i) Normative Narratives
Choosing to discuss race was a tough one for me to choose, not because I am uncomfortable talking about it, but because it is something I have never really bothered with. But maybe that is the issue, maybe I act colour blind too it. Lord knows I can see a billboard or a movie on Netflix and have a negative thought, but they are always followed up with giving myself crap for thinking that way. One negative thing I hear is people saying Fort Qu’Appelle is a “bad” place because there are many First Nation peoples living there, which is hardly a fair assumption. And I know that it is untrue because as stated in my self story #2, I spent a lot of time there when growing up. I think it is a beautiful place with so much culture, and yet, many people just assume it’s a “bad place with a bunch of drunk Indians”, which is highly offensive for many reasons. Not once in all my time going there have I ever had an issue with First Nations peoples, and I have met many that are hard working individuals. In fact, in all my life experience I have had more issues with drunk white people. Drinking with friends and family seems to be a common pass time in small communities, so why is it okay for whites and not First Nations?
When reading Drew’s self story #2 I could immediately relate to her, and her appreciation for First Nations culture. The part about Drew’s self story that resonated with me was when she said “I was so proud of this fact that I would go around telling people I was First Nations” even though she isn’t First Nations. As a child I knew I wasn’t First Nations because I had bright blonde hair and extremely pale skin, but I always wanted to have the tan skin and long black hair and be apart of their culture. I also chose Jaclyn’s self story #2 as her reaction was very accepting like Drew’s and mine. Jaclyn learned that her classmate had a different art style then her own because of where her family was from: “Anime is a type of drawing style they use where I’m from in Japan”. Her fascination with her classmate’s art style reminded me of being amazed by the crafts my aunty would make for me: “beaded necklaces, earrings that looked like a Headdress, a pink dream catcher”. I think you could argue that all of our stories reproduce colour blindness as normal. For example, in my story I say “[c]hildren know that people look different from one another, they just don’t understand why”, which looking back now could really show how I didn’t learn about or see any other cultures growing up (aside from First Nations). Then in Drew’s story she states, “I recognized that her skin was a different colour than mine, but I had never thought anything of it”, showing that we do recognize the difference, but we don’t have enough education on other cultures to understand the difference properly. And again, in Jaclyn’s story she says, “I also had never thought about Judy being from any other place then here before”, so when do we start making education on other cultures part of our learning? Because ignorance is not bliss.
ii) Disrupting Normative Narratives
As I touched on above, I think that lack of education on culture lets us act colour blind when it comes to race. The previously mentioned stories were of us as small children with exposer to our own culture and/or First Nations culture. Where as in the fourth self story #2 I have chosen is by Emily H. and she went into meeting a little girl knowing she was from a different culture: “was just adopted from South Africa”. Her story also states that “house is freshly decorated with traditional South African décor”, which to me shows that the family, whatever race they may be, takes an interest in where their new daughter is from. From that interest, I think all her future friends would have the opportunity to learn about where she was from. Seeing something beyond her black skin, they would also see culture. Just like in the previous stories of Drew and myself, we didn’t really see the skin of the First Nations peoples, we saw their culture: “I understood that the Indigenous people had different culture and customs than I did and because I had participated in their activities I believed that I was a part of their race”. Being integrative of other people’s beliefs and cultures forms an understanding that is beyond the colour of a person’s skin.
The importance of including other races and cultures in education is brought up in the article Nationalist Histories and Multiethnic Classrooms by Timothy J.Stanley: ”for many students that curriculum shows that Canada is ‘the best country in the world,’ for others it presents a Canada that is at best an alien place, far removed from their day-to-day experience” (1). For me, that’s sad to think about, knowing children sit there not being able to connect with the material they are being taught. Knowing that we skip over the incredible work that other races have done to make Canada what it is today, we could never have done it without the people of minorities. They should be celebrated and seen beyond skin deep, and only when we understand them beyond a label of skin colour or the country they’re from, can we start to break down colour blindness. It’s okay that they’re another colour, we don’t have to ignore that, but we have to understand the incredible histories behind them.
- Stanley, T. J. (2002). Nationalist histories & multiethnic classrooms.Education Canada. 42(3), 12-15.