Let's talk about race, baby

Hello you two eggs over easy.

Well friends, it's been quite a week as we collectively and openly grapple with racism in Canada.  As a country, we regularly fall into fits of punch-drunk righteousness as we watch our neighbors to the south, tut-tutting at their racist cheeto of a President and his hate-filled followers. But white privilege knows no boundaries-- and if our long colonial history with the first nations people in Canada were not enough to make the point-- as we have seen yet again this week, Canada is just as painful, broken and in need of a white-privilege-reckoning as the rest of the world.

And so instead of talking about Trudeau and what he should be doing or not doing to help ensure this becomes a watershed moment for the country (though I will link to a few people of color with some interesting things to say on the matter below), I instead want to take the opportunity this week to share some of my personal thoughts on what white people can do on an individual level to start creating a better and more inclusive future for Canada. 

I want to start this dispatch off by reminding you that it is being written by a privileged white women who has made SO MANY mistakes and used her privilege-- at best in honest error and at worst in truly harmful ignorance--  literally thousands of times over the course of her lifetime. I want to be explicit as well that these thoughts are being shared with a majority-white readership who are likely also grappling consciously or unconsciously with the pain and shame of abusing their power and privilege over the years. So for those of us who are white, I think it is an important first step to recognize and own our "invisible backpacks of white privilege" when it comes to race relations in Canada. Both because it is an important first step in building a truly inclusive society, but also because fundamentally, white racism is not for people of color to solve: white people must save themselves from whiteness.  So first off dear caucasian platypus friends, we need to have a reckoning with our own whiteness and the toxic role it plays in Canadian culture. As the article explains, "[p]art of growing up is realizing our parents are extremely flawed human beings. Recognizing the same in a nation is called being a citizen. It is not easy. Accepting vulnerability is not just psychological, it is also physical. To deny that the institution of whiteness impacts us all is to be open to harm."
 

And there is so much harm being done, but in typical uncomfortable-with-confrontation, Canadian fashion, we have not as a society acknowledged the harm that white privilege is wreaking on our country. This harm can of course be overt, but the covert often comes in the name of preserving "reason and civility" which is often invoked by privileged white voices when talking about everything from outright barbarity to the daily microagressions racialized people face. I personally think this is one of the most insidious of power plays, pretending that those affected by white privilege and its consequent abuses of power are being 'too emotional' (as if having your worth as a human being isn't a reason to be emotional), and the person wielding their invisible backpack of white privilege is said to be innocently "...championing reason and common sense. [They allege] that their [often racialized] interlocutors aren’t so much wrong as excessive; [white privilege is] just trying to think freely and is being tormented. [Privilege relies] on hyperbole and slippery slopes to warn about their adversaries’ intentions and power... [and so this approach] tricks the listener into entering a world where the [privileged] speaker is the needy one, fragile, requiring the listener to constantly adjust [their] behavior to cater to the 'imperiled' person."
 

So, once we recognize that white privilege is a problem, that we can't 'reason' our way out of it and that we need to confront it head on, perhaps you might think Step Two should be to start dialoguing and learning. But honestly my friends, I don't know if many of us white Canadians are actually ready to launch into a discussion about race in a way that is safe and constructive for people of color. That is not to say that white people can't start making changes and shifts in their behavior as the awareness of their privilege unfolds. But as far as asking questions and talking about race with racialized people, I think we need to do a bit of soul searching and self-sensitization before directly involving the people we are hurting.

So Step Two in my view should involve learning about how to get emotional about the pain we are causing each other and ourselves. The reality is that our brains are wired to see differences in each other-- but that doesn't mean we need to be victims of this wiring. If white people are going to do the work of confronting racism and privilege, before we start trying to grapple with the details and personal contributions to our own complicity in this system of oppression (and interacting in potentially unhealthy ways with people of color, thus increasing their already-heavy burden), I personally things white people should first do a bit of preparatory work to find a balance between learning to control our emotions in uncomfortable moments while also being fiercely brave, honest and accepting of the reality we create, maintain, control and enjoy at the cost of others. Without being emotionally ready and personally connected to our own privileged truth, I think we will fail to genuinely confront the pain we have and the pain we cause. The good news however is that "you need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done…you are fierce with reality."

So, once we have a handle on some of our emotional maturity and our own fierce reality as it were, then Step Three can commence and the remainder of the map can be drawn. With this foundation, I think we can begin listening with an open heart to what people of color have to say about their lived experience and some of the ways forward that they see first, all with the hopes of starting down a path where we can begin to create a map of supportive, informed, co-created, personal and structural solutions that will help to create a more inclusive future for Canada. This will hopefully come as we grow together as a culture. But I think in this moment, it is not our job to leap to knee-jerk 'solutions' to the problem of white privilege. White people need to start getting comfortable with being uncomfortable (and quickly), focusing on challenging assumptions and understanding the truth of our privilege collectively and individually before we start thinking we have any meaningful or constructive role to play in dialogue and future-building together.

In terms of listening to the thoughts and ideas from the lived experience of people in Canada, there are tons of interesting conversations happening right now, so this is nowhere near an exhaustive list--- please do your own searching and read around-- but if you want a place to start, I would recommend this great twitter thread by Ritika Goel which I think gets at the heart of the issue this week, or you could check out the Color Code (a podcast specifically about race in Canada), or perhaps this twitter thread by Joshua Sealy-Harrington, or this short but concise article by Teneile Warren.

Instead of sharing a few funny links at the end of this dispatch, in keeping with the theme this week, I wanted instead to share three small reminders that things can indeed get better: an article about using AI to reduce bias and racism (usually it is the opposite...), a beautiful photo collection of people of color enjoying nature, and a link to a cool company that makes party supplies for kids of color. 

Finally, I want to invite you, dear platypus reader, to feel welcome to share your thoughts and reflections with me if you feel called to do so. As we talk about all the time in these dispatches, we are all a work in progress, and perhaps myself most of all. I make mistakes, miss the mark and fall prey to my own ignorance all the time, every day in multiple ways. But I am always open to listening, learning and doing better.

So thank you for coming on this week's reflective journey with me. From one learning-to-be-more-race-conscious person to another, I am glad that we can work to dismantle white privilege together. I hope you enjoyed this dispatch, and have a diversity-filled week!

Until next Sunday,
The Earnest Platypus