Searching for race-neutral ground: an author declares the equality hopes of the Charter a promise not met.

Searching for race-neutral ground: an author declares the equality hopes of the Charter a promise not met. Race and the City: Chinese Canadian Chinese Canadians are Canadians of Chinese descent and constitute the largest visible minority group in Canada, comprising 3.5% of the population in 2001.[1] In 2001, there were 1,094,700 Chinese Canadians, 100,000 having mixed ancestry. and Chinese American Chinese Americans (Chinese language: 美籍華人 or 華裔美國人) are Americans of Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of Overseas Chinese and are a subgroup of Asian Americans. PoliticalMobilization Shanti Shanti (from Sanskrit शािन्‍त śāntiḥ) can mean: Inner peace Ksanti, is one of the paramitas of Buddhism Fernando University of British Columbia Press The University of British Columbia Press is a university press that is part of the University of British Columbia. It was established in 1971. External linksUniversity of British Columbia Press 192pages, hardcover ISBN ISBNabbr.International Standard Book NumberISBNInternational Standard Book NumberISBNn abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m9780774813457 Recently I spent a long, at times tedious, day deliberating amongsome one hundred people about how history is taught and learned inCanada. I thought the evening boded well, however, when someone I hadheretofore known only from afar asked if he might take the seat atdinner beside me. Quite apart from his being a perfect gentleman--awoman notices this--I had admired his respect for the opinions andexperiences of others, more so since his own distinguished career wasworthy of several lifetimes. He had excelled in, among other fields,academe, cultural policy and human rights. Past prime ministers andpremiers had repeatedly sought his counsel and his service. Ourconversation coursed from the past to the present. Suddenly, thiswhite-haired gentleman asked me plaintively plain��tive?adj.Expressing sorrow; mournful or melancholy.[Middle English plaintif, from Old French, aggrieved, lamenting, from plaint, complaint; see plaint. , in words to this effect:"Tell me, what can I do to make people today like me more--is thereanything I can say or do, or should I just go away?" He and Ianswered his question with worry for a future in which we look only fordivision, and for a society reduced to us and them. Later, I began to read Shanti Fernando's Race and the City:Chinese Canadian and Chinese American Political Mobilization. From theopening pages, the author brooks no neutrality on the part of thereader, especially the likes of me. She depicts the society I live in asa hierarchy of race and class; she casts my identity as"Chinese"; she designates me as belonging to a"racialized minority," by definition perceived by the majorityas "foreigners." Her verdict on my life as a Canadian is thatI am disenfranchised and excluded from the fullness of citizenship. Iwondered, with my unabashed feeling of belonging to Canada, of beingtied to its ancestors and hopeful of its future, if I could keep an openmind about this book. I decided to remake myself as a student ofFernando--she being a professor of political science now teaching atYork University York University,at North York, Ont., Canada; nondenominational; coeducational; founded 1959 as an affiliate of the Univ. of Toronto, became independent 1965. . The impetus for the book comes from Fernando's experience uponarriving at Queen's University Queen's University,at Kingston, Ont., Canada; nondenominational; coeducational; founded 1841 as Queen's College. It achieved university status in 1912. It has faculties of arts and sciences, education, law, medicine, and applied science, as well as schools of in Kingston, Ontario Kingston, Ontario, is a Canadian city located at the eastern end of Lake Ontario, where the lake runs into the St. Lawrence River and the Thousand Islands begin.Kingston is the county seat of Frontenac County. , to pursue herdoctorate. Her intention was to study comparative Canadian and Americanpolitics. "Then everything changed," she writes. She had thediscomforting feeling in this "very white town," among"overwhelming white" students, that "people were lookingat me. They appeared to be scared of me or confused by me, and theyspoke to me very slowly, as if they thought I wouldn't understandthem." She took it to be because of her South Asian origins. Untilthen, Fernando had been "overwhelmingly sure that racism did notexist in Canada." No longer. And so she enjoined the personal withthe professional and turned to the study of race as a structure ofoppression. Race and the City is Fernando's effort to find a"route" to politically mobilize minorities to push anti-racismonto the political agenda. The city of the title is her foray into Verb 1. foray into - enter someone else's territory and take spoils; "The pirates raided the coastal villages regularly"raidencroach upon, intrude on, obtrude upon, invade - to intrude upon, infringe, encroach on, violate; "This new colleague invades my twocities, Toronto and Los Angeles Los Angeles(lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. , her "testing grounds" for thetensions of a growing diversity. Her publishers promote the book as onefor specialists. I agree: it is academic and not an easy read, maybeeven unnecessarily difficult. But they say it will also have broadappeal for community leaders and students of urban politics. Again, Iagree, because from first page to last, this is the work of an advocate,and it's their ear that Fernando wants. Fernando's contention is that racism is pervasive andsystemic. And equally pervasive is the denial that racism exists at allin society. She says that the state, at best, has