r/ShitAmericansSay • u/xfadingstarx • 1d ago
Canada "Canadians tend to be more white and less multicultural than Oklahomans"
Context: FB group making fun of how people review ethnic foods.
The irony: this particular restaurant they're talking about is located in the only Chinese majority city outside of Asia.
102
u/RockMonstrr 1d ago
Overthinking ain't the issue
27
13
u/Shadyshade84 1d ago
They're American. "Overthinking" is probably being defined as "I spent more than a picosecond thinking about this."
5
4
90
u/Aladdinsanestill61 1d ago
From someone that's never been to Canada 😒
48
u/Ancient_Energy_6773 1d ago
But knows ALL about Canada, its people, culture, customs, etc. Good God Americans really have a hard time just admitting we don't know shit. It's ok to admit, but noooo gotta go and spew dumb shit as if it's fact in a poor attempt of trying to look or be better. I will never understand where so much vitriolic hate for our neighbors came from.
18
u/United_News3779 1d ago
Hell, I'm born and raised in Canada and I wouldn't claim to know everything about all the different cultures, etc within Canada.
7
22
u/Prosecco1234 1d ago
Diversity is one of the things that makes Canada great 🇨🇦
16
51
u/x_asperger 1d ago
That's why I can get food from 20 countries in my city smaller than Oklahomas capital right? Toronto is more multicultural than NYC.
25
u/TheZipding 1d ago
I'll need to double check this, but Toronto was considered the world's most multicultural city a few years back.
13
u/TopInvestigator5518 1d ago
still is
though most Americans would try and dispute this fact over feelings
2
u/Themightytiny07 11h ago
I have had Americans dispute that Canada is a larger land mass than the US. American 'exceptionalism' at its finest
3
u/x_asperger 1d ago
Like an actual survey? That'd be cool if you find it! I was just saying from experience
1
u/TheZipding 1d ago
I originally read it in something for my BEd a few years back and looked into it to verify it. I don't think it was a study though.
1
u/Still_a_skeptic Okie, not from Muskogee 1d ago
You would be surprised at what you can find in Oklahoma City.
4
u/graphictruth 1d ago
How many of those are things you would want to find, though? I think my first exposure to Purity Balls was datelined Oklahoma. Major creeping ick!
62
u/BaroqueGorgon 1d ago edited 1d ago
I grew up in Scarborough, Ontario. My Anglo ass was the minority in my neighbourhood - most of my friends were either first or second generation, with families from Trinidad and Tobago, Sri Lanka, India, China, etc. We had plenty of 'authentic' (whatever that means) restaurants featuring many different cuisines.
21
u/fkms2turnt 1d ago
I was just talking to my buddy about this, we basically grew up in a Filipino neighbourhood. Not to mention the wide variety of other groups as well. My friend groups have always looked like University promo pictures
7
u/Joe--Uncle 1d ago
I grew up in Toronto, I have only know 2 people who are more than a 3rd generation immigrant
7
u/Curious-Week5810 1d ago
Same. Every one of my elementary school classes had students from at least a dozen different countries.
4
u/Mediocre-Disk737 1d ago
Scarborough here, too! Same story. Now, living on an acreage in Alberta, I miss the 'authentic' (whatever that means) restaurants. Edmonton (the closest city) is also very multicultural, but not the selection I had growing up. 🤤 My son starts kindergarten this year at a rural school, and our annual school photos are going to look VERY different. 😅 I had (opposite?) culture shock walking through on the meet-the-teacher day.
4
7
u/Galenmarek81 ooo custom flair!! 1d ago
Grew up in Markham 👍 which I think now is less than 40% Anglo. Markville mall just ain't what it used to be, that's for sure. Sri Lanka, Trinidad, India, and China are just as normal to see as the next white/Anglo person. Never cared enough to think about 🤷♂️
28
u/Protocol3_ 1d ago
Remember, we are dealing with people who only 2 weeks ago were astounded, like we had found Atlantis, at the fact of a Black Scotsman.
