knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

learning is good for you.

[fuckyeahethnicwomen]

Greek travelers and writers from the ancient world mythologized the Amazons, but these legendary female warriors were very real. They hailed from the ferocious nomadic Scythian tribes that controlled a huge swath of Central Asia and kept the great powers of Greece, Persia, and China at bay. With the help of recent archaeological findings, uncover the lives of these Amazons through the tale of a Scythian who grows up to become a horse warrior and leader of her tribe in a defining battle against the Persians in 6th century BC. Smithsonian Episode 1

[arterialtrees]

do you have any recommendations for someone who's just getting into feminist literature? thanks!

Yes! This is hard because it depends on how far back you want to go, and where your primary interests lie….Also, by feminist literature are you looking for theory or for fiction with a feminist bent? If it is the latter you are searching for, I apologize because I already compiled a bunch of theory for you and then realized that might not be what you had in mind. 

Edit: I was going to write descriptions and organize this in a more effective way, but I need to move out of my apartment this afternoon and I haven’t slept in two days. Thus, lamentably, I am afraid that I was too ambitious and sprawling and have perhaps merely compiled a useless dump of PDFs instead of offering you succinct and cogent guidance. My apologies.

Anyway; I have bolded and starred the texts that I enjoy most. Most link to full text PDFs. 

Early feminist thought: 

If you were taking a intro feminist philosophy class they’d probably tell you to start with Mary Wollstonecraft’s  A Vindication of the Rights of Women[1792]  which was written as a response to Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution in which Burke argued that the French Revolution would fail and that society was ultimately bolstered and held intact by traditional structures of property and class. Wollstonecraft echoed Thomas Paine in writing against Burke but augmented his position by further arguing in a humanist bent for the inherent rights of women as equal to that of men. It’s rather dry reading and certainly dated, but is a seminal text that is worth checking out if you want background on more contemporary feminism.

About a half century later you have Sojourner Truth (side note: alongside Joan of Arc, my first heroine as a child) whose A’int I A Woman Speech is underrepresented in feminist philosophy classes but should be included as a canonical text for around this time period as an early rebuke to the white-centric, racist rhetoric of mainstream feminism. 

Virginia Woolf—A Room of One’s Own

The Second Wave

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir **

Influenced by existential thought, de Beauvoir writes of the existential unfolding of a woman ’s life; of the ways in which her attitude towards her embodied selfhood alters throughout her lifespan and how this attitude is crafted by society. Sartre observed that whatever we perceive, including other people, is rendered as an ‘object’ to our gaze and is defined by us. de Beauvoir extends this concept to argue that as man “is the Subject, he is the Absolute; she is the Other”.  The meaning of what it is to be a woman is given by men.” Thus,  women are constantly under siege in a painful conflict between their humanity and their femininity. de Beauvoir writes of the traumatic process, beginning in puberty, by which women lose their selfhood, their agency, “becoming flesh” in the eyes of the society in which they function. In other words, de Beauvoir was perhaps the first to argue that women are not born but made, enmeshed in vast and complex economic, religious, material, cultural, and ideological structures that fabricate and enforce ideas of femininity. While identity theory in the 1970′s led to a massive backlash against de Beauvoir, the immense debt that contemporary feminists owe her is finally being acknowledged once more. I cannot recommend this text enough. 

Sexual Politics by Kate Millet 

Sexual Politics’s primary focus is an in-depth analysis of the patriarchal bias that underlies literary production. It was the first major work to apply feminist theory to specific works of literature. Authors that Millet critiques include D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller and Norman Mailer. 

The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution by Shulamith Firestone ***

“An international bestseller, originally published in 1970, when Shulamith Firestone was just twenty-five years old, The Dialectic of Sex was the first book of the women’s liberation movement to put forth a feminist theory of politics.”

When I first read this book in my freshman year of college, I was completely put off by it. While I had considered myself a strident feminist since age seven, I’d never had any grounding in feminist theory outside of what was easily accessible within the pop-culture saturated, lazy liberal bourgeois mainstream. I was thrown by radical ideas that I’d never encountered and defensive about Firestone’s desire to abolish procreative sex, childhood, monogamy, and natural (physiological vs. mechanized) reproduction. 

