WS100 Lecture 17: Week 4 T - Jan 24
Racism
● If we have white bodies we can talk about “others”, but never look at unearned privilege
(we often deny that we have privilege)
● Common sense practice of racism in canada → operative all day every day
● What happened in canada in terms of colonialism is often due to whiteness - john a
macdonald “I will make this a white man’s country”
● Chinese men brought into canada to build railway, living in horrible conditions, portion of
pay went to subcontractor who “provided them with passage to canada/housing”
● No more chinese were allowed into canada after 1923 (especially chinese women - to
avoid reproduction - would take down white men “downfall of civilization”)
● Wilfrid Laurier said we did not want asians in this country - wasn’t first or last to say this
● Privilege means another group must be targeted as being lesser
● Arby Bennett said god dictates this
● Donald Trump believes he can go into other countries
● “America” promotes nationalistic impression of United States
● Canada issued critique by UN in 1970s about how we have many resources but “doors
are closed”
● Can be argued that colonialism is still in operation
● Multinationalism is problematic (refugees not offered same opportunities)
● Today there is critique of govt on not maintaining promises for indigenous people
● Stereotype of white women with blond hair
● White men establishing power - raping indigenous/black women
● Canada had internment camps to contain ukranian men during WWI
● Accessibility to jobs designed to only allow a very certain group to have these jobs
● 1930s - eugenics → creating the perfect human
● Nazi’s interested in making containment of whole group legal - asked about indigenous
people 1937
● Asked to participate in eugenics conference
● Canada interns japanese families in WWII - tell them they are lesser - threat to
civilization
● Immigration and refugee system are separate - immigration requires testing (many
canadian people themselves would fail the test), refugees are fleeing from possibly life
threatening conditions (face dangers getting to safe country as well - drowning, rape,
starvation)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
If we have white bodies we can talk about others , but never look at unearned privilege (we often deny that we have privilege) Common sense practice of racism in canada operative all day every day. What happened in canada in terms of colonialism is often due to whiteness - john a macdonald i will make this a white man"s country . Chinese men brought into canada to build railway, living in horrible conditions, portion of pay went to subcontractor who provided them with passage to canada/housing . No more chinese were allowed into canada after 1923 (especially chinese women - to avoid reproduction - would take down white men downfall of civilization ) Wilfrid laurier said we did not want asians in this country - wasn"t first or last to say this. Privilege means another group must be targeted as being lesser. Donald trump believes he can go into other countries.