23
u/OhShootYeahNoBi 1d ago
Even if we be generous and ignore non white Canadians, have they not heard of the Québécois?
10
u/NxOKAG03 1d ago
they have not, Americans don't know french Canada exists. Yet you ask almost anyone in Europe and they've at least heard of it. It's just a deficit in general knowledge.
10
u/issi_tohbi 1d ago
Guarantee you they haven’t. They know there are “French Canadians” but they think they’re something from the 1800’s and they still aren’t really sure what they are.
Source: my dumbass Oklahoman family when I moved to Quebec 27 years ago.
1
u/letmetellubuddy 21h ago
I’ve argued with Americans before about this and their view was that French Canadians did not make Canada ‘diverse’ as they were culturally ‘the same’ as English Canadians because they were both ‘European’ 🤦
23
u/Due_Illustrator5154 Snow Mexican 1d ago
This couldn't be further from the truth.
And the most diverse city in the world is often cited to be Toronto, which is in Canada.
8
u/knarf_on_a_bike 1d ago
I live in Toronto. About 20 years ago, my kids were visiting me for weekend access (they lived in Kingston with their mom). We were on a crowded subway, and I leaned over and quietly said, "Look around; we're the only white people in the car!" They both looked around, and we all smiled. It was amazing!
18
u/Miss_Annie_Munich European first, then Bavarian 1d ago
They don’t “overthink these things”.
To me, it seems obvious that they neither think nor have any idea what they are talking about.
19
u/GeriatricHippo 1d ago
Brampton is a city of around 800, 000 that is a suburb of Toronto. The majority of the population is South East Asian (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka etc.)
Thats not the largest minority in Brampton that's the majority of people in Brampton.
There is more people from South East Asia in the Greeater Toronto Area than there are people in the largest city in Oklahoma.
There is also more Asians in the Greater Toronto Area than there are people in the largest city in Oklahoma.
And that might apply to a Vancouver for both ethnic groups as well.
9
u/EvilPopMogeko 1d ago
On a nation wide scale, 26.5% of Canadians consider themselves a ethnic minority, though this varies from place to place.
Very curious how Oklahoma fares.
27
u/Excellent-Juice8545 🇨🇦 1d ago
HUH????? This is actually kind of quaint to see considering comment sections every time anything to do with Canada is posted are always full of racists complaining that “the Indians are taking over thanks to Trudeau” now.
Canada has been multicultural as official policy since the 1970s.
2
u/NxOKAG03 1d ago
the thing about Canadian online discourse is that you have people who mainly stick to Canadian communities, who are generally very insular, abrasive and bigoted, and then you have Canadians who just browse wider communities and only mention that they're Canadian when it's relevant, and those people are very chill and tolerant. But the insular communities make it look a lot more racist online than it really is.
3
u/Excellent-Juice8545 🇨🇦 1d ago
I thought it was just right wing Canadians saying that stuff too, but I’ve seen a lot of Americans parroting it recently especially on TikTok. Up there with the “Canada gives everyone MAID just for existing” crap.
8
9
7
u/InattentiveEdna 1d ago
Where I live, 41% of people are South Asian or of South Asian descent, followed by European at 34.5%, East Asian at 11%, and Southeast Asian at 5%, then a number of other panethnic groups and people who are multiracial. If my math is right (and it is), that’s a non-white population of 65.5%.
There are somewhere around 190 languages spoken in the larger metropolitan area.
My kids went to a school of 300 children with I think it was 14 nationalities represented and over 20 languages spoken other than French and English. (The classes did a school census as a project, which is where I got those numbers.)
But yeah, no, definitely not multicultural here.
7
u/NxOKAG03 1d ago
I think my favourite cope is watching Americans try to argue that every other developed country is "less multicultural" than the US to explain why they're so fucking racist.