While I am, perhaps sadly, too cynical and too conventional to jump on board with all of Firestone’s arguments, I’ve grown to love this text in my twenties, both for its willingness to dream wildly and fiercely of how we might construct a more egalitarian society and for its cogent and compelling analysis of feminism as the supplementary radical ideology that unifies Marxist and Freudian concepts and paves the way toward revolution. Ahead of her time to an astonishing degree, she initiated conversations about the ethical necessity to abolish gender  that have only truly reached the mainstream consciousness during the last few years.

Overviews of Feminism:

FEMINIST THEORY: from marginto center by  bell hooks 

Race and Feminism

On Being White: Thinking Toward a Feminist Understanding of Race and Race Supremacy by Marilyn Frye From The Politics Of Reality: Essays In Feminist Theory (The Crossing Press 1983) **

bell hooks- Essentialism and Experience

bell hooks–Talking Back: thinking feminist. thinking black.

bell hooks–Ain’t I a Woman?

Gloria Anzaldúa—Borderlands/La Frontera ***

Masculinity and Feminism: 

We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity by bell hooks 

Gender Dynamics and Romantic Partnership: 

All About Love by bell hooks ***

The Will to Change by bell hooks (sorry, no pdf on this one)***

Sexuality

This Sex Which Is Not One by Luce Irigaray***

Sexology and Antifeminism, Sheila Jeffreys (PDF)

Toward a Feminist Praxis of Sexuality, Wendy Stock (PDF)

Eroticizing Women’s Subordination, Sheila Jeffreys (PDF)

Nebulously and Generally Categorized Third-Wave Feminism/Poststructuralism 

Gender Trouble by Judith Butler*** 

The Complete Works of Andrea Dworkin*** 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/kqsshslvh9xd9rr/The+Complete+Works+of+Andrea+Dworkin+%28pdf%29.zip

Rape

Rape Redefined*Catharine A. MacKinnon

Catharine A. MacKinnon: In Their Hands: Restoring Institutional Liability forSexual Harassment in Education

Bodies 

Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body by Susan Bordo*** (Sadly, I cannot find this in a PDF)

The Hunger Artists: Starving, Writing, and Imprisonment by Maud Ellmann***

[08-23-47]

If the figure of the Muslim is today being used to represent the most potent threat to national security, the racialization of the categories ‘Muslim’ and ‘immigrant’ means that all people of color who ‘look’ like ‘Muslims’ (that is, who are Black and Brown), are being constituted as part of this danger, regardless of their legal status. Racialization renders the distinction between immigrant all but meaningless in the eyes of nationals, who in the post 9/11 era imagine themselves to be ‘terrorized,’ perceiving the threat to their survival as emanating equally from both. Although many Muslim immigrants and refugees have been detained in Canada for ostensibly posing threats to national security, almost none have been charged with anything more than (minor) immigration violations. The twenty-one terrorist suspects who were rounded up with much media fanfare In Ontario in September 2003 were later released. It was subsequently reported that ‘the Ministry has not produced any evidence against any of the 21 showing they were a security threat.’ While such practices have netted few terrorists, they have had serious consequences for those detained, as well as for all Muslims who fear increased surveillance and targeting by law enforcement officials. Such measures have greatly increased the suspicions directed by nationals against all immigrants, fortifying the limits of the nation and sending a chill among many Muslim communities, which now fear for the legal status and the physical safety of their members. The media has contributed in no small measure to the growing erosion of their citizenship status. The distance between ‘immigrants’ and ‘real’ Canadians thus vastly increased since 9/11, with unforeseeable consequences for the future.

