canada's most popularly recognized national left-of-centre newspaper, the globe and mail, has recently published an article by regular columnist margaret wente in which wente makes the case that aboriginal people are not as sophisticated as europeans. she makes this argument by citing one author Frances Widdowson, who Wente herself describes as someone who "has been accused of hating aboriginals." there has (thankfully) been a massive, intelligent response to wente's article through online discussion boards and letters to the globe. however, some people are uneasy with the response...and rightly so, for a few reasons.
first of all, many people, including myself, have or would like to further encourage these discussions to include a continued critique of the g&m's content even when wente isn't writing provacative, racist tirades that resound so strikingly with biological essentialist practices such as crainiometry. certainly, wente and her pal phillip rushton who belong to the 'science says it so it must be true' school are outrageous, but some people feel that over-emphasizing this particular case of blatant eurocentrism in the globe overshsadows the daily practices of a more subtle racism that perpetually pervades the papers' pages. the globe's hopelessly orientalist coverage of last year's kenyan elections comes to mind, not to mention their inclusion, last spring, of a parents' guide to canadian private schools. one can only assume that this guide, smattered with young white shining faces, comes in an effort to feed the papers' demographic which they swear allegiance to daily by broadcasting in their classified section - young, urban couples who make...is it upwards of $45, 000?
someone on an online forum (was it facebook?) articulated the problem quite nicely...there is a danger in hanging wente out to dry because it suggests that this article represents one instance of racism that can be rectified by getting rid of her. indeed, this approach neglects to consider a whole series of historical and contemporary practices of racialization and racism that lead the article - with its shockingly uninformed research - to be published in the first place. moreover, the roots of racism run deep, especially for white canadian subjects, so that it becomes very difficult to distance oneself from the tantalizing myths of racism and racial superiority. white liberals 'know' that wente is a racist, not like 'me' who believes in equality and justice. but is there a little bit in that 'knowing' that doesn't quite want to throw wente's baby out with the bathwater? the power of institutionalized racial subjugation has transformed the way white subjects think about themselves, their entitlements, their relationship to science and intelligence, so that some people maybe left wondering if there wasn't a little scientific 'truth' in wente's exposition.
george elliott clarke once gave a talk where he discussed the organizing of a small town in the north-eastern united states to change the name of their city which, at the time, was called 'slave lake.' obviously some of the town's inhabitants wanted it modified to reflect their modern emergence as an open-minded and tolerant place that they felt may have gone unrecognized under the historical moniker. clarke's point was that the townspeoples' desire to change the name represented to him, a desire to do away with the historical legacy of slavery and to pronounce to the world that _______ (insert newly named town here) was indeed no longer living under the historical weight of those who had gone before them. but clarke points out that these townspeople (as are we all) ARE still living under this historical weight and that the changing of the name was a negation of the myriad ways in which we are all continually implicated in enduring legacies of white supremacy.
im not saying that we should let the g&m (or wente) get away with publishing this kind of uninformed trash, but that perhaps instead of hoping to get rid of wente so we can wash our liberal hands of this 'icky' incident, we might also be able to consider what makes the potential of her removal so comforting? what is being soothed when the everyday practices of racism are buried in the op-ed pages of the globe?
also, i am happy to now have Frances Widdowson and her rushtonian ideology on my radar.
so thanks for that margaret.
Deborah Simmons on Widdowson
http://newsocialist.org/newsite/index.php?id=1012
Re: A recent academic blowout between Widdowson and Kiera Ladner
http://janetajzenstat.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/harvey-mansfield-on-canada/
