A visible minority is a person or group visibly not one of the majority race in a given population. The term is used primarily in Canada, as a demographic category by Statistics Canada, in connection with that country's Employment Equity policies. The qualifier "visible" is important in the Canadian context where political divisions have traditionally been determined by language (English vs. French) and religion (Catholics vs. Protestants) - "invisible" traits.
Since the reform of Canada's immigration laws in the 1960s, immigration has been heaviest from areas other than Europe, thus creating visible minorities. Members of visible minorities are defined by the Canadian Employment Equity Act as "persons, other than Aboriginal people, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour." The term is used to address the alleged labour market disadvantage of this group. The American equivalent—"people of color"—is similar, but also includes Aboriginal Americans.
Read more about Visible Minority: Visible Minorities in Canada, Legislative Versus Operational Definitions, Controversy
Famous quotes containing the words visible and/or minority:
“Men of extraordinary success, in their honest moments, have always sung, “Not unto us, not unto us.” According to the faith of their times, they have built altars to Fortune, or to Destiny, or to St. Julian. Their success lay in their parallelism to the course of thought, which found in them an unobstructed channel; and the wonders of which they were the visible conductors seemed to their eye their deed.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)