Canadian Race Relations Foundation

This journal focuses on the role that elite members of society play in the creation and reproduction of ethnic domination in popular culture. The author offers an international perspective, and considers the role of elites in Europe, North America and other 'Europeanized' countries. The main areas considered are how elite privilege operates in politics, the media, education, academia, and business. This study represents an attempt to engage scholars in critical thinking on the idea of elites, and question the basic assumption that elites possess, that they are 'tolerant citizens who do not add to the problem of racism.' The goal of this study is to unite scholars with minority groups in arriving at a strategy for creating fundamental changes in favour of a truly multicultural society.

For many white scholars of ethnic relations, the acknowledgement of a minority perspective is controversial. If they do not simply ignore them, they see minority evaluations of white practices as being biased and self-serving, if not oversensitive, vindictive or even as examples of reverse discrimination. This very position and the general tendency to see minority evidence as less reliable, is a typical example of academic elite racism. (p.19)