I’ve actually addressed this issue in the past here, clearly stating why I believe that it simply wouldn’t make any sense, AT ALL, to be under that impression that Kaidan Alenko, a Canadian from Vancouver with an Ukraininan surname (British Columbia has a rich Ukrainian Canadian community), in 2148, could possibly be anything other than mixed race.
In 2006, Canadians from racially diverse backgrounds (visible minorities) already represented one half of the city’s population, and it’s only likely to grow from there. By 2148, I’d expect that the notion of being a “white person”, in Canada, to have drastically changed and evolved, too.
In terms of my own ethnicity, I’m of Native American (Mohawk) / French Canadian ancestry, but I grew up in a society that saw me as a white person, too.
I was raised as a white person, told I was a white person, lived as a white person, because, in Canada, an aboriginal woman used to lose her “Indian Status” upon marrying a white man, and became officially known as “white”.
Regaining “Indian Status”, and being officially recognized as a descendant of Canada’s First Nations can then be very difficult, as finding past written records to use as proof of an aboriginal ancestry is sometimes sadly impossible.
On the marriage certificate, all that was written was “the parents consent to the union”.
As for Luciano Costa, his family name is either Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish.
He was born in Brazil (where the dominant population comes from Portuguese colonists), then raised in LA.
And within Brazilian society itself, the definition of a white person is slightly different than the one used in the USA (or even Canada). Calling him a POC, in Brazil, when he’s part of the cultural majority of European settlers, would make little to no sense.
In the USA, perhaps. But it’s a bit like the situation with Antonio Banderas. In his own country, he is a powerful, Spanish actor who is part of the dominant majority.
And actually, having him being considered as a POC in the USA, regardless of the fact that he’s from a powerful, colonizing country, just on the basis of him being sharing traits with latin cultures, has been identified as a very valid and problematic issue.
“People fought really hard to have these categories or to make recognition possible for artistic or athletic or intellectual prowess. And I think there’s legitimate concern when someone who isn’t associated with the kinds of histories of marginalization and exclusion … is benefiting.”
He can easily connect with and relate to people with whom he shares similar physical traits and cultural connections… But otherwise, it feels very questionable in terms of approach.
Similarly, Kaidan Alenko is portrayed as a born and raised Canadian that joined the human Systems Alliance, but never tried to move to the USA.
It’s also greatly implied that, within his own country, his family own a wine orchard, his father is a retired Alliance Officer, and they have a large apartment overlooking English Bay (Vancouver properties are among some of the most expensive in the country).
The brunt of the discrimination he’s faced likely comes from him being a biotic, rather than his mixed Ukrainian / Canadian / other races that would have formed couples and raised children together in Vancouver.
Quite sincerely, if Mass Effect became a live-action project, the most important aspect, for me, would be for them to go for a very large, rich, culturally and racially diverse ensemble cast, in order to appropriately reflect the reality of what Earth’s population is likely to look like by 2148.
And casting a POC actor in the lead role of Commander Shepard for the series, while casting Henry Cavill (a supporting character, and a sadly unpopular one at that) in the role of Kaidan Alenko, would likely have a stronger impact in terms of POC representation.
Does that justify me fancasting a British actor to play a Canadian from Vancouver with an Ukrainian surname, probably mixed raced, originally modeled after a Brazilian?
What I do know, is that back when I made that decision in 2013, and when I wrote these texts, 7 years ago, I’d sincerely yet to have been exposed to some of the rather worrying issues of systematic racism in Canada and in Quebec.
The first place I ever saw the term “People of Color”, as a matter of fact, was upon joining Tumblr in 2012.
Before that, I’d only ever been familiar with the concept of visible minorities vs invisible minorities.
Canada’s history of discrimination and oppression has not solely been based on White Europeans vs Black / POC people, and some of the language we used tended to reflect that. Plus, the vast majority of the discourse regarding racial / cultural identity, in Quebec, tends to center around the French Canadian / English Canadian ethnic groups divide.
For example, here is a copy of the report of Lord Durham, regarding the French Canadian people:
“I expected to find a conflict between the government and the people: instead, I found two warring nations within a single State; I found a struggle, not of principles, but of races.
And I realized that it would be pointless to try to improve the laws or institutions without succeeding in extinguishing the mortal hatred which now divides the inhabitants of Lower Canada into two hostile groups: French and English.”
