International blog against racism week

[chickenfeet]

As seen on my largely PC f-list...

Welcome to International Blog Against Racism Week!

If you would like to participate, here's what to do:

1. Announce the week in your blog.

2. Switch your default icon to either an official IBAR icon, or one which you feel is appropriate. To get an official IBAR icon, you may modify one of yours yourself or ask someone to do so, or ask oyceter to do so as she has agreed to be the Official Iconmaker of the Revolution, or hop over to her LJ and pick up one of the general-use ones she's put up.

3. Post about race and/or racism: in media, in life, in the news, personal experiences, writing characters of a race that isn't yours, portrayals of race in fiction, review a book on the subject, etc.

Racism is a difficult subject for me to write about as it seems, like poverty, it's always with us but the definition is continuously adjusted.

I grew up in a time and place which thought of itself as reasonable, liberal and decent but which by the standards of 2006 was deeply and oppressively racist. I now live in a time and place that seems to me as racially tolerant as anywhere I have ever been but is still considered by some to be deeply and offensively racist.

The society I grew up in, England (apparently racism doesn't exist in Scotland) in the 1960s and 1970s was, unquestionably openly racist. There was openly racist immigration legislation. One major political part openly supported the racist regimes in Pretoria and Salisbury, the other did so tacitly. Racist violence was widespread in the inner cities (where the non-whites were effectively ghettoized) and, at best, ignored by the police. On occasions it was actively abetted. Non whites were invisible except in the lowliest of occupations. There were no black MPs or TV personalities and the odd pioneering black footballer was subject to all kinds of racist abuse. I can even remember the decision by the army to exclude blacks from the Brigade of guards because they would look wrong!

Most of that has gone even in Britain though I'm still struck by the amount of casual racism whenever I visit and I know that non-white friends there encounter on a daily basis a kind of racism that would be unthinkable in Toronto.

Now I live in a neighbourhood and a city that the UN has called one of the most multicultural on earth. In many ways race here is more noticeable as an enrichment than as a source of tension. We are proud of Chinatown and little India and little Italy and little Portugal and so on. It's not perfect. For whatever reason certain groups do experience measurable disadvantage in terms of poverty and crime though I'm not sure that the reason that Jamaican immigrants do less well than Trinidadians is necessarily a function of Canadian society. We also have to live with the negative side of people bringing their national prejudices and problems with them whether it's the Tamil Tigers running protection rackets to fund their war, certain synagogues running bond campaigns to fund theirs or the Ukrainians sheltering Nazi war criminals. On balance it's a small price to pay.

Maybe I'm being Pollyannaish but I think remarkable progress has been made in combating racism. We need to be vigilant, do more, keep progressing but I think we do have things to celebrate.

Comments

[knirirr.livejournal.com]

apparently racism doesn't exist in Scotland
Apparently not — I once checked with the Dundee student union about whether calling people “English poofs” consitutued racism and/or homophobia, and therefore grounds fo being banned for life from the union under their anti-“discrimination” policy (on prominent display by the entrance). Apparently it didn't.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I think it's well accepted that anti-English and anti-American comments are not racist since neither group actually cares what foreigners think. I was more surprised to be told that the Scots aren't racist about anybody else either though.

[knirirr.livejournal.com]

Do you believe that an act of prejudice cannot be racist if the victim does not care that the perpetrator dislikes them on racial grounds?

As for the Scots, I remember one of the main perpetrators of English poof remarks once said “I'm not a racist, but $RIVAL is a black wanker“ in public, and no one batted an eyelid.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I was being somewhat tongue in cheek

[knirirr.livejournal.com]

Thanks — I wasn't entirely sure, as it is sometimes hard to tell on line.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Actually on a more serious note it would be interesting to examine how "tolerated bigotry" of the anti-English Scots sort conditions and encourages racism generally. I've noticed that Quebec nationalism has a really nasty tendency to slip over into discrimination against anyone who isn't "pur laine".

