Nicole Ray

1. Normative Narratives

My own story appeals to a universalized humanity.  At five years old, and without any prior exposure to any other cultures, we had no reason to think any differently about a classmate who had dark skin.  We knew he was different from the rest of the class, but did not yet know what that meant.  “Most of my class were being raised in the same town that their parents had been, if not on the same farm, or in the same house, but here was this boy who looked very different from us all, and was from not only another town, but another country.  For 5-year-olds, this was very hard to wrap our minds around.”  (https://edusites.uregina.ca/nicoleray/2021/02/08/writing-the-self-differences/)

We all want to believe that we see people only for who they are, and that the color of their skin is not something we notice, but that is not the case.  We have been socialized to see the differences in people, and taught that the visible differences we can see separate us into different classes.  To claim that you are unaffected by this socialization is a common rebuttal to the idea that one may contribute to the systematic racism in our country. “I feel like I almost never noticed when someone had different skin colour then me. My best friend throughout Elementary and High School was black so, it was just normal to me.” (https://edusites.uregina.ca/jennarhodes/) 

As a white person, it is easy to ignore the advantages that have been allowed to me solely because of the colour of my skin.  It is much harder to open your mind up to the fact that we as a society are actively keeping people of colour down for the sole purpose of maintaining our own sense of power.  This attitude starts at a young age, as a result of our socialization.  We do not need to be actively involved in acts that are typically seen as racist to be contributing to the systematic racism.  “At school only the white kids would hang out, nobody would include the others. At lunch people would bring something that wasn’t “normal food” and would get picked on. Racism is all around us, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while you might miss it.” (https://edusites.uregina.ca/knoll/2021/02/09/racism-in-school/.  Like Jenna and Riley, I move through life not consciously noticing people’s skin colour, but when I force myself to stop and think back to first impressions, like in my own story, skin colour is one of the first characteristics that we will notice.  Like it or not it is something that we need to recognize in order to make any real change.

Wanbli’s story paints a vivid picture of what it is like to experience racism from the perspective of a person of colour.  To hear racist remarks from a young child just shows how strong our socialization affects us.  ‘“I said you’re all brownies! You’re all racist and brown and I hate you!” she yells as she reaches around to push my sister back down as I was helping her to her feet. I feel a switch, turning on my anger and shutting off my senses. In a blind rage, I throw myself at her and we crash into the ground. Before I could strangle her, my brother yanks me off of her and starts dragging me down the street’ (https://wombom96.wordpress.com/).  Wanbli’s initial reaction to the girl who did not want to talk to her shows that she has not yet learned the reality of systematic racism, where as her brother’s actions show that this is something he has become used to and almost expected.

This story can support the “bad apple” theory.  “The people that commit these intentional acts are deemed bad, and those that don’t are good. If we are against racism and unaware of committing racist acts, we can’t be racist; racism and being a good person have become mutually exclusive.” (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-its-so-hard-to-talk-to-white-people-about-racism_b_7183710)  Because of the harsh contrast between the stories, it is easy to look at the initial ones and invalidate the claims of oppression as oversensitivity, but what we often forget is that people of colour are forced to deal with these types of encounters on a daily basis.

The drive to school was tense.  My mom had demanded silence after listening to a van full of girls complaining about the dresses she had chosen for us for picture day.  My oldest sister was allowed to wear overall shorts and a shirt she had chosen, but the younger four of us had to wear flowery, lacey dresses that looked like bad flower girl dresses. 

We unloaded from the van just in time to hear the warning bell for the start of school.  I grabbed my bag and hurried around the school to my designated entrance.  It was a warm September day, warm enough to wear shorts, but I had a light jacket on to help hide the hideous dress.  When I walked into the entrance I stopped in my tracks.  Contrasting my awful dress, and big backcombed hair, I saw that my peers were wearing jeans and t-shirts.  None of their moms had made them dress up for picture day. 

My sister and I are Irish twins, which meant that we were in the same 5/6 split classroom, and because we were so close in age my mom had always insisted on having us match.  I was never the typical little girl, and hated to wear dresses, so I was uncomfortable and very self-conscious.  I could feel the eyes of the other children on me and my attire, and heard stifled laughter at the fact that my sister and I, at 10 and 11 years old were dressed as twins. 

There were only four classrooms in my school, so we wouldn’t have long to wait until it was our turn to go into the gym for our photos.  When it was our turn, the teacher lined us up by height.  I was always one of the shorter students, so I was near the end of the line.  Entering the cold gym, the photographer started selecting students and directing them on where to sit and stand on the benches for our class picture.  I was hopeful that even though I was almost always in the front row, I usually was near the end.  I watched him place my sister in the middle of the front row, in her puffy ensemble, the dress taking up the space of a student on either side of her, while he commented on how “pretty” she looked.  He continued to fill in all the gaps until it was my turn.

