Black Male Disposability and the Dark Side of Canadian Multiculturalism

Abstract

This essay presents the first systematic application of the Racial Subjugated Male Thesis (RSMT) to Canadian institutions and the Canadian Multiculturalism Act. While RSMT has been developed in the U.S. context, Canadian political philosophy has not yet engaged this framework to understand how Canadian multiculturalism produces Black male disposability. I argue that despite Canada’s reputation for multicultural tolerance, Black males are ontologically constructed as disposable subjects whose cultural norms are pathologized as incompatible with Canadian civic life. They are not simply misrecognized – they are rendered unrecognizable within the Canadian state. Through analysis of child welfare, education, employment, and criminal justice, I demonstrate that multiculturalism paradoxically produces Black male disposability as a constitutive feature rather than a policy failure. This challenges liberal frameworks of minority rights and argues that addressing this disposability requires philosophical rupture.