Peace of Mind and Canadian Racism
Dedication:
This post is dedicated to my friend P.W who is a peaceful, thoughtful and liberated person. I also want to acknowledge the friendship of my friends who are identified as other by those who see themselves as mainstream or the Canadian norm.
Peace of Mind and Racism in Canada:
What I need to write about is peace of mind. I also need to write about fear of other, fear of change and how to understand that people who are different than the person you see in the mirror are not the problem, even if their skin colour, gender identity, or world views are different than yours. I am not focusing so much on the systemic racism that is woven into the fiber of our Canadian society but rather the racism that lives in each of us. Racism in particular of all of the ism’s is characterized by defining another human by a single attribute. In this case the colour of their skin.
Seeking our own identity:
I am reading a book right now about racism that asks the reader first of all to identify your own culture, community and sense of self. So how did you learn to become you? Before we can understand anyone else we need to identify and own our cultural biases and understanding of the world around us. I like this approach because I like most Canadians have never looked at my own understanding of the way my world is supposed to be. So…the first step in understanding racism is identify your own heritage.
I remember standing in my backyard in northern Ontario and wondering why there were no Indigenous children in my little mining community. We had people from Italy, Germany, Hungary and many from Britain but only one person of colour and he was a teacher from St. Kits. So we had many cultures but most of those people looked similar to me.
My mother was French, my dad English and Scots and we had very little contact with cousins, uncles and aunts or extended relatives. My mom was Catholic and my dad grew up Presbyterian(I think). I did not grow up with significant interest in my ethnic or racial community. I defined myself as Canadian and thought that most families were like mine. They are not!
When I took a class in graduate school called Afrocentric Social Work my professor could not believe that I grew up and still lived in such a Caucasian world. Many of us who live in rural communities live in an ethnically cohesive environment.
However the world has become diverse, interesting and frankly more complicated than the world in which I matured. It is a good thing.
Differencing Others
When we differentiate others, who do not look like us or who have different world views as less than human we can learn to both hate and fear. We can learn to see people as less than and a threat to your sense of entitlement towards your way of life or well-being.
We need to move away from that kind of thinking I wish I could say that as Canadians we have moved beyond hatred. I wish that we did not hide racism, genderism, and generally hatred of others behind humour as in ‘what is wrong with you it was only a joke’ but it was not only a joke.
It is hard to identify with people who live in fear of other but I need to try. I don’t need to agree with people who live their lives in fear but I do need to honour and respect the fact that fear is their energy.
I read Joseph Boyden’s book called Wenjack yesterday and if you have not read it it is worth reading, if you want to begin the process of understanding. The quote on the back of the book is poignant and quite telling.
“One day I will run. One day they won’t hurt me anymore.”
Fear:
I have spent my life asking people to address their fears and see that fear does not have to be the driving force or energy in their lives. Fear clamps its chains around us, and keeps our world small. Fear keeps our identity small. Fear keeps us limited to what is and not what could be.
In some ways even though most of us experience some fear around change we do need to address it up front. If we do not acknowledge what we are afraid of, we can’t and won’t move past it to a better way of living that is inclusive of all.
Understanding our own Racism (or any other isms)
When I look at people who protest the complexity of growth in our Canadian society, the people who the rest of us see as racist, ageist, sexist etc are generally afraid of change. I see many people whom our society has neglected. I see the people whose believe and maybe even know that their livelihoods are threatened by inclusion and expansion in Canadian society. I see many people who are angry that their lives have not turned out the way they would have wanted.
Perhaps; growing up in a community without diversity, poor employment, poverty, or an inherent sense of entitlement has encouraged us to hate the people who personify change. Thus begins a belief that exclusion is the way to maintain what we have. Where does that fear lie in each of us? Because it is there and if we admit it then we can grow from it.
How to keep the masses down and your world stable while maintaining your own power
I read an essay a long time ago that described how to keep people hating each other and in fact to get them to police themselves. The person who wrote the document was a slave owner who taught other slave owners how to keep the people who were slaves under control.
In order to do that you give one or two of the people you would normally hate a little bit of power over and the authority to mete out discipline to those who did not follow the rules. To keep their position of power they were to give some of the people small pieces of power or authority over others who lived with oppression. So that the person with a small bit of authority would then be seen as the bad guy and the true oppressor could maintain their own position, money and power.
That essay was written in the 1600’s by a slave owner. He went about the south to give talks to other slave owners about how to maintain control over the field slaves. That strategy comes to my mind often these days as the middle classes work so hard to make sure that the owners of large corporations maintain their position so that they can keep their own middle class status.
What do we do to deal with our own fear of other:
As a liberal society how do we discard those people in the back corners of our classrooms. Some of the things that I read about the left are true. We may in fact be no more compassionate that the right . We need to look at that aspect of our self. First of all we stop defining ourselves as left or right, right or wrong and see the human being who might be so desperately afraid that their own security is at risk. When we are fearful we act in ways that we would not if we were not afraid.
When we have the authority to make decisions how do we make those decisions? Do we make them with the people or do we make them for the people but mostly so we benefit? A truly just society would know that when we are in a position of authority we need to know that truly just decisions might harm our own social or economic status. Are we prepared to do that?