Sunera Thobani. Exalted Subjects: Studies in the Making of Race and Nation in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), p. 246-247. (via 08-23-47)

[steviemcfly-in-exile]

[espritfollet]

Prior to 1952, Canadian immigration policy engaged in racialization of potential immigrants by adopting a nationality preference system which favored European immigrants over non-Europeans. Emphasis was placed on white immigrants because they were considered to be of “superior stock,” more desirable, and more assimilable than immigrants of colour. Non-Europeans were deemed undesirable and policies were put in place to prevent their immigration to Canada. For example, Section 38© of the Immigration Act of 1910 was amended in 1919 to create a class of immigrants considered to be “undesirable” for admission to Canada. Included in this category were African Women in a Prairie Province, those belonging to nationalities unlikely to assimilate because of their peculiar customs, habits, mode of life, methods of holding property and because of their probable inability to become readily assimilated or assume the duties and responsibilities of Canadian citizenship within reasonable time after their entry. This was seen as something that would consequently prevent the building of a united nation of people of similar customs and ideals. Accordingly, potential migrants were racialized and ranked into categories, with “preferred immigrants being drawn from Great Britain, United States, France and, to a lesser extent, northern and western Europe. The federal government subsequently extended its preferential policies to include other “white” immigrants including Ukrainians, Italians, Poles, and Hutterites who were previously classified as “non-preferred.” This was due to the failure of its efforts to produce the large numbers of “preferred immigrants” required to settle Canada’s western prairie land.

The Racialization of Gender in the Social. A Case Study of Construction of Immigrant Women in Canada, African Women in a Prairie Province (via esprit-follet)

[espritfollet]

Racism and the Other Isms

[racismfreeontario]

Some people discount the effect of race on the outcomes for people of color. Many would argue that the issues for people of color are more a consequence of socioeconomic status than race. What they fail to recognize is that the overrepresentation of people of color in lower socioeconomic strata is due to institutional racism that has constrained them to life circumstances that kept them in that strata.

Others equate the prejudice, discrimination, and bias based on age, gender, sexual orientation, or physical ability to the negative experiences due to race. Prejudice and discrimination based on these factors do in fact cause much strife in our society. Also, issues of privilege based on these factors must be confronted as seriously as privilege by racial identification. However, the experience of people of color in each of these categories is significantly worse compared with those who are white and in these categories.

Furthermore, the intolerance that was first established on the basis of race provided the template to treat in a discriminatory manner those who do not “fit.” If our society can successfully tackle its treatment of people who are “different” by virtue of the social category of race, it will have changed the manner in which it views, understands, and responds to “differentness” in other forms.

From the INSTITUTIONAL RACISM &  THE SOCIAL WORK PROFESSION: A CALL TO ACTION .

[espritfollet]

Now to “Reverse Racism.” It’s crucial to maintain the distinction between the above three terms, because otherwise white people tend to redefine “Discrimination” as “Racism”. Their main argument is that because both blacks and white can discriminate against each other, that “Reverse Racism” is possible. But the truth of the matter is that black people: 1) have far less opportunity to discriminate against whites than whites have to discriminate against blacks, overall; and 2) black people lack a system of institutionalized support that protect them when they discriminate against whites. It took black and white people working together for one hundred years to get programs like Affirmative Action installed in the U.S., but it took one white man (Alan Bakke) only a single Supreme Court case to get those programs dismantled because he felt he didn’t gain entry into medical school based on his white race. “Reverse Racism” would only describe a society in which all the rules and roles were turned upside down. That has not happened in the U.S., however much white right wing ideologues want to complain that they’re being victimized by the few points of equality that minorities and women have managed to claim. White people who complain about “Reverse Racism” are actually complaining about being denied their privileges, rather than being denied their rights. They feel entitled to be hired and not to be discriminated against, even though the norm is white people discriminating against blacks. If, in a rare instance, a black employer discriminates against a white job applicant, that’s not “reverse” anything — it’s simple discrimination. It’s to be condemned on principle, but it’s not evidence of some systematic program by which whites are being deprived of their rights. The right wing popularized the term “Reverse Racism” because they were really angry at having their white privileges challenged. Anyone who uses that phrase, whether they are right wing or not, furthers the right wing’s cause. This is what I tell Democrats and progressives who I hear using the term — not only are they being inaccurate, but they’re helping out their opponents. The above arguments can be applied to any institutionalized structure of oppression, affecting any race, ethnic or religious group, and can be used to to oppose claims of “Reverse Sexism” too. I hope that clarifies things a bit.

