TIM STANLEY, THINKING ABOUT RACISMS

Racisms and Antiracisms

What I want to do today

Suggest a different way of thinking about racism.

Present a typology for analyzing racisms and developing antiracisms.

Link this to everyday teaching practices, with specific examples of what you can do.

Do all of this before the next class.

An Apology and General Comment I am a historian

So I can talk at great length about obscure things Use historical examples: esp. re Chinese in Canada

I started as a math/physics person So I tend to pick on math/science teaching in my examples.

What I am talking about applies to teaching in all areas: We all teach the same students Racism can be expressed in Physics as much as in PE What and how we teach shapes how racism is experienced.

Although I am talking about racisms, much of what I am saying also applies to sexism, ableism and homophobia.

The Old Way

Racism is seen as prejudiceDue to ignorance/errors in thinking

Irrational fear of strangersSeen as individualSeen as about “bad” people.

The New Way

Racisms are

EXCLUSIONS

EXCLUSIONS OF A PARTICULAR KIND

Exclusions that involve racialization

Exclusions that are organized, i.e., made by people

Exclusions that have significant negative consequences for the excluded.

EXAMPLE 1: Name-Calling

You are teaching your class and you hear a student call someone a racist name.

What do you do? Take a minute to discuss this

Name-Calling as Prejudice

“Don’t let that hurt you.”Focus on OffenderTry to get him/her to change his/her ways

Seen as individual/family problem

Name-Calling as Exclusion

This is an act of violence1) Stop it2) Support/comfort the victim3) Deal with effects which go beyond

the immediate parties, i.e., tip of the iceberg, set of larger issues

4) Ask yourself: Do I exclude these effects from my understanding?

What Research Shows

E.G., Manju Varma-Joshi, Cynthia J. Baker and Connie Tanaka, “Names Will Never Hurt Me,” Harvard Educational Review, Summer 2004: 175-208.

In New Brunswick Racist exclusion starts with Name Calling Inadequate response from teachers and

administrators Escalates to disengagement in school Pattern of lack of school success for

African Canadian and First Nations students.

Challenging Racist Name Calling

Ms. Sorg

EXAMPLE 2: Taken-for-granted Categories in Official Curricula

Too many First Nations, Inuit and Métis students, and students of colour disengage from school

Formal curriculum is about racialized Europeans.

Even curriculum in use is often Euro-centric

Big Idea: “Not all Canadians enjoyed the same rights and privileges in the new nation”

.A1.2 assess the impact that differences in legal status and in the distribution of rights and privileges had on various groups and individuals in Canada between 1850 and 1890 (e.g., with reference to land ownership in Prince Edward Island, …, restrictions on Chinese immigration, the rights and legal status of “status Indians” on reserves, the privileged lifestyle of industrialists in contrast to the lives of workers in their factories, discrimination facing African Canadians)

A1.3 analyse some of the actions taken by various groups and/or individuals in Canada between 1850 and 1890 to improve their lives (e.g., lifestyle changes among Metis facing increasing agricultural settlement in the West; alliances among First Nations during negotiations with the federal government . . .

E.g.: Gr. 8 History Curriculum

So What’s Wrong?

Apparently inclusive, But the language used creates the

idea that there are First Nations people and then there are Canadians?

It fails to capture First Nations experiences in Canada?

Curriculum does not teach about 99.5% of the world and its peoples

First Nations, Inuit and Métis People Neutral language “lifestyle changes” for people

of the plains: By 1890, the people of the plains had 1) suppressed by military force 2) forced to take treaty 3) placed on reserves and not allowed to leave 4) deliberately starved by the federal

government In Queensland, Aus., they talk about European

“invasion” and “genocide”. In Ontario, we talk about “lifestyle changes.”

So What?

If racism is prejudice, This is no big deal.If racism is exclusion,

This is racism. If we understand this as exclusion,

Then we can create inclusions

Example 3: Who Hangs Out with Whom?

At lunch, all the Snaidanacs, sit together.

Is this a problem?

If Racism in Prejudice

Maybe Are others prejudiced against Snaidanacs?

Or are Snaidanacs prejudiced? But if they are not, it is not By then, you know those Snaidanacs.

They are so cliquish! Or maybe we need to better understand

Snaidanac culture and what leads them to sit together?

If Racism in Exclusion

This is a prima facie example of exclusion that needs to be checked out.

All things being equal, people should mix it up. There is no natural attraction of Snaidanacs for Snaidanacs.

If this is happening in the lunch room, it is happening elsewhere in the school.

What Research Shows

Carl James, “Negotiating School: Marginalized Students’ Participation in Their Education Process,” Race, Racialization and Antiracism in Canada and Beyond, 17-36

GTA School. Highly Inclusive. Apparently Multicultural.

Marginalized students occupy the hallways Teachers, especially women teachers,

intimidated Staff do not ask why this is the only place in

the school that the students feel welcome.