Even though I do not know many people who thought Donald Trump was a great president, somehow or other he touched a nerve in American and I dare say Canadian society. He sold himself as a man of the people and so many people thought that he heard them and that for the first time ever this rough and tumble president without an ounce of empathy or insight understood them. He fed into the fear of other and inflamed the people who did not see themselves as important in society. When all is said and done we need to acknowledge that one small truth about Donald Trump’s leadership.
I had a conversation recently with a First Nations man who talked with me about his own racism and how it has affected his life. What he was acknowledging is that we are all prone to liking and seeing as normal people who look like us, talk like us and live like us.
Steps to Becoming an Ally:
The first step in identifying our own racism is look at self in the mirror, we learn and then accept our internalized racism and our own fear of people who might be different than me in some way.
It is ok to take pride in your own ethnicity but it is also really good to acknowledge and learn about another’s ethnicity.
Take yourself out of the center and let others step forward. If we wait and listen enough we can hear the voices and notice the injustices that others live with.
The next step is having a conversation about racism that does not include any ‘yes but…’
No excuses, no blaming others but just a conversation after that examination.
Next is knowing that our lived experiences are not the norm. Each of us has a different story and life struggles. Listen to and acknowledge others experiences as valid.
The next step is education… what is it like for others who live in Canada. what is their daily life like. Read, talk about what you are reading, Listen to podcasts. Which books are you reading to inform and open your brain to new world views rather than sustain our old understanding.
Pay attention to what is going on around you.
Here is a little story of my fried N.A. who was a well educated woman who had won many honours and helped many people (including me) in her passion for mental health. One day after a long leisurely lunch we decided to go shopping and a very high end store. I was treated very well in that store even though I could not afford a single thing they sold.
My friend’s service was perfunctory to say the least. As we left the store the clerk made a snide remark about my friend’s race. N.A. touched my arm and asked me to keep moving out of the store. When we talked about it later I asked N.A. what she thought the comment and the service were about. She replied simply ‘racism’. I wanted to go back to the store and give the clerk heck but my friend said no, that could not address every instance of covert or even overt racism in her city, so she would stay silent on the incident.
By the way my friend was dressed better and was of a much higher socio-economic status than I could ever hope to be. She had lived in her city for 50 years and had made many contributions to the well being of that community but she lived with racism as an integral part of her existence . I did not.
Perhaps this next step is one we need to address throughout this process and it is acknowledge your own emotions, resentment, fears, anger, or even shame as you acknowledge and own your own privilege.
Become an ally. My journey started with a simple and short book by the Canadian Ann Bishop called Becoming an Ally.
Find some friends who are courageous enough to have a conversation about race with you.
Remember that is not up to you to hand over power to others but it is theirs to take their rightful place in our society.
Dreaming about a Peaceful and Just World
A peaceful world begins with acknowledging our own inherent privilege that if we don’t want to, we do not have to have the conversation-at least right now. Our lives for at least a short time can go merrily along without that level of honesty. However if we do not want to live in an unjust world or if we want our children and grandchildren to live with justice we must step aside as we acknowledge our own power.
It is up to us as individuals, community to step aside to let people claim their place in our joint country
The danger of Canadian racism is that “in Canada, it’s racism with a smile.” Donavon Bailey
This is a story I came across while I was doing some research for this blog that demonstrates
“I remember once after sharing an article on Twitter about racism in the US, when a white Canadian tweeted back, ‘You should move to Canada, we aren’t racist here.’ I pointed out that, according to recent news of the reluctance of government officials to fully investigate the murders of dozens of indigenous women, the controversy over ‘carding’ of black Canadians by police, and the testimony of my Canadian friends of color—Canada was plenty racist. This white Canadian stranger kept insisting that no, there was no racism in Canada because he had not seen it. When some of my Canadian friends chimed in with helpful links about high-profile incidences of racism and investigations into systemic racism in Canada, the white Canadian continued to insist that they were wrong, and that racism doesn’t exist in Canada.”
― Ijeoma Oluo
I wish:
I wish our world was fair, not equal but fair and this is how I see the difference. Equal is when we divide the pie equally. Fair is when I have had enough pie my whole life but someone else has never had pie. I need to back away from the pie for awhile, maybe for a long while and let others eat the pie, redefine the pie, cook a whole new pie or reconfigure the whole pie business. My analogy is too simple for the complexity that is our society but its a beginning for my old brain.
I wish I was more eloquent and had a deeper understanding of this topic but if I stay open to learning my teachers will appear.
Thank you again for reading my blog.
Deborah
Resources the help the conversation begin.
Bishop Ann: Becoming an Ally, 3rd Edition: Breaking the Cycle of Oppression in People– Jan. 1 2015
Oluo, Ijeoma: So You Want To Talk About Race- 2019
Joseph, Bob: 21 Things You May Not Know About The Indian Act - 2019
King, Thomas: The inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America -2018
The Next Chapter 48:17"The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America" author Thomas King (Extended interview)
Shelagh's extended conversation.48:17
Singh, Anneliese: The Racial Healing Handbook - 2019.