Daily Kos: Why there’s no such thing as “Reverse Racism” (via racismfreeontario)

[espritfollet]

Institutional/Structural Racism Within a Context: A Historical Glimpse at the Concept of “Race”

[racismfreeontario]

Institutional or structural racism, defined as the social, economic, educational, and political forces or policies that operate to foster discriminatory outcomes or give preferences to members of one group over others, derives its genesis from the origins of race as a concept.

Race as a biological fact has been invalidated by biologists and geneticists, but race as a social construct is very real. Physical traits still have meaning as markers of social race identity. It is this social race identity that confers placement in the social hierarchy of society, and thereby access to or denial of privileges, power, and wealth.

“The status assignment based on skin color identity has evolved into complex social structures that promote a power differential between Whites and various people-of-color.” 

The emphasis on the use of physical features to classify and group people has its history from the extended encounter between European and non-European peoples that began in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. “Discovering” human beings in Asia, Africa, and the Americas who looked- and often acted- very different from themselves, Europeans concluded that these superficial differences were surely indicators of much more fundamental differences as well. This conclusion helped them to colonize, enslave, and even exterminate certain of those peoples. Europeans came to believe that races are in fact distinct and identifiable human groups; that there are systematic, inherited, biological differences among races; and that the non-White races are innately inferior to Whites-that is, to Europeans. 

In the United States, the cognitive dissonance between the values and beliefs of the Protestant founders for human rights, liberty, justice, democracy, brotherhood, and equality alongside the practice of enslavement of Africans, the making of Mexican/Mexican Americans a foreign minority in the land of their birth, and genocide of Native Americans was resolved by classifying groups of people by virtue of their physical characteristics as being not only different, but innately inferior and thereby unworthy of rights and entitlements. From the very origins of this nation, the concept of race was used to institutionalize the benefits of one group of people while denying them to other groups of people.

The determination of who is or is not white in America has fluctuated over time. There have been times and places in which the Irish, Jews, Italians, and Latinos have been considered white or non-white. The changes in the U.S. Census Bureau nomenclature system over time demonstrate the fluidness in the U.S. society’s perceptions of how people should be clustered. The categorization that had been “White/Non-White” is now a set of five major groups along with notation of national origin. Furthermore, the individual determines his or her own race and can choose more than one. The census also makes a clear demarcation between racial categories and the ethnic category of Latino/Hispanic who can be of any race.

Contemporary United States continues to struggle with the cognitive dissonance between the espoused virtuous beliefs of this nation and its actual practices in relationship to those who are “different,” meaning “not white.” These struggles are captured in several of the terms often associated with a discussion of racism and related concepts.

(via INSTITUTIONAL RACISM &  THE SOCIAL WORK PROFESSION: A CALL TO ACTION . References at source.)

[meow-sense]

Not being racist is not some default starting position. You don’t simply get to say you’re not a racist; not being racist — or a sexist or a homophobe — is a constant, arduous process of unlearning, of being uncomfortable, of eating crow and being humbled and re-evaluating. It’s probably hard to start that process if you’ve been told that every thought you have is golden and should be given voice, and that people who are offended by what you say are hypersensitive simpletons.

PostBourgie (via postponelife, meowsense) (via jadedfucker) (via freshmouthgoddess) (via soydulcedeleche) (via super-eklectic1) (via knowledgeisthewing) (via racismfreeontario, meow-sense)

[espritfollet]

Ethnic groups have conventionally been constructed in ways that homogenize their experiences and erase the many distinctions, such as those of social class and gender, within them. There are commonalities of experience, no doubt, but at the same time there are vast differences that stem from the different identities. The social construction of an ethnic group may emphasize a particular aspect of its identity, such as language or religion (e.g., head scarf), which not only subsumes its other attributes but also blames the victims for the difficulties they encounter in integrating themselves with Canadian society. Yet, as postcolonial feminists argue, women have had to ‘negotiate the precarious balance between the tenacious forces of integration and the desire to maintain a sense of their cultural identity as a strategy of selfpreservation in their country of adoption’ Indian women, like other racialized women, experience racism when white Canadians encounter their ‘difference’ from the norm, whether it is skin colour, different clothing, or an inability to speak English. Everyday racism ‘expresses itself in glances, gestures, forms of speech, and physical movements. Sometimes it is not even consciously experienced by its perpetrators, but it is immediately and painfully felt by its victims – the empty seat next to a person of colour, which is the last to be occupied in a crowded bus; the slight movement away from a person of colour in an elevator; the overattention to the black customer in the shop; the inability to make direct eye contact with a person of colour; the racist joke told at a meeting; and the ubiquitious question ‘Where did you come from?’