When he saw my dress, he commented on how pretty we both looked, and we should be together, so after a few minor adjustments, there I was, front and center.  I am not smiling in the photo.  I refused to.  I was uncomfortable and embarrassed to be made such a spectacle of. 

There was a buzzing of excitement in the air as the students from the boys’ and girls’ volleyball teams hurried to the bathrooms to change into their uniforms.  It is the very first game of the season, and the first game for many of us who have just entered grade 7.  Its cold in the bathroom as we get changed.  Many of my friends are showing off their new knee pads, and high socks that their parents had bought for the occasion, while I quietly put on the school-provided, yellow-stained ones that have been passed down from year to year.

When we come out of the change room and head to the gym, I am very aware of the fact that all of my friends’ moms are sitting in the bleachers ready to give them a dollar or two to buy a snack.  The boys’ teams would play first, so we would have some time to eat and visit with our friends, while our parents visited amongst themselves.  I would have to sit with my little sisters because they could not go home without me when my mom was at work.  I looked around for my mom, even though I already knew she wouldn’t be there.  She worked the day shift at a pharmacy, and then a night shift at the town bar so that she could support my four sisters and I on her own.

When my friends went to the concession I went along.  I pretended that my mom had given me money for a snack, and when it was my turn to order I would decide that I wasn’t that hungry, but the lady working in the concession handed me a bag of chips anyways.  I was grateful for the treat, but it also made me wonder if the whole town knew about my family’s financial situation.  As I sat down with my sisters to wait and share the small bag of chips, I could feel the eyes of the other parents on us.  Did they know that I had been given the chips because I couldn’t pay for them?  Had they noticed that my mom was not there, nor was she able to attend most of my school activities, and that my sisters were there out of necessity, because at 9 and 5 they could not go home alone? 

All of a sudden, I was very aware of the fact that the tattered shorts I wore had been handed down from a parent sitting in the stands, and that she had another daughter, younger than me, that could have used the clothes but wouldn’t be willing to wear hand-me-downs.  This, I am sure is confirmation to them that my mom could not afford to buy me my own.  I am grateful when the whistle blows and it is time for my team to play.  My teacher allows my sisters to be on the bench with us, and for a little while I forget that my peers’ clothes are newer, and their houses are nicer.  For a few minutes I get to be 12 and play with my friends.

My first day of school was filled with all sorts of excitement and anxieties.  With the sound of the bell I hurried inside and found my classroom.  Not wanting to be late, I quickly put away my backpack and found the child-size chair with my name on it.  I sat quietly checking out my new surroundings and my new classmates.  I knew a couple of the kids from attending preschool at my church, but most of the 26 students in my class were new to me, and I was excited to make new friends.

When most of our items were put away, the teacher called the class to come sit on the round carpet.  I sat next to Angelle, a friend from preschool as we talked about all the things we hoped we would get to do on our first day of school.  When the teacher started talking to the class, we turned our attention to her.  She told us that her name was Mrs. Cross, and started to go over the classroom and school rules.  As she talked, I looked around at all of the new faces, finally landing on Colin.  Colin had light brown skin, and dark hair and eyes.

I was really curious about him.  Being in such a small community in rural Manitoba, I had never met anyone who looked like this before, but I remembered a story my mom often told about my sister meeting someone with dark skin.  My sister had asked why he had chocolate on his face.  My mom always told the story saying that she was so embarrassed, so I knew that I should not comment about the fact that Colin looked different than the rest of my peers.

Mrs. Cross continued telling us about our day and what we could expect, and when she was finished, she asked us to go around the circle and introduce ourselves.  One by one my peers said their names, and where they lived, “I live down the street, so I walk to school!”, “I live on a farm so I take the bus!”  When it was Colin’s turn the whole class stared at him.  It was obvious that many of us had never seen someone who looked like Colin before.  Colin introduced himself, and told the class that he lived in town, but his family had moved from Trinidad when he was younger. 

I remember being very interested in Colin.  When the sharing circle was finished we broke off into groups to play at the different stations the teacher had set up.  I went to the sand table with Angelle and we talked about all the new people we were meeting.  I noticed that much of the class were still very interested in Colin.  Some going out of their way to play with him, but most just watching him from afar.  Most of my class were being raised in the same town that their parents had been, if not on the same farm, or in the same house, but here was this boy who looked very different from us all, and was from not only another town, but another country.  For 5-year-olds, this was very hard to wrap our minds around. 

