Category: race
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Antiracist baby in Japanese
In the community we lived in on Ikijima there is a kids club that meets every Friday after school. A local non-profit put together a small office out of bits of wood and corrugated plastic to do its work. It had a concrete floor and big table in the center for meetings. There were strategic…
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When the Japanese became “yellow”
Inspired by his recent interview in Japan on the Record I sought out some of Professor John G. Russell’s work on race in Japan. In his analysis on the Nissin whitewash scandal last year, this extraordinary paragraph: Even though the Japanese have been seen to whitewash themselves, it hasn’t been simply a matter of skin…
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Japan on the Record: Japan and Blackness
Last year I discovered the excellent UBC Meiji at 150 Podcast. I was late to the discovery, but enjoyed working through the 120 episode backlog. Since then the host of the show, Dr. Tristan Grunow of Yale University, has gone on to create Japan On the Record, a show where scholars of Japan can share…
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Black intellectualism and learning from Asia — a sort of review of The Fire Next Time
James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time (1963) contains two essays. The first, a letter to Baldwin’s teenaged nephew, served as inspiration for Between the World and Me which I extolled not only for the content, but for Ta-Nehisi Coates’ inspirational writing skill. It is like a finger pointing at the moon, and I am glad…
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Ethnocultural Diversity in Kelowna
It has been 10 years since Canada has had a comprehensive census. This year the results have been trickling out from StatsCan, and today the stats that I have been waiting for all year were finally released: immigration. Some high level findings: 250 ethnic groups 1 in 5 Canadians are foreign-born 2 in 5 kids…
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Intraculturalism: A multicultural third way
“Canada is a multicultural patchwork quilt, a country of immigrants.” These are common refrains about our country. Canada is home to over 200 ethnic groups, and has an official multicultural policy since 1971 (instituted by Trudeau the elder). Yet xenophobia and racism still remain, and multiculturalism is still a hot debate. The debate is not…
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Timeline of Japanese in the Okanagan
May is Asian Heritage month in Canada. Here in the Okanagan our local Asian Heritage Month committee has been working for months to ensure that there are a number of events and activities to raise awareness of Asian-Canadian contributions to our communities, and empower immigrants. It all kicks off next week. This year, the Japanese…
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A hypercompetitive race — review of The History of White People
The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter By default, any book claiming to be a history of “white” people must necessarily be a history of “race science.” Surely one must clearly define the boundaries of your subject? It is Nell Irvin Painter’s careful historiography of those shifting boundaries that make up most of…
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Off White
Spike Lee’s film Malcolm X was released in 1992 when I was just 14 years old. Denzel Washington’s performance was powerful and it struck me. I became very interested in Malcolm X. During a trip to a nearby city I bought one of those X caps. The next week I wore it to school. I…
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Top of the bottom
“Why don’t you show them something Japanese?” the teacher suggested. Each week at the private school, a parent comes into class to talk about what they do. There is a wide variety of professions to expose the kids to. There is the dad who is a musician. One mom taught the kids some yoga. Then…