Agnew, Vijay  (via esprit-follet)

[racismfreeontario]

Reverse Racism? Many white people claim to have experienced mistreatment, prejudice, or racism from people of colour. This claim may be used to justify stereotyping and mistreatment of people of colour. But racism is institutional, the power is always on the side of the institutions, which in Canada favour white people. Anyone from any group can have personal attitudes of prejudice towards others and may be subject to action or litigation based on discriminatory activities. But racism is not only about prejudice - it is about power. And in Canadian society, only white people have the power to enforce systematic, institutionalized racism. We are born into a society in which racial power imbalances are already established. Reverse racism does not exist in today’s society.

(Halifax District School Board, Anti-Racism Policy, 1996) on Reverse Racism (via racismfreeontario)

[racismfreeontario]

THE CONTINUOUS PASSAGE ACT, 1908-1947

…THEREFORE the Governor general in Council is pleased to Order and it is hereby Ordered that, … immigrants may be prohibited from landing or coming into Canada unless they come from the country of their birth, or citizenship, by a continuous journey and on through tickets purchased before leaving the country of their birth, or citizenship.

Wednesday, 8th Day of January, 1908

In 1908, the Government of Canada enacted the Continuous Passage Act which required all immigrants to arrive on uninterrupted journey on their passage ticket, a “continuous passage”, from their point of origin to Canada.

This created a significant barrier to immigration from Asia as trips from most Asian countries involved stops. For Indians, who were also British subjects, this Act made it impossible for them to enter Canada as immigrants.

This law was created in response to slowly increasing immigration from India which sparked fear in the public, recorded as “the Indian invasion” or “the Hindu invasion”. The first South Asians to immigrate to Canada were Sikhs from the Indian province of Punjab. Despite their small numbers (approximately 5000 in 1908), their presence drew racial hostility and resentment that were directed to other visible minority communities.

It is noteworthy that the first Canadian Gurdwara (Sikh temple) was built by the Khalsa Diwan Society in West Vancouver in 1908. This historical footnote is significant because it was the means by which many Indian men made their passage into Canada. As a continuous journey from India was not possible, passengers landed in the United States and then crossed the border illegally to take refuge in the Gurdwara. Legend has it that the temple (built on a hill) had a signal indicating whether or not it was safe to cross the border.

The Continuous Passage Act remained in effect until 1947

(via  The 100th Anniversary of the Continuous Passage Act. The Continuous Passage Act, 1908-1947 – Racism Free Ontario Initiative)

[knowledgeisthewing]

Sherene Razack on colour-blindness, white privilege in the Canadian legal system and multiculturalism

Zoe Druick: The book posits that there is a fundamental denial of white privilege in the Canadian legal system, that the system is colour-blind. How did this situation come to be?

Sherene Razack: To begin with, law has always worked in service of the colonisers. The first example that comes to mind is the British law of terra nullius which declared land to be "empty" for the taking if the inhabitants were not civilized enough to develop it. Here is an example of a law that leaves the door wide open for the British to declare that the lands that would comprise Canada were theirs simply because Aboriginal peoples were uncivilized nomads. In fact, this very idea is invoked today as it was in the land claim case of the Gitskan Wetsuwetin. At the BC supreme court, Judge McEachern declared that the Gitskin did not have horses and did not develop the land in a way that would confirm their claim to it.

The law is in fact full of apparently neutral rules that have the impact of limiting the claims of people of colour. In the case of racial violence, for instance, we see the law's reliance on the idea that context and history are irrelevant. This makes it difficult to show when violence originated in systemic and individual racism that pre-dated the actual encounter.

