Racialization 101
Jun. 17th, 2020 12:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blogcutterI'm a racialized person. And so are you. From the moment I was conceived as an embryo, I was part of a race - the human race. Not yet a human being maybe, but certainly a being in progress.
Racism is definitely a hot topic these days. And with it comes the ongoing discussion about the terminology we should use to describe someone whose skin is not light in colour.
Black. African Canadian (or Afro-Canadian). Person of colour. Visible minority. Or the one that's rapidly gaining ground - racialized. I'm limiting myself here to terms that most people consider fairly polite and which may even have some official status. Of course, some of those terms are more specific than others, and I'm not going to even begin to enumerate all the various words in use to describe Canada's indigenous peoples.
I think mostly what bothers me about the term "racialized" is that it implies some sort of a choice on somebody's part. Like in the book Black Like Me where somebody deliberately darkens his skin to get a taste of what it's like to be a Black American. Or if that same person were to decide that he had a black brain or was black at heart and chose to undergo a kind of race affirmation surgery. Or even if it were imposed by someone else, as in a country under apartheid where everyone must be designated at birth as black or white or mixed-race or whatever. But that's not how we typically use the word "racialized".
One of the books I read in the past week was Robert Goldston's The Negro Revolution, written in 1968. After a brief prologue it starts with the slave trade in the mid 17th century and traces the history of black America through to 1968, just after the killing of Martin Luther King. I'd love to read a sequel to that book outlining the events of the past 50+ years!
It would also be interesting to read about Canadian developments over that same time period. People like Viola Desmond, who now graces our ten-dollar bills (though how much longer we'll be able to use cash at all, even post-pandemic, is an open question). Or even the infamous Peter Russell, who apparently was vehemently opposed to the abolition of slavery, and after whom the town and township of Russell (and presumably Russell Road as well) were named.
But let's get back to "racialized". I suppose up to a point, people should be allowed to self-identify in whatever way they choose. But you certainly can't please all the people all the time.
I don't particularly identify with the term "white" although if I have to tick a box on an official form, I've never rebelled in any way. I mean, even an albino doesn't necessarily have pure white skin.
So how exactly would I describe myself? English Canadian? Anglo-Canadian? Euro-Canadian or European Canadian? Maybe even Viking if those saliva tests have any validity?
It's a thorny issue and not one that easily lends itself to neat discrete categories.
Racism is definitely a hot topic these days. And with it comes the ongoing discussion about the terminology we should use to describe someone whose skin is not light in colour.
Black. African Canadian (or Afro-Canadian). Person of colour. Visible minority. Or the one that's rapidly gaining ground - racialized. I'm limiting myself here to terms that most people consider fairly polite and which may even have some official status. Of course, some of those terms are more specific than others, and I'm not going to even begin to enumerate all the various words in use to describe Canada's indigenous peoples.
I think mostly what bothers me about the term "racialized" is that it implies some sort of a choice on somebody's part. Like in the book Black Like Me where somebody deliberately darkens his skin to get a taste of what it's like to be a Black American. Or if that same person were to decide that he had a black brain or was black at heart and chose to undergo a kind of race affirmation surgery. Or even if it were imposed by someone else, as in a country under apartheid where everyone must be designated at birth as black or white or mixed-race or whatever. But that's not how we typically use the word "racialized".
One of the books I read in the past week was Robert Goldston's The Negro Revolution, written in 1968. After a brief prologue it starts with the slave trade in the mid 17th century and traces the history of black America through to 1968, just after the killing of Martin Luther King. I'd love to read a sequel to that book outlining the events of the past 50+ years!
It would also be interesting to read about Canadian developments over that same time period. People like Viola Desmond, who now graces our ten-dollar bills (though how much longer we'll be able to use cash at all, even post-pandemic, is an open question). Or even the infamous Peter Russell, who apparently was vehemently opposed to the abolition of slavery, and after whom the town and township of Russell (and presumably Russell Road as well) were named.
But let's get back to "racialized". I suppose up to a point, people should be allowed to self-identify in whatever way they choose. But you certainly can't please all the people all the time.
I don't particularly identify with the term "white" although if I have to tick a box on an official form, I've never rebelled in any way. I mean, even an albino doesn't necessarily have pure white skin.
So how exactly would I describe myself? English Canadian? Anglo-Canadian? Euro-Canadian or European Canadian? Maybe even Viking if those saliva tests have any validity?
It's a thorny issue and not one that easily lends itself to neat discrete categories.