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I think one might find that those from Asian communities find Scotland racist; but it can also be very welcoming of minorities.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

The first time I went to Dundee, there was a big sign that said "Welcome to Dundee".

Under which someone had graffitied "Kill the English".

Which really made me welcome...

[knirirr.livejournal.com]

When did you see that?

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

It must have been about 1994... The road in from Kirriemuir.

[knirirr.livejournal.com]

That was about the time I left, then. I don't remember seeing it, but I probably didn't use that road.

[gillo]

England still varies hugely. I work in Coventry, which is incredibly multicultural, and my kids, when it's arisen in discussion, tell me that they almost never encounter racist comments, let alone reactions of a more physical type. I live four miles away in a genteel little dormitory town which is so lily-white it's disturbing. Where the population is more homogeneous racism seems able to flourish more easily - it's merely a special case of xenophobia after all.

I can't remember a single non-white in Trevelyan when I lived in there. Thankfully that would not be the case now.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Just on a point of clarification - I did say that there wasn't any visible racism in the area I grew up in the mid to late 60's.

Not quite the same as saying it doesn't exist in Scotland, where'er my tongue may have been at the time.

And don't get me started on PC - the biggest con trick the right-wing media ever played on wooly liberals.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Like Ursula LeGuin, "I'm as politically correct as I know how to be, and no-one is going to stop me."

Of course, given where I live, I am often very wooly indeed. *g*

I've been pondering this too, whether there's something to say about Canada and race that's worth saying.

I suspect that there is; how we call our discriminations by different names, for one thing. Like the language issues in Quebec, and the way that 'Allophones' are grouped together (and talking of pur laine, remember Parizeau blaming the 'Allophones' for the way the last referendum turned out?

You can do a LOT of reading before you notice that mostly "Allophones" are Not White. You can do even more before you realize that Qubec's status as the destination of choice for Francophone immigrants and refugees all over the world is altering the racial balance of Quebec rapidly, and it's not necessarily going smoothly.

Actually on a more serious note it would be interesting to examine how "tolerated bigotry" of the anti-English Scots sort conditions and encourages racism generally.

It would.

And to sort out the difference between honest anger and bigotry. Because it's a double edged blade; I do NOT believe in 'reverse racism', and if I did, I wouldn't apply it to honest descriptions of who did what to who and why it still matters.

You know, I am, as far as I know: English, Irish, Scots, Welsh, German, and French. I should just beat myself up regularly.

I will note that it is fairly difficult to study Canadian History in any depth and not end up spitting mad at the English. AND the French. While sort of admiring them for sheer bloody-minded determination.

Or realize that whether you identified with and imitated the English or loathed them on principle or both was as much a class and geographic marker as it was a matter of any sort of decided belief. (Not to mention a marker of your level of opposition to cultural integration with the US.)

It's also difficult to grow up in many parts of Canada and not acquire quite a lot of baggage from things that are, in the actual UK, long over. Or never made any dent to start with, like the question of Colonial Regiments in WWI.

I've noticed that Quebec nationalism has a really nasty tendency to slip over into discrimination against anyone who isn't "pur laine".

You know, wool is white. I mean, of course you know that. But there's something nasty built into that very EXPRESSION, and it gives me a sour taste over Quebec nationalism in general, despite me supporting it on a lot of levels.

There's a disturbing amount of anti-Semitism built into it, too; there were a LOT of Blackshirts running around in Quebec in the 30s, and their kids are in politics now...

And an equally disturbing propensity for Jewish and non-Jewish Quebec Anglophones alike to take it for granted that the Francophones are basically a corrupt bunch of bastards who take every opportunity to persecute them. Get your streets cleared four hours after the next neighbourhood over? It's because your neighbourhood is English. OBVIOUSLY. I mean there are Montreal Anglophones who still refuse to use the "New" names for streets, and the Great Renaming was before I was born.

Here's something you can give me a reality-check on, actually; when the question of "Immigration" comes up, how often do you feel as if you're the topic? Because I have a sort of sense that a LOT of discussion about Immigration is cloaked race-talk, but you'd be much more sensitive to the nuances than I am, I think.

