Canadians pretend we are a classless culture, but that is not true. I've read one author, Lawrence Hill, that suggests that our hidden bigotry is dishonest and in the long term, more damaging than the Americans. In practice this means that a visible minority may be turned down for a job or an apartment, but they won't be told the real reason. I firmly believe that a problem not acknowledged, cannot be cured.
I once watched a Native couple make their way down a row of apartment buildings, checking on every vacancy. They were utterly defeated by the end of the block.
I think the root of our bigotry is fear of poverty. We cannot imagine that we are like "them", so conveniently tuck them away as people a little less than ourselves. Like, who would want to admit that we are six months' of unemployment away from being in the same boat as they are?
I've lived in places with pretty complex class structures, like Trinidad. Like in many third world countries, it's basically four-tier; blacks on the bottom, East Indians, poor and middle class whites, and the filthy rich.
A visit to the United States was eye-opening. Like I say, the class divisions are less subtle than in Canada. I noted that communities tended to close themselves off. The dividing line that separated Harlem from the rest of Manhattan was an eye-opener for me. To think that there were white Americans who had never crossed that line, and vice versa, was inconcievable. For instance, our little band of white Canadians were utterly stared at in Spanish Harlem. We had a heck of a time getting the gypsy cabs to cross the line, and vice versa for the licensed Manhattan cabs to cross in to Harlem.
I'd say in Canada, the lines are more subtle. And in Edmonton at least - blacks are not on the bottom - Natives are. If a white achieves extreme poverty and ruin, they will also hit rock bottom - "trailer trash". So I'd say the progression is Natives - Trailer Trash - Immigrants - Middle Class - Wealthy. Black people are enough of a minority to be considered something of a novelty. They are not necessarily treated badly. Of the immigrant stream, we have Filipino, Hispanics, African, East Indian, Middle Eastern, Asian, and Eastern European in that order of acceptance.
There is also an inference that people on the bottom are ignorant and uneducated. To our credit, I'd say that people can rise above their raising with education and financial success. Though probably at some surprise from their peers. I think the upper and middle classes are guilty of assuming that privelege belongs them. My high achieving sister would often put her classmates in medical school in their place by telling stories of her family. These young students assumed that problems like mental illness, domestic abuse, and teen pregnancy happened to "other" people.
Another example, my son-in-law, an immigrant from Rwanda, was teased mercilessly by his community for picking up recycleable pop cans. They told him he'd "Gone Native", a suggestion that there is a level lower than "immigrant".