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/
4 comments:
There is a gap between cultures when you compare their ability to communicate, technological development, and capacity to wage war. There are differences between small groups and empire. That's the "truth" in Dick Pound's statement.
But that doesn't imply which is a superior system. For Wente to distinguish them as "savagery" and "civilization" suggests that one is inferior, undesired, and an early stage of the morally superior other.
I don't believe that aboriginal life in Canada was all roses and dancing in the woods -nor do I believe European empires were all enlightenment and no inquisitions.
I liked Wente's claim that with smaller kinship groups, North American native peoples had a homicide rates that were "probably rather higher". That's the kind of reporting I like. It depends on my racist assumptions to complete the proof. Teamwork!
Your blog is fantastic! As a long-time Wente hater (really, does the small amount of editorial space at the back on the Globe need to be taken up with articles about how recycling is stupid because it is "hard", SUVs are great, and so on). But as much as I hate Wente, I really appreciate your broader critique. I stopped reading the Globe a while ago because of what I felt was a slow but steady editorial shift to the right, a move that sadly seems to be mirrored in Canadian society and government. Canada has an extremely strong national mythos based around left-wing values, and the force of this mythology is enough to silence or diminish many valuable critiques of how our society operates. I'm not sure how long the gap between reality and the story can continue to grow, but my fear is: indefinitely.
why no time for metaphors? surely there must be SOME time.
1. Slave Lake is in Northern Alberta! Friend Tessa and her lover vactioned there for a breezy week last year.
2. Frances Widdowson issued her own articulate clarification (rebuttal would be too strong) regarding Wente's misappropriation of her text and research. Shed's some light, and shows that the source text is not as essentialist and racist as it is when refracted through Wente.
Her response is here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081101.COLETTS01-10/TPStory/?query=widdowson
"The book is about the aboriginal industry - a parasitical group of non-native lawyers and consultants who are preying on aboriginal vulnerability to pursue the lucrative legal and bureaucratic processes that they have masterminded. The developmental question comes up only because the aboriginal industry promotes atavism in culture, which keeps aboriginal people isolated and dependent upon its "help."
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