Racetalk

For anyone that hasn’t heard, John Crosbie told a joke about a Pakistani suicide bomber last week. Strangely, it occurred at the inauguration of his new position as Lieutenant Governor General of Newfoundland and…

Part VI of a series on the history of race in Canada and the US. After the end of World War II, there was a significant shift in race-thinking. As the horrors of the…

Of the G8 countries, the US has the largest income disparity between the highest and lowest income earners. Canada isn’t far behind.

Part V of a series on the history of race in Canada and the US. As the western world was rebuilding itself in the wake of World War I, races continued to be seen…

Part IV of a series on the history of race in Canada and the US. “To become White has often been constructed as synonymous with becoming truly American” (Maher, 1997, p. 4). The end…

Part III of a series on the history of race in Canada and the US. Canada is often described as a “nation of immigrants.” This telling of history often includes “Canada’s present-day Indian and…

Part II of a series on the history of race in Canada and the US. In the US, whiteness was enshrined by Congress as early as 1790, when “all free white persons” had the…

This is the first of a series that I will post on the history of race in Canada and the US. The word race, as it refers to biological or genetic differentiations among humans,…

I just came across this great cartoonist who has a whole page dedicated to anti-racist cartoons. Intelligent, insightful and funny… this is the kind of culture I want to be part of creating! It…

A report released in 2008 by the OECD shows that in most developed countries the gap is growing between the rich and the poor. The important thing to note is that it is growing…

An actual comment, left by an actual person on the Stuff White People Like blog: I am so sick and tired of the fucking double-standard!!! OMG! YES, ONCE UPON A TIME, WHITE PEOPLE HAD…

Great video I just came across, it totally outs the way diversity gets used to shut down conversations about the impacts of racism …

“Not all experience is social but the consciousness of it is framed in social experience. The starting point, therefore, is the collective inheritance, differentiated by class or social group background – the received wisdom…

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about whether it’s possible (or how it is possible) to intervene in culture in ways that make space for other ways of being/doing. Some say that culture jamming…

An article about the aesthetic appeal of mixed-race faces was just listed on today’s links by racialicious. It definitely challenges the claims that are made about how it is ‘natural’ for people to find…

Increasingly, the web is an important locus of knowledge for Canadian and US culture. This is especially true for younger and white demographics who have the resources to be plugged in. However a “digital…

I’ve seen a number of films in the past little while that seem to have a reoccurring theme around those who are guilty sacrificing themselves for those who are innocent. Most recently, I saw…

Although I’m not the biggest fan of anti-racism work that is based on white people as allies, Paul Kivel (2002) has some great anti-racism tactics. His focus is on providing tactics to white people…

On the surface it seems that there could be nothing wrong with wanting to be an ally to a social movement. Being an ally implies wanting to help, and what could be wrong with…

Is this ad racist? Or reproducing racist imagery? I saw this ad in fiber options the other day. The person I was with did not initially read the male body as black (or even…

I watched “The Express” a few weeks ago. It tells the story of Ernie Davis, a young black man who played US college football in the late 1950s. Like other recent movies (i.e. The…

The luggage collection area in most airports is a pretty boring place. It doesn’t seem to be a part of the airport that gets much attention, despite the expensive renovations and art in many…

I just came across this video, Neoliberalism As Water Balloon from Tim McCaskell.  It’s concise and well done, and makes some good arguments about how our economy is currently functioning to the benefit of…

I’ve been reading Hazel Smith’s The Writing Experiment, and here’s one of the word association poems that I came up with. white white wash white soap white clean white whale white board white teaching…

I am fascinated by the ways that people’s lives intersect on and off-line. Second Life is particularly interesting because of how realistically it is trying to replicate people’s off-line lives. Even more interesting is…

According to a recent publication by the Parliamentary Research Branch, Canadian multiculturalism has four meanings: as a sociological fact, as ideology, as policy, and as a process of group interaction (Dewing and Leman, 2006,…