Finally, we really see colour blindness in the law's insistence that we cannot take race into account because to do so is to treat people differently. In fact, what we must take into account is racism. Thus the racial context of individuals is an important fact bearing on the case. To ignore it is thus to ignore vital information, a neutrality that clearly works in favour of the dominant group. From the book, we have the example of the white, male murderers of Pamela George, whose intent and actions cannot be appreciated unless we consider what two white boys thought they were doing when they picked up an Aboriginal woman.

ZD: Do you think the Canadian government policy of official multiculturalism obscures institutionalized and spatialized forms of racism in Canada?

SR: Multiculturalism implies an endless variety where, as they say in the national anthem of my birth place, "every creed and race find an equal place." In fact, it is of enormous consequence who fits under the multicultural category and who doesn't. It's not a category you want to be in because usually 5% of the budget (as in the case of Canada Council) will go to multicultural groups and the rest will go to the unnamed "normal" citizens. Multiculturalism complies with the national story that the original citizens are Europeans and everyone else is an after thought to be welcomed as additions to an already existing structure. Having said that, I will say that those slotted into the multicultural category have taken the small space afforded them to do wonderful things. We use this space to resist, to make claims, to convince ourselves that we have not disappeared.

ZD: Canadian mythology is bound up with the image of an empty landscape: clean, pure, snowy. What are the implications of such a myth for an analysis of race relations in Canada?

SR: When we think of mythology, or stories that are told about a nation's origins and history, we first need to consider the cast of characters in the story. A snowy, Northern land that is empty has few Aboriginal peoples. We can easily see the characters that make the story come to life: the first fur traders, explorers, and so on. In fact, the first Europeans. Europeans who are at home in snow and wilderness are nearly always men. If we see anybody at all in this snowy landscape it would have to be an intrepid man paddling a canoe, surrounded by decaying totem poles (Emily Carr), big trees and magnificent lakes (the entire group of Seven), or wide expanses of snow (Lauren Harris.) Since Aboriginal peoples are all dead, and were not very numerous to begin with on this mythical landscape, those first Europeans literally make the place into what it is. People of colour who are associated with the South are woven into the story with great difficulty. They just don't fit. They don't have skills for snow and cold. Remember Montesque thought that Southern peoples did not have the proper biological qualities to become thinkers. Their climate made them lazy. Southern peoples make the tale messy or "stained," as Himani Bannerji put it, and in any event, they came much later. The original inhabitants, a Nordic race able to vanquish the cold, have the first claim on the land. When the Others come, they pollute the pristine landscape; they flood it and make it "foreign." This story is the one we see repeated over and over again in racist immigration laws, in the courts when the claims for justice of Aboriginal peoples and people of colour are considered. It effectively shuts them out of the national story, and thus out of any claims for equal citizenship.

Sherene Razack interview, Sherene Razack, editor of Race, Space and the Law: Unmapping a White Settler Society

[racismfreeontario]

Sherene Razack is professor of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education, the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Her research and teaching interests lie in the area of race and gender issues in the law.  Her courses include ‘Race, Space and Citizenship;’ ‘Race and Knowledge Production’ and ‘Racial Violence and the Law.’  Her most recent book is entitled Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims From Western Law and Politics. She has also published several books on feminism, race, gender and imperialism, including  Looking White People in the Eye: Gender, Race, and Culture in Courtroom, which explores how non-white women are viewed in classrooms and courtrooms.

Razack’s book makes clear why we must be wary of educational and legal strategies that begin with saving ”Other” women. It offers powerful arguments for why it is important to examine who are the saviours and who are the saved, and what we must do to disrupt these historical relations of power.

Zoe Druick: What is the significance of the term “unmapping” in the title of the book? Sherene Razack: When colonisers first get to a place they intend to own, one of their first acts is to map it and give it names. Mapping enables them to feel in control and to know themselves as owners of the space. It is always about identity as well as a material act of possession. When you unmap, you ask questions about the claims and the identity-making process that have gone into making maps. You ask, for instance, about what the land was called before it was mapped. You unsettle notions that the land was simply theirs for the taking. To unmap is to consider that there is nothing innocent about mapping, that it is a process born of and consolidating certain power arrangements.

ZD: Can you explain the phrase “space becomes race”?