And I haven't even waved in the general DIRECTION of Native Issues, because that's a whole 'nother kettle of wrong.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

The immigration issue is a tricky one for me. I'm obviously privileged vis a vis the average Somali refugee claimant but I'm somewhat disadvantaged compared to a Canadian born and educated contemporary of comparable education, skills and experience. I don't have the network, support systems and keen understanding of social nuance.

I'm also an economic migrant. I got in on points. I do get the impression that there's less resentment, in so far as there is resentment, to economic migrants than there is to refugees or family class immigrants.

You know, wool is white. I mean, of course you know that.

You are talking to the black sheep of the family here.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

*baas*

I think I'm the Red Sheep of mine :)

I suppose what I mean mostly is, when I hear political discussion of immigration, I don't get any sense that anyone is saying "We have too many Yanks and Brits getting in. HOW WILL THEY EVER INTEGRATE?"

Even though, as you say, it's not necessarily easy. (In fact I imagine you could probably produce a large number of stories about encountering The Average English Canadian's ideas about the English.)

Now, maybe we're just not getting (comparatively) that many immigrants from those two countries, or from Western Europe or the English Commonwealth, or... maybe something else. And I truly don't know.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

In fact I imagine you could probably produce a large number of stories about encountering The Average English Canadian's ideas about the English

Actually it's pretty good. Australia was a different story. There I encountered out and out racism.

On the broader question, I think hostility to identifiable groups is to some extent a function of economics and to some extent of cultural difference. I don't think, for example, that anyone worries much about Chinese immigrants, at least not in Toronto, because they get jobs, educate their kids etc. OTOH, people tend to identify Jamaicans with illegitimacy, welfare, drugs and gun crime which is pretty rough on the hard working law abiding Jamaicans and, yet, there is just enough in the stereotype to be sustainable, if ultimately wrong.

Come to think of it, I'm a pretty odd immigrant in many ways. Members of my family have been moving from the UK to Canada for four generations. I have a cousin who is coxswain of one of the frigates in the Pacific squadron, a something cousin who is a police officer in Winnipeg and so on. I can even relate to the "Colonial Regiments" issue in some ways as my grandfather was part of the Signals unit that, briefly, supported the first Canadian brigade to come to the UK in 1914.

Enlist Ye Newfoundlanders, and come follow me...

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

OTOH, people tend to identify Jamaicans with illegitimacy, welfare, drugs and gun crime

*nods*

OTOH, the number of white folks I know who had kids without getting married... I'm not planning on getting married myself, and we do want a kid.

I've been on welfare. I know very few white folks who don't use drugs at least occasionally... etc.

So I do think there's something there, that it creates a stereotype if one is Jamaican (and Black; one of my colleagues is as Jamaican as it gets, and also as White as it gets, and nobody ever detects what her accent is; sometimes they don't believe it when told), but not if one is white.

I can even relate to the "Colonial Regiments" issue in some ways as my grandfather was part of the Signals unit that, briefly, supported the first Canadian brigade to come to the UK in 1914.

God. I may be conflating two regiments, but didn't they get plastered at the Somme? Yeah.

Re: Enlist Ye Newfoundlanders, and come follow me...

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

The first Canadians over were Princess Pat's who were mostly British immigrants anyway. Those are the lot my grandad was with. By 1916 he was with the 19th divisional signals company and they took a pasting on the Somme. The "Canadian" regiment that got badly battered on the first day of the Somme was the 1st Batallion, The Newfoundland Regiment which had over 600 of its 800 or so men killed. To quote the report of their divisional commander "The first Newfoundland ceased to advance only because dead men can advance no further". That's why NF commemorates Remembrance Day on July 1st rateher than November 11th.

Re: Enlist Ye Newfoundlanders, and come follow me...

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

"The first Newfoundland ceased to advance only because dead men can advance no further". That's why NF commemorates Remembrance Day on July 1st rather than November 11th.

*nods* Hence the quote, yeah.