7
u/LeticiaLatex 1d ago
Americans: Confidently saying shit with absolutely nothing but a vibe/feeling and nothing else.
15
u/CappinCanuck 1d ago
22.3 percent of Canadians have a non English or French native tongue. Which is slightly higher than America at 21.6 percent. For the record I got this from ai overview so the validity of the information may be questionable
10
u/x_asperger 1d ago
Just saying random shit always makes you look worse than just being wrong
8
u/CappinCanuck 1d ago
Ai overview can be wrong but in most cases when it comes to pulling a statistic it works well enough that it’s not worth a deep dive but a disclaimer is needed for me personally.
7
u/x_asperger 1d ago
Yeah, it's good for finding the most common statistics. I was agreeing though, the dude in the post was the one saying random shit
8
4
u/TerayonIII 1d ago
Most major cities in Canada have over 150 languages spoken by at least small populations of people
6
u/OlGravey 1d ago
…nah. They don’t need the Department of Education down there. Judging by most of the posts in this subreddit it wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in Miami of making a dent in the problem anyway.
5
6
u/oicur0t 1d ago
"Vancouver's ethnic makeup is diverse and includes significant groups of Chinese, English, and South Asian origins, with Chinese being the largest ethnic group. According to the 2021 census, the majority of Vancouver's population is non-European, with 54.5% of residents in the city and 54% of the broader Metro Vancouver area identifying as a visible minority. Other prominent groups include those of Filipino, South Asian, South Korean, and Indigenous heritage, reflecting Vancouver's status as one of Canada's most ethnically diverse cities."
4
u/someone-who-is-cool :cat_blep: 1d ago
57% of Richmond is East Asian. Combined with people who are Southeast Asian and South Asian, Richmond is something like 72% people of Asian descent. There is more Chinese signage there than French by miiiiiiles and only one of those two languages is an official one.
2
u/CannonBeast 1d ago
It's even more amazing when you look at Richmond. According to the 2021 census 80.3% of the city's population identifies as a visible minority with 54.3% of the population being Chinese.
4
u/Tanleader 1d ago
Canadians have more multiculturalism in their pinky fingers than basically the entirety of the US. And that's with about 10x less population.
4
u/Feuertotem 1d ago
Am I supposed to mad about Canada, Oklahoma, Italy or China now? I'm just going to take the Sopranos route and call it Anti-Italian discrimination.
3
u/iamnotacatgirl 1d ago
I think opening a pack of Skittles, you will find less diversity than Canada.
4
u/Tatterhood78 1d ago
That's funny. When it comes to ethnic diversity, Canada ranks 35th, while the U.S. is 90th.
4
u/CLA_1989 Charles 🇳🇱🇲🇽 Mexicunt 1d ago
Bulshit hahah
I lived in high level AB, a town of 5k, and we had Indians, Chinese, Turkish, Egyptian, Jamaican, Ukranian, Russian, Mexican, Peruvian, Indonesian, Japanese, and a Brit there in a small town, and all big cities are so multicultural, so not true at all, they are, as usual, deluded af.
3
3
u/HistoricalLinguistic 1d ago
Well, Oklahoma has tons of ethnic minorities, including indigenous peoples, but so does Canada. I don’t think this makes much sense
3
u/Optimal-Rub-2575 1d ago
Oklahoma has a 71% white population while Canada has 68%, so they are wrong.
3
u/TerayonIII 1d ago
And that's dropping rather quickly, by 2031 it's projected that about 33% of Canada's population will be a visible minority
3
u/EdNorthcott 1d ago
How is this flattering and vaguely offensive at the same time? I'm so confused.
3
3
u/Frostsorrow ooo custom flair!! 1d ago
Yeah it's not like we have the world's largest multi cultural festival or anything. Which I highly recommend going to at some point.
3
u/N0b0dy_Kn0w5_M3 1d ago
If someone has a prejudice against something, they are prejudiced. They are not "prejudice". Same goes for using the word "bias".