SR: It is probably more accurate to talk about how place becomes race. In the book I begin with an example from Canadian history. It was an offence under the Indian Act to be intoxicated on an Indian reserve. This law marked an Indian reserve as a special kind of place, one where the normal rules of society did not apply. Anyone in that space earned the mark of being somehow abnormal or different (and negatively so). Of course the people who are most likely to be on an Indian reserve are Aboriginal peoples. To have such a law is to mark as degenerate and lesser Indians. The place is thereby effectively collapsed with race.

ZD: What are the implications of this book for Canadian studies? SR: Scholars in Canada often over-rely on American work and we are plagued by an insufficient body of work on how race operates in Canada. While ours is a white settler society that shares many of the characteristics and history of other settler colonies, such as the United States and Australia (and the book is therefore of enormous interest to them), we also have some specific aspects that we need to consider. For example, we have a slightly different method of colonization (not better or more benign but different). As well, we have powerful national myths that insist that there is no racism here and that we do not have a violent colonial history. This book should help to shatter these rather destructive myths.

Day 5 of of Racism Free Ontario’s 100 People of Colour Spotlight.

Follow our facebook fanpage , tumblr, twitter and website for daily updates.

(via  Sherene Razack interview, Sherene Razack, editor of Race, Space and the Law: Unmapping a White Settler Society & Sherene Razack – Racism Free Ontario Initiative)

[racismfreeontario]

What is meant by the racialization of poverty ?

Racialized communities experience ongoing, disproportionate levels of poverty. In other words, people from Aboriginal and ethno-racial minority groups (communities of colour) are more likely to fall below the low income cut off (LICO) and to have related problems like poor health, lower education, and fewer job opportunities, than those from European backgrounds. While it is possible for anyone to experience low income and reduced opportunities, individual and systemic racism plays a large role in creating such problems. Discrimination means that members of racialized communities are less likely to get jobs when equally qualified and are likely to make less income than their white peers. It means they are more likely to live and work in poor conditions, to have less access to healthcare, and to be victims of police violence.

 (via Colour of Poverty - Colour of Change)

[theshadowofwybie-deactivated201]

If you've spent fifteen or twenty or fifty years using words or ideas that you didn't realize were harmful,

[racismfreeontario]

but today, someone tells you that they are, you don’t have to feel bad about the last x years.

Start today. Learn to do it differently. Let this be the turning point. It might take some time to get it right, but there’s no reason to refuse to try not to harm people.

Sometimes, that harmful language or idea is systematic, and you have to use it in certain circumstances because the systems aren’t willing to change. But the systems—the paperwork, the meetings—don’t have to dictate your personal interactions. -

via librariesandlemonade

[proletarianinstinct]

Colorblind Ideology is a Form of Racism

What is racial colorblindness?

Racial issues are often uncomfortable to discuss and rife with stress and controversy. Many ideas have been advanced to address this sore spot in the American psyche. Currently, the most pervasive approach is known as colorblindness. Colorblindness is the racial ideology that posits the best way to end discrimination is by treating individuals as equally as possible, without regard to race, culture, or ethnicity.

At its face value, colorblindness seems like a good thing — really taking MLK seriously on his call to judge people on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. It focuses on commonalities between people, such as their shared humanity.

However, colorblindness alone is not sufficient to heal racial wounds on a national or personal level. It is only a half-measure that in the end operates as a form of racism.

Problems with the colorblind approach

Racism? Strong words, yes, but let’s look the issue straight in its partially unseeing eye. In a colorblind society, White people, who are unlikely to experience disadvantages due to race, can effectively ignore racism in American life, justify the current social order, and feel more comfortable with their relatively privileged standing in society (Fryberg, 2010). Most minorities, however, who regularly encounter difficulties due to race, experience colorblind ideologies quite differently. Colorblindness creates a society that denies their negative racial experiences, rejects their cultural heritage, and invalidates their unique perspectives.

