After I’ve read a letter in the April issue of the Canadian Immigrant – one, the name of the author you’ve withheld for some reason. “Name Withheld” wrote about how biased they are who invented the term “visible minority”.

I upheld his opinion with both my hands and legs. He’s 101 per cent right, like it or not.

I myself belong to Caucasian or, let’s call spade a spade, white race; still the things are not as simple as they may seem for an alien from deep space.

My farther is Jewish, my mother is Ukrainian, so there are at least two various bloods in my vessels (and since my first language is Russian, I may increase this number to three). My son, with his mother of Russian origin has, therefore, three full-bodied “origins”; and my nephew happens to have even four of them (my sister-in-law herself is half-Serbian, half-Hungarian).

So me, my son, let alone my nephew, have got the full right to tick the box “Do you consider yourself a person of the mixed origin?” However, we seem not to have that right here in Canada. Because, fortunately or not, both of my parents, four of my son’s and four of my nephew’s grandparents belong to, as you put it, fair-skinned (even if well-toned) people, however distant in their cultures.

Back in Russia, with my two higher educations (one in journalism, another one in public relations) and successful professional background, I had never experienced longer-than-two-week period of unemployment for nearly twenty years. I earned enough to enjoy the lifestyle I wanted to; to possess my own home, to change cars frequently, and so on.

I tell this all not to show off but to let you understand that I had absolutely no problem of financial or other economical nature. The driving force of my immigration to Canada was – yes --, my mixed origin. In my home country I felt myself  a visible minority from my childhood.

Having being in ethnic terms, so to say, half-and-half, I was an alien both for Jewish and Slavic communities, and I considered Canada a country where the majority of population is foreign born and so people are equal a priori. “Equality in alienation” is not a bowl of cherries, of course, but it’s better than to feel oneself a lifetime “white crow”, in any case.

What I found here in Canada appeared to be not so much comforting in that term.

Thankfully, I’ve been self-employed working entirely via Internet, so I haven’t faced any discrimination on the ethnical ground so far -- on the job market, at least. My clients are completely indifferent with what my origin may be since I provide them with the articles and reports they pay me for.

Nevertheless, soon after my landing in this country in 2002, I spoke to my colleague from the CBC, and he told me bluntly: “Igor, this is the worst case scenario for you. You are a middle-aged white man with no disabilities and of traditional sexual orientation, so be prepared that in any ‘waiting list’ in Canada you’ll be dumped to its very bottom. Nobody gives a shit for you are an immigrant since your skin is fair”.

That guy must be trusted. He is a Canadian-born white middle-aged man with no disabilities and, I believe, of traditional sexual orientation.

For me, a person who’s got a cocktail made of a few bloods in the vessels, any racism is disgusting, be it “white”, “black”, rainbow or polka-dotted. However, the “white man’s burden” some governments effectively self-imposed in the West in general and in Canada in particular, for many immigrants of Caucasian descent is ridiculous, to say the least.

When I think of my own family’s ethnic mix, I take it for granted that neither Russians, nor Ukrainians, nor Serbs, nor Hungarians have ever been indebt before any non-white nations. Shall I mention the Jews, who were themselves the victims of the bloodiest predators in human history? Who, if not people of the hails mentioned have all the ground to feel themselves in the same boat with so-called visible minorities?

Does it mean that, unlike South Asians, Chinese and the rest of “top ten” Ontario’s ethnic groups listed in a recent CIC report, minorities that make the families like mine are not “visible enough” from the Parliament Hill and Queen’s Park to give them the same right to enjoy Canada’s “multiculturalism” and “employment equality”?

Doesn’t this demonstrates that the things goes in the wrong direction in the country so many people around the globe believe is a safe heaven and a kingdom of justice for they who are desperate finding those in their own home and the native land?