In Grade 9, we had an anti-racism unit in English class. Works studied included To Kill A Mockingbird, Black Like Me, and Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.
Problem: these were all American works that were decades old.
I don't remember reading anything Canadian in our anti-racism unit. I never read anything about race set in my own lifetime until I was an adult. The only thing about race in Canada that I remember reading in school is Obasan, which is set during the Second World War.
Many white Canadians - including myself until shamefully recently - perceive racism to be a thing of the past, and/or an American problem.
And I strongly suspect this is influenced by the fact that our anti-racism education focused on American works from before we were born.
I often say I'm about 30 years behind where I should be in things like anti-racism. That Grade 9 class was 25 years ago.
Maybe the world would be a better place if I, and others like me, had been equipped for all these years to think of racism as a problem that exists in the here and now. I know I certainly would be a better person if I were now decades into my journey into anti-racism rather than just starting out on the cusp of middle age.
2 comments:
Thanks for this, I'm sharing.
Addendum:
I've been saying for ages that my anti-racism skills are about 30 years behind where they should be.
I just realized in the shower this morning, after writing this post, that the books we studied in the anti-racism unit were 30 years old!
Literally. I was in high school in the 90s, the books were from the 60s.
I didn't (consciously) realize that when I came up with the "30 years behind" estimate, and I didn't expect the connection to be so direct!
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