barriers, and inequitable outcomes¹. That’s a good start, but, Anti- Indigenous racism is more than inequities, more than the discrimination, more than the stereotyping, and more than the oppression that indigenous people(s) experience in all modern facets of life and society.

Anti-Indigenous racism extends beyond the colonial mechanisms—that were, are, and continue to be—designed to perpetuate and reinforce injustice and inequities of every-day indigenous life.  Anti-Indigenous racism is an expansive concept encompassing the deliberate and strategic dismantling—and replacement—of Indigenous communities, Indigenous systems, Indigenous cultures, Indigenous identities, and the very ways of Indigenous life and sovereignty, both historically and contemporarily, for colonial ones.