Let’s break it down into simple terms: Color-Blind = “People of color — we don’t see you (at least not that bad ‘colored’ part).” As a person of color, I like who I am, and I don’t want any aspect of that to be unseen or invisible. The need for colorblindness implies there is something shameful about the way God made me and the culture I was born into that we shouldn’t talk about. Thus, colorblindness has helped make race into a taboo topic that polite people cannot openly discuss. And if you can’t talk about it, you can’t understand it, much less fix the racial problems that plague our society.

Colorblindness is not the answer

Many Americans view colorblindness as helpful to people of color by asserting that race does not matter (Tarca, 2005). But in America, most underrepresented minorities will explain that race does matter, as it affects opportunities, perceptions, income, and so much more. When race-related problems arise, colorblindness tends to individualize conflicts and shortcomings, rather than examining the larger picture with cultural differences, stereotypes, and values placed into context. Instead of resulting from an enlightened (albeit well-meaning) position, colorblindness comes from a lack of awareness of racial privilege conferred by Whiteness (Tarca, 2005). White people can guiltlessly subscribe to colorblindness because they are usually unaware of how race affects people of color and American society as a whole.

Colorblindness in a psychotherapeutic relationship

How might colorblindness cause harm? Here’s an example close to home for those of you who are psychologically-minded. In the not-so-distant past, in psychotherapy a client’s racial and ethnic remarks were viewed as a defensive shift away from important issues, and the therapist tended to interpret this as resistance (Comas-Diaz & Jacobsen, 1991). However, such an approach hinders the exploration of conflicts related to race, ethnicity, and culture. The therapist doesn’t see the whole picture, and the client is left frustrated.

A colorblind approach effectively does the same thing. Blind means not being able to see things. I don’t want to be blind. I want to see things clearly, even if they make me uncomfortable. As a therapist I need to be able to hear and “see” everything my client is communicating on many different levels. I can’t afford to be blind to anything. Would you want to see a surgeon who operated blindfolded? Of course not. Likewise, a therapist should not be blinded either, especially to something as critical as a person’s culture or racial identity. By encouraging the exploration of racial and cultural concepts, the therapist can provide a more authentic opportunity to understand and resolve the client’s problems (Comas-Diaz & Jacobsen, 1991).

Nonetheless, I have encountered many fellow therapists who ascribe to a colorblind philosophy. They ignore race or pretend its personal, social, and historical effects don’t exist. This approach ignores the incredibly salient experience of being stigmatized by society and represents an empathetic failure on the part of the therapist. Colorblindness does not foster equality or respect; it merely relieves the therapist of his or her obligation to address important racial differences and difficulties.

Multiculturalism is better than blindness

Research has shown that hearing colorblind messages predict negative outcomes among Whites, such as greater racial bias and negative affect; likewise colorblind messages cause stress in ethnic minorities, resulting in decreased cognitive performance (Holoien et al., 2011). Given how much is at stake, we can no longer afford to be blind. It’s time for change and growth. It’s time to see.

The alternative to colorblindness is multiculturalism, an ideology that acknowledges, highlights, and celebrates ethnoracial differences. It recognizes that each tradition has something valuable to offer. It is not afraid to see how others have suffered as a result of racial conflict or differences.

So, how do we become multicultural? The following suggestions would make a good start (McCabe, 2011):

Recognizing and valuing differences,

Teaching and learning about differences, and

Fostering personal friendships and organizational alliances

Moving from colorblindness to multiculturalism is a process of change, and change is never easy, but we can’t afford to stay the same.

References

Comas-Diaz, L., and Jacobsen, F. M. (1991). Clinical Ethnocultural Transference and Countertransference in the Therapeutic Dyad. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 61(3), 392-402.

Fryberg, S. M. (2010). When the World Is Colorblind, American Indians Are Invisible: A Diversity Science Approach. Psychological Inquiry, 21(2), 115-119.

Holoien, D. S., and Shelton, J. N. (October 2011). You deplete me: The cognitive costs of colorblindness on ethnic minorities. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 10.1016/j.jesp.2011.09.010.

Tarca, K. (2005). Colorblind in Control: The Risks of Resisting Difference Amid Demographic Change. Educational Studies, 38(2), 99-120.

McCabe, J. (2011). Doing Multiculturalism: An Interactionist Analysis of the Practices of a Multicultural Sorority. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 40 (5), 521-549.