“I know of no national distinctions marking and continuing a more hopeless inferiority. The language, the laws, the character of the North American Continent are English; and every race but the English (I apply this to all who speak the English language) appears there in a condition of inferiority. It is to elevate them from that inferiority that I desire to give to the Canadians our English character. I desire it for the sake of the educated classes, whom the distinction of language and manners keeps apart from the great Empire to which they belong. At the best, the fate of the educated and aspiring colonist is, at present, one of little hope, and little activity; but the French Canadian is cast still further into the shade, by a language and habits foreign to those of the Imperial Government. A spirit of exclusion has closed the higher professions on the educated classes of the French Canadians, more, perhaps, than was absolutely necessary; but it is impossible for the utmost liberality on the part of the British Government to give an equal position in the general competition of its vast population to those who speak a foreign language. I desire the amalgamation still more for the sake of the humbler classes. Their present state of rude and equal plenty is fast deteriorating under the pressure of population in the narrow limits to which they are confined. If they attempt to better their condition, by extending themselves over the neighbouring country, they will necessarily get more and more mingled with an English population: if they prefer remaining stationary, the greater part of them must be labourers in the employ of English capitalists. In either case it would appear, that the great mass of the French Canadians are doomed, in some measure, to occupy an inferior position, and to be dependent on the English for employment. The evils of poverty and dependence would merely be aggravated in a ten-fold degree, by a spirit of jealous and resentful nationality, which should separate the working class of the community from the possessors of wealth and employers of labour.”
If you wish to tell me that this document dates back 1839, well, my mother (born in 1949) still remembers going out with her own mom in downtown Montreal, only to be denied services in certain English-owned Montreal stores, and be told to “speak white”.
And while, as a young Quebecer, I was exposed to the Durham Report at school, and therefore integrated the notion that I was from “a different race / ethnicity” than English-Canadians and Americans, it seems that throughout English Canada, students were told a different story, and/or did not quite focus as much on issues of discrimination against French Canadians.
Sadly, those issues take so much place in our education, that French Canadians suffer from one major flaw - i.e. they are so scared of being outnumbered / losing their cultural identity to the oppressive Anglo-Saxon majority, that some of us tend to perceive immigrants as potential threats, and Canada’s policy of multiculturalism as yet another effort to make us disappear.
Since I grew up in Montreal, among people from many multicultural backgrounds (I think my local dentist clinic offers services in 7 different languages), and never had to actually experienced discrimination or micro aggressions based on my skin color or mixed heritage (even being asked where I’m from never felt like people were trying to imply I wasn’t from here), I never realized that systemic racism is, indeed, alive and well within the community.
I never realized that black people, for example, could be more likely to be arrested, even in Montreal, than any other cultural groups in the city.
I’d always thought, sadly, that it was very much an “American society issue” that we didn’t quite share.
I would say that the CAQ government being elected over the popularity of the proposed Bill 21 was a pretty awfullly harsh and disgusting “wake-up call”; and ever since then, I’ve been struggling with my own sense of cultural identity as French Canadian, and have been unable to celebrate our national holiday.
Quebec’s xenophobia comes from a sense that we are at risk of ceasing to exist, after having fought so long against cultural assimilation and Anglo-Saxon oppression, though.
The saddest part is the fact that it should bring us closer to other cultural minorities rather than make us fear them.
If they could understand the difference between English Canadians and French Canadians’ history, and knew just how strong we identify (and are made to indentify) as an oppressed group, rather than members of the “American/Canadian White People”, perhaps they would be more likely to show interest and support towards the French Canadian culture.
But they won’t know unless we take the time to sit down together and tell them of our unique history and culture. They can’t help us protect our French Canadian culture, and help it grow, if we aren’t able to accept that French Canadian society needs to evolve, and learn to integrate certain aspects of other cultures as well in order to thrive and survive.
Therefore, my initial knee-jerk reaction against using the expression “POC”, in order to address racial and/or cultural minorities issues, largely had to do with the notion that I felt like it was erasing my own ethnic group and culture, and tried to make it sound like French Canadians are part of the cultural “white” majority of Canada and North America.
And yes, there’s something that I still find a bit problematic, to this day, regarding the very recent shift in English Canada (that I don’t believe has been gaining much popularity among French Canadians yet in Quebec), to use “POC” to refer to non-white racial groups rather than “visible minorities”.
Because the notion of “visible cultural minorities” implies that there are also “invisible cultural minorities” and recognized ethnic groups, such as the French Canadian people, that have experienced systemic discrimination and are still put at a disadvantage in relation to the dominant English Canadian and American majority.
When you use the term POC, French Canadians seem to become nothing but a variant of the “North American White People”, with the same privileges and global history as “English Canadians” and “Americans”, rather than a colonized, historically oppressed by Anglo-Saxons people.
There was a time when, in Quebec, you were more likely to be hanged for a crime if you were black, French Canadian, or aboriginal.
By replacing “visible minorities” with “POC”, and ignoring invisible ethnic minorities, it’s as if French Canadians were supposed to forget all that, pretend it never affected us, nor continues to affect our relations with the dominant majority of our country, and go “Yeah! Cool! We’re the same ethnicity as the Anglo-Saxons, now!”
It just feels like another attempt as assimilating us and erasing our (invisible) differences.
And the most tragic part of that, is that it seems that we are now treating other cultural minorities in the same way that the Anglo-Saxons have been treating us.