SUMMING UP

Understanding racisms as exclusions draws attention to processes of creating inclusions.

It also means that racism is NOT about intentions

Rather racism is about effects

A note about INTENTIONS

Racism is not about good people and bad people.

Good people can do racist things and bad people can do antiracist ones.

People experience racism differently because of how it locates them socially

Racism in the head Racism in the world

5 Myths about Racism in Canada

1. There is no racism in Canada! 2. Only bad people are racist.3. Racism is about individuals.4. Difference causes racism.5. Children/young people are

innocent of racism.

CONDITIONS FOR RACISMS (AND ANTIRACISMS)

RACISMS

RACIALIZATION

EXCLUSION

CONSEQUENCES

CONDITION ONE:RACISMS Different Racisms Each with its own history Each often takes different forms Each has different effects One may be more important in a

particular context Racisms have no fixed essence

CONDITION TWO: RACIALIZATION The signification of real or imagined

difference based on phenotype or alleged cultural characteristics.

Always relational, one group is racialized in relation to another

Always absolute, i.e., in one group or the other.

A Great Resource for Understanding Racialization.

American Anthropological Association, Race: Are we so different? Project, http://www.understandingrace.org

Racism signifies difference, difference does not cause racism.

An Example

“John is the Black guy in the corner” Always a racialization: It signifies

Blackness. Blackness is constituted in relation to

another unnamed category, whiteness. However, although a racialization it is

not necessarily racist.

CONDITION THREE: EXCLUSIONS Exclusions organized around

racializations They are purposive. Exclusions can be institutional,

symbolic, discursive, economic, territorial, political or even from life itself.

If someone excluded, someone else included.

They are matter of fact: Excluded or not

The Black Guy in the Corner

“John is the Black Guy in the Corner” starts to become racist if it creates or enacts an exclusion.

The corner is the only place “Black guys” are allows to be.

John is the only person in the corner. (Why is everything else that he is not being signified?)

You know that John does not consider himself “Black” in which case you are imposing a meaning on him and excluding his

CONDITION FOUR: NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES

Racisms have significant (“non-trivial”) negative consequences for the excluded.

The Black Guy on the Corner The final proof is Ask John You need to at least engage with his

meanings You need to understand how he sees

your statement N.B., to pretend that you do no see

John’s Blackness can be racist.

Another Example: Who said this? “Chinese eccentricities, Chinese immorality,

Asiatic principles” are “abhorrent to the Aryan race and Aryan principles.”

“[The] Aryan races will not wholesomely amalgamate with the Africans or the Asiatics.” and that “the cross of those races, like the cross of the dog and the fox, is not successful; it cannot be, and never will be.”

If the Chinese are allowed in Canada, “We would have a mongrel race ... [and] the Aryan character of the future of British America should be destroyed.”

This Man

Sir John A. MacDonald

During Debate of the 1885 Electoral Franchise Act

Took the right to vote away from anyone who was “a person of Mongolian or Chinese race”

Fixing the idea of so-called “Chinese” as not “Canadian”

Chinese Canadians only get the right to vote in 1947

Status First Nations in 1960.

What was Sir John doing?

By disenfranchising Chinese and First Nations, he was organizing racialization into an exclusion that had direct negative consequences on the excluded.

Between 1885 and 1960, every community in Canada had two classes of citizen:

those who could vote and those who couldn’t because of their “race”.

The term for such a political system is “white supremacy”

Consequences for Chinese Canadians

62 years denied right to voteMade Immigration Head Tax and Exclusion possible

Profound Gender Imbalance until the 1986 Census

Continue to be seen as “alien” in Canada.

Can Asians be Canadian?

Consequences Still Lived by People in Ottawa

http://www.livesofthefamily.com - Lives of the Family

http://www.chinesecanadian.ubc.ca

http://wherearethechildren.ca/en/stories/.

Summing Up

Racisms are organized racialized exclusions that have negative consequences for the racialized and excluded.

IMPLICATIONS

Exclusions are the heart of racism They are matter of fact, one is either

included or one is not. Exclusion is about the effects of our

actions not about our intentions. Thinking of racisms as exclusions opens

up multiple possibilities.

How to Put this into Operation: Antiracisms

Each condition for racism, becomes a condition for antiracism.

If there are racisms, there are antiracisms,

If racisms involve racialization, exclusion and consequences, antiracisms challenge racializations, create inclusion and mitigate consequences.

Condition one: Antiracisms Antiracism is anything that

opposes a racism. Just as racisms have no

essential form, so do antiracisms

Just as there are different racisms, there are different antiracisms.

Implications: Antiracisms

No one antiracist strategy or intervention can address all racisms

Even if one racism has been challenged (e.g., antisemitism), it does not mean that others have (e.g., Islamophobia).

WHAT THIS MEANS IN SCHOOLS?