3
3
2
u/amazingdrewh 1d ago
Probably not the part to focus on but how were the people comparing Chinese restaurants to Italian ones?
1
u/xfadingstarx 1d ago edited 1d ago
Someone was posting a review of a Chinese restaurant and opened with: "very different than Chad's pizza but excellent just the same". Even people who live in that area are confused what Chad's pizza has to do with this but apparently it keeps showing up in their local food groups.
2
2
u/Rustyguts257 1d ago
I grew up in Toronto. My neighbourhood was predominantly first generation Italian with a heavy helping of Ukrainian and a smattering of everything else. There was a group of us who hung out together from Kindergarten to Grade 13. Ukrainians, Italians, Scots, Hungarian, Irish, Czech, German, Ojibwa, Chinese, English, Japanese, First Nations and me from a Caribbean family. I learned a lot about tolerance and great tasting food from those friends. In a month’s time we are all getting together for our 50th HS reunion.
2
2
2
u/meowzartk231 maple syrup enjoyer 1d ago
I’m from Toronto and almost everyone I know speaks 2+ languages. Quite a few even speak 3+. If you gathered up everyone walking down the street one day you could probably find at least 30 different ethnicities. That’s why we have great food!
2
2
u/the6thReplicant 1d ago edited 6h ago
I constantly have discussions with Americans about multiculturalism because their only definition of diversity is percentage of black people. They don’t understand that other countries didn’t have 250 years of African slavery. Most other “new” countries have normal diversity like Asian and Indians more than Africans.
2
2
2
2
2
u/Kootenay-Kat 15h ago
Ever visited Edmonton? Many times while taking public transit there I would be the only white person on the bus ( including the driver) truly the UN 🇺🇳 on wheels. Being the daughter of Irish immigrants, I think this is pretty damn 😎 cool.
1
u/nunyaranunculus 1d ago
What does this even mean? Comparing Italian to authentic Chinese? What?
1
u/xfadingstarx 1d ago
The original review was dumb and said about a Chinese BBQ: "it's not pizza but it's excellent". So I'm assuming he's trying to say, "average Canada moment" because we're not diverse.
1
u/easterncurrents 1d ago
There are children representing >60 countries at my kid’s junior high, and we live in a province with only 545,000 people. US is a melting pot, Canada is a mosaic with all nationalities showing their colours and living their cultural lives loud and proud within the Canadian milieu. It appears the educational system in Oklahoma is sorely lacking.
1
u/Still_a_skeptic Okie, not from Muskogee 1d ago
Keep me out of your fucking mouth…..
I’ll be the first person to argue that Oklahoma is a lot more diverse than you think and that despite its many glaring flaws there are still a lot of great things you can find here and I’m pleasantly surprised with the diversity and communities that are growing here. But Toronto has almost twice as many people as the entire fucking state so I doubt we are nearly as diverse.
Also, I just want to point out that people from Oklahoma(Oklahoma city in particular) absolutely love Toronto right now, one of them led our NBA team to its first ever championship. Oklahoma is dealing with enough shit right now, please don’t use us for these dumbass comparisons.
1
1
u/OtterlyFoxy 1d ago
Yeah
Vancouver (50% Asian) and Toronto (the most multicultural city in the world by some metrics) are both whiter than some hillbilly place in the US
1
0
u/harleyqueenzel Canadian. Let that marinate. 1d ago
I'm from a town in the Maritimes that honours many many countries whose people immigrated to my town to work in coal mines and the steel plants. The structure holds about two dozen flags and is called The Melting Pot due to it being mounted on a melting pot from the steel plant.
Oklahoma would never value anything other than being the buckle of the Bible belt and maintaining abject poverty.
311
u/Appropriate_End952 1d ago edited 1d ago
Ah yes Canada is less multicultural then Oklahoma even though more then 160 languages are spoken on the streets of Toronto. God they really like spreading the ignorant American trope