And sadly, many Quebecers are failing at questioning their views and behaviors towards other cultural minorities, because it seem they can’t fathom that one can simultaneously be “the oppressed”, and “the oppressor”.
Therefore, 7 years ago, the idea of using “POC” to refer to cultural / racial differences between different groups of people, in Canada, really triggered me.
And the fact that “race” became a term specifically tied to visible skin color, rather than an ethnic group of people (like French Canadians) sharing the same unique ancestry, history, and culture, pissed me off to no end.
It felt like: “Sure! Let’s just pretend that English Canadians never used to refer to French Canadians as a completely distinct and inferior race than the rest of English Canada, that we used to be treated as second rate citizens, legally denied our own banking system and financial autonomy, and so forth. How convenient!”
Sadly, although I am of a mixed heritage, I don’t quite identify with the unique POC issues that many people across North American, even in Canada and Quebec, seem to face.
I didn’t have to grow up, in Quebec, facing any discrimination among my peers for being of aboriginal descent yet living among Quebecers. The saddest part, perhaps, is that this lack of perceived discrimination is likely due to the Canadian government doing such a beautiful job of assimilating us within the majority, and making us forget about it, by forcing the “white people” identity on us.
And it worked. I do identify as Mohawk / French Canadian, but given my inability to find any written document to prove it, I will likely never be able to be a part of that community and/or contribute to their culture.
White French Canadians are often mixed, and I think my generation has sort of been used to seeing “whiteness” as a skin color, and/or miss some of the nuances in racial features unless it is truly obvious.
In Kaidan Alenko’s case, the reason why I became so comfortable casting Henry Cavill in 2013, I think, really had to do with my perception and experiences towards racial issues, and wishing to distance myself from the American society’s way of putting so much emphasis on race regardless of the context.
Within the Mass Effect universe itself, it seemed to me that humanity had become so diverse in its ethnicity, that I sincerely couldn’t see how being of a rich variety of mixed ancestries would affect Kaidan’s story.
He’s Canadian. He’s from Vancouver (where likely the whole population is now mixed race). In terms of his racial heritage / culture, he’s a member of Vancouver’s majority in 2148.
So, at that point, casting a British guy to play a Canadian guy did not strike me as potentially offensive or dismissing his multicultural background. Especially since, as a French Canadian, I never felt that ethnicity was a matter of skin color and physical appearance per say, but cultural identity and origins.
I didn’t feel that Kaidan being portrayed by a British or a Brazilian man would have changed the way I relate to his character, or am likely to portray him in writing.
Any reflection he’s ever made towards his own sense of cultural identity and heritage has always been centered around him being Canadian. That’s it. He never talks about “Grand’pa being Ukrainian”, or his great great grandmother being Chinese. He doesn’t explain why he looks like a white Brazilian model.
He talks about being Canadian and refers to them as “his people”.
So there never was any conscious intent / desire to make him British rather than Brazilian, so he’d be perceived as “more attractive”, “more relatable” to a wider audience, etc.
I’m not a member of the dominant audience. Virtually every time they put a supposedly French Canadian character on screen, they are making disturbing parodies of us and our societies that no French Canadian are able to relate to.
And they’re very seldom (if ever) played by French Canadian actors.
I mean, I can’t even tell you what that’s supposed to be. Why do RCMP officers throw around random unrelated French words with a thick European French accent, while wearing their parade uniforms rather than work clothes?
I’m not insensitive to the issue of the importance of cultural representation.
You may say that I’m “insensitive enough” to keep Henry Cavill as my faceclaim for Kaidan, when he’s a “British white dude” that’s not a Brazilian, and you may be right.
If that makes you feel too uncomfortable to interact with a version of Kaidan Alenko that you consider to be blatant “whitewashing”, I’d never begrudge anyone making the decision not to interact with the character as I’ve chosen to portray him.
But yeah, it’s very hard for me to let Cavill go, given I’m utterly unable to watch “Man of Steel” without seeing Kaidan, and his portrayal of Clark Kent profoundly resonated with me in terms of how I’d imagine a live-action version of the character to be.
Maybe if I’d encountered Oscar Isaac first, I’d have latched onto him instead.
The faceclaim of Marco Shepard, from my main RP verse, is very much a POC. That of Ashley Williams, too.
I guess my mixed heritage technically makes me a POC, too, although I’m not a “visible minority” in Quebec? So the introduction of POC to more or less replace the concept of “visible minority”, is sort of giving me an identity crisis.
Like I do identify as Mohawk, French Canadian, and even Canadian (in the sense that I’m sharing the same global culture / country). But I don’t identify with white English Canadians and Americans.
We come from different ethnic groups.
But I don’t want to appropriate the term POC in relation to my mixed heritage while, like Kaidan Alenko, I was part of the racially privileged majority even within my own cultural minority (French Canadians).
The issue, to me, feels like a rather complex one. And I’m willing to listen to people offering me another perspective on this.