1) No one technique or set of techniques can address all racisms or all of their forms

2) Strategies dealing with racisms require constant reassessment  

Condition Two: Challenging Racialized Binaries Antiracisms affirm that people live

between and across essentialized boundaries

Antiracisms challenge the idea that race is natural

Antiracisms look for ways of affirming difference without essentializing it.

Implications: Challenging Binaries It is not about replacing bad

representations with good ones, it is about making them uninhabitable.

Admit/name racist injuries without reimposing racist categories.

Recognize racializing acts and disrupt them. (E.G., do all Snaidanacs really hate hockey?)

WHAT THIS MEAN IN SCHOOLS?

1) Talk about “racialized black” or racialized white” or “people who are subject to racist oppression”. Don’t talk about “Blacks,” “Whites”, etc.

2) Beware hidden racializations, e.g., “Canadians” in contrast to “Asians” or “Immigrants”

Schools (cont.)

3) Challenge racializing statements, i.e., those that suggest that all members of a group have the same characteristics, instead suggest, “many,” “most,” “the one’s I know.”

4) Teach your students to do this too

Condition Three: Organizing Deracialized Inclusions

Antiracisms do not pretend that differences do not exist, or treat everyone equally (as opposed to equitably).

Antiracisms make privilege uncomfortable

Antiracims are about politics, about organizing against racist exclusions

Antiracisms understand which bodies are placed where and how, whether in institutional, spatial or cultural spaces.

Implications: Organizing Inclusions

Be aware of how racialized bodies are located.

Create inclusive approaches Find and expand antiracist spaces

What does this mean in schools?

1. Be aware of what racialized bodies show up where and how they move around in the spaces of the school.

2. This includes physical and cultural spaces. (E.G., are intramural sports or pick up teams segregated?).

Schools (cont.)

3. If all the bodies in a space (e.g., the staff room) are the racialized the same way, then ask why there are no others there.

4. Diversify and extend curricular materials. (This takes time, sharing and help, you cannot do it all yourself all at once.)

Schools (Cont.)

5. Document how racialized bodies are located in the physical and symbolic spaces of the school. Use this to educate.

6. Organize politically through your friends, your associations, specialists organizations and through antiracist networks

Condition Four: Mitigating Consequences

All antiracisms begin with the resistance of the racialized and excluded

They continue with taking the self-representations of the excluded seriously.

We need to listen for the silences, discover and engage excluded knowledges

The focus of antiracism must always primarily be on the excluded.

Implications: Mitigating Consequences

Mitigate injuries Stop violence Listen actively and express concern

Focus on the effects Support organizations of the excluded

Probe Silences

What Does this Mean is Schools?  Ask the young people around you what is

happening. Check it out.

Are they called racist names (this might have to be explained)?

What do they think of the textbook?

Do some people not like them because of their background, etc?

Ask their parents, older siblings

Ask teachers of colour the same things  

Schools (cont.)

Probe the silences.Can you find ways of witnessing those silences?How did school make this student into “a classroom management problem”? Ask uncomfortable questions?

Can the student see himself in my teaching? If you can’t hear anything, you aren’t listening.

Summing Up Antiracisms

An antiracist act may address one or all of the conditions for racisms.

Antiracisms are anything that challenge racisms.

Even racists can have antiracist moments and antiracists racist ones.

Putting it all together: Antiracist Teaching

Develop a profound understanding of your discipline, its origins and development and incorporate in your teaching

E.G., In Mathematics The universal human language The combined creation of all of human civilization Zero and decimals were invented in India and by the

Mayans No zero, no computers

Calculus in China Numbers are Arabic numerals. Applications can be illustrated with global examples

Antiracist Teaching (cont.)

Are all students regardless of difference welcome in your classroom?

Is your classroom a safe place? Do you teach all of your students? Have you written off certain students from some groups? Do you assume that some students are “naturally” better

in certain subjects? If you do, are there students from that group who need

help but are not getting it? Test it out: Tabulate your evaluations in comparison to how

you racialize your students. Test it out: Ask your students? Test it out: Ask your colleagues?

Concluding Thoughts

This is hard You cannot do it alone Look for Allies: Create an antiracist

learning community Be strategic:

Don’t Get Fired Try not to alienate colleagues.

Talk to all your students.

Resources and Follow up

Some interesting websites National Antiracism Council of Canada

http://www.narcc.ca. See Educational Resources, Truth and Reconciliation

Commission of Canada, http://www.trc.ca. American Anthropological Association, Race: Are we so

different? Project, http://www.understandingrace.org/. Racism in our schools (Fact Sheet), Canadian Race

Relations Foundation, http://www.crr.ca/content/view/226/377/lang,english/

A useful Textbook: Mica Pollock (ed.) Everyday Antiracism: Getting Real About Race in School (New York: The New Press, 2006)

Questions/comments: Tim Stanley tstanley@uottawa.ca