I was taught from a young age that being an Indigenous person in Canada came with many rewards.  The treaties that were signed long before our time would ensure that Indigenous people who lived on reservations would be taken care of by our tax dollars.  “We are all Treaty People” meant that we, the settlers of this country would always owe a debt to the Indigenous people who lived here before us.  The community I grew up in was near two reservations.  It didn’t take a genius to see that the conditions these people were living in were well below what I was accustomed to, and I came from a single income household of 7.  Why then, if these people are being so well taken care of, do they live in such poverty?  

The understanding that many Canadians have about treaties and what it means to be a Treaty Person is a compilation of years of misinformation fed to us by the people who most benefit from keeping the marginalized Indigenous people of this country down.  It is no accident that Canadian history, as taught in schools up until 2007 did not include the accurate depiction of how Canada came to be.  Teaching this history would mean owning up to the injustices done over hundreds of years.

Being a Treaty Person means having the uncomfortable conversations with our families and friends.  It means being a voice for the marginalized people of our country instead of sitting silently.  It means actively working towards reconciliation.  As Lori Campbell puts it in her TedTalk Reconciliation is Dead, “Reconciliation is what you do at your dinner table.  It’s the conversations you have with your families when you’re watching the evening news.”

Works Referenced

I could hear the chatter of all the excited kids as I followed my new teacher into the surprisingly cold gym in August 1997.  My old school was brand new when I was in grade three.  Now, I am in grade five starting in a new school in a new town.  The school was much smaller than my previous, with only four classrooms and four teachers for the entire grade K-8 school.  The gym was dark.  The lines on the floor were peeling and the paint on the walls was chipping away.  My old school had a brightly painted mural of a Raptor on the wall on one end of the gym, and a baby Raptor on the other end, where this school’s mascot, a Cougar was no more than a dull outline faded from years of neglect.

When all of the students had made their way into the gym and settled into four lines the principal came to the front to begin the start of school assembly.  She asked us to rise for the singing of “O Canada”.  I have always loved singing our national anthem.  It played in my old school every morning over the intercom system, followed by the Lord’s Prayer.  When I would hear the beginning notes I would always be overcome with a feeling of pride.  It’s the same feeling I get when I hear “The Last Post” during a Remembrance service.

As I stood waiting for the music to start I looked around at all the new faces.  To say I was nervous is an understatement. I wanted the music to start.  It would be a nice distraction from all the new of the day.  I could fall into a rhythm that I knew for just a few minutes.  But there was no music, only four teachers at the front of the room starting the anthem off.  Slowly students began to join in.  I felt flustered but joined in and sang with pride. 

I quickly became aware of the fact that only the younger students were singing.  The older students were fidgeting, whispering and looking with interest at my sisters and I who were the only new students in town in years.  The teachers continued singing but were also watching the disruptive students with intensity.  For the first time I felt very aware of everything around me, and I was focused in on the whispering trying to determine if I was the target.  For a moment I stopped singing in an attempt to fit in with my peers, or at least not stand out, but it felt wrong.  I was proud of where I came from and could not understand how disrespect could be a gateway to fitting in.  I started to sing again.

Since that day I had never stood silently during the singing of O’ Canada until September of 2020, when the school division I work for added singing onto the list of things that can potentially spread Covid-19.  Singing, even with masks on is not allowed, but because we felt strongly that pride in our country is important to teach our students’ we have started to sign our anthem.  It is amazing how quickly they learned adapted to this new method, and you can see the pride in their faces at their accomplishment.  It is not the same, and I cannot wait until the day we can sing with pride once again, but in the meantime, we make the best of things.

I am so excited to say that I am nearing the end of my first semester in University! This has been a very different experience for me as I juggled my school, work, and family life. I am very tired and ready for a bit of a break, but I am also proud of what I have accomplished so far, and excited to get started on my next semester of courses. I really enjoyed all of my courses so far, even though we were not able to learn in person, or have our field experience. There were bonuses to learning from home, but I do look forward to getting back onto campus!

I am currently in my first year of my Education Degree, on my way to becoming an Elementary School Teacher! With every class I take I am getting more and more excited about the amazing career path that I am on. Right now, I am learning so much about the struggles and boundaries that Indigenous People of Canada, and many other countries have faced since the beginning of colonization. It is so important that we learn and teach this terrible history, if we ever hope to achieve reconciliation. The NCTR has a created some videos that tell first hand accounts of the impact of the Residential School System on Indigenous communities. I encourage you to take a look at them!

Here is the link: https://education.nctr.ca/?fbclid=IwAR3-80C1dqwakxWJK1htzFYZ0XzByW-Jh6cc6-EVboddwX6sOvzbNZkFJNw