little inclination toaddress it and, at worst, is itself an oppressor OPPRESSOR. One who having public authority uses it unlawfully to tyrannize over another; as, if he keep him in prison until he shall do something which he is not lawfully bound to do. 2. To charge a magistrate with being an oppressor, is therefore actionable. , accommodating racistviews and taking a blame-the-victim approach. She repeatedly returns todenial as the largest problem and the main barrier to changing thesystem--how can the state address a problem that is not supposed toexist? Her book recounts the history of discriminatory policies andpractices toward the Chinese, by turn in Canada and the United States The United States and Canada share a unique legal relationship. U.S. law looks northward with a mixture of optimism and cooperation, viewing Canada as an integral part of U.S. economic and environmental policy. ,and in Toronto and Los Angeles. In this, Fernando's purpose is lessto inform than to argue that even with changed or dismantled laws, alegacy of racism remains. A compilation of the discriminatory effect ofpolicies toward Asians in Canada--from the head tax and exclusion toliberalized immigration immigration,entrance of a person (an alien) into a new country for the purpose of establishing permanent residence. Motives for immigration, like those for migration generally, are often economic, although religious or political factors may be very important. and multiculturalism--is by now familiar. Lessknown and of interest in Fernando's parallel account of the historyof racism in the U.S. is her report of the positive effect of the civilrights movement of the 1960s on Asian Americans This page is a list of Asian Americans. Politics1956 - Dalip Singh Saund became the first Asian immigrant elected to the U.S. Congress upon his election to the House of Representatives. 1959 - Hiram Fong became the first Asian American elected to the U.S. Senate. . It awakened many,turning some into activists against racism and mobilizing others intomany support groups for their own communities. Fernando's take on current public discourse is that"false characterizations and racialization" remain. She sees afailure either to discuss or to address this country's"colonial past." She tips her hat to some in the mainstream,such as the late historian Pierre Berton For other people with the same name, see Pierre Berton (disambiguation).'' Pierre Francis Berton, CC, O.Ont, BA, D.Litt (July 12, 1920 – November 30, 2004) was a noted Canadian author of non-fiction, especially Canadiana and Canadian history, and , for his account of thecontribution of Chinese workers in the building of the CPR Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)DefinitionCardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a procedure to support and maintain breathing and circulation for a person who has stopped breathing (respiratory arrest) and/or whose heart has stopped (cardiac , but wishesthat he had paid tribute to those workers as "Canadianpioneers." Fernando sees the state as seeking to control the publicdiscourse by way of the media, for the sake of remaining blameless blame��less?adj.Free of blame or guilt; innocent.blameless��ly adv.blame forracism, or keeping the status quo [Latin, The existing state of things at any given date.] Status quo ante bellum means the state of things before the war. The status quo to be preserved by a preliminary injunction is the last actual, peaceable, uncontested status which preceded the pending controversy. . She also takes aim at a perennialtarget, the mass media, calling it "a key perpetrator A term commonly used by law enforcement officers to designate a person who actually commits a crime. " ofsymbolic racism, in its singling out of cultural traits in ways thatcreate social tension. She cites the infamous "CampusGiveaway" episode of W5, aired in 1979 on CTV CTVCanadian Television (Network Limited) , that warned of"successful" Chinese students crowding out Canadian students,when in fact the Asian faces depicted were Canadian born. Of course,ignorance is never in short supply, and Fernando is right to expect usto broaden and deepen our sensibilities. Because the author's premise is that the system isfundamentally flawed and enshrines racism, logic leads her to argue thatthe state--unless it undergoes systemic and structural change--can do noright. She gives the nod to fairness and equity enshrined in theCanadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (also known as The Charter of Rights and Freedoms or simply The Charter) is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada. It forms the first part of the Constitution Act, 1982. , but sees it as a promise notkept. As for multiculturalism policy, she decries it as "confusingat best and co-opting at worst," and evidence of "thestate's affinity for grand gestures and sentiments." She goesfurther, saying that another effect of such policies and practices is tomask problems, al lowing them to persist. When Fernando takes a close-up look at Toronto and Los Angeles, thediscussion turns to events in recent memory. She revisits rioting in thestreets in the 1990s after the police shooting of Raymond Lawrence inToronto and the police beating of Rodney King Rodney Glen King (born April 9, 1965 in Fort Worth, Texas) is an African-American taxicab driver who was beaten by Los Angeles Police Department officers (Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Theodore Briseno and Sargent Stacey Koon) after being chased for speeding. in Los Angeles--bothvictims were black--and interviews several Asian community leaders. Herresearch and these interviews lead her to conclude that whatever thedifferences of approach or experience in both cities, the result is thesame: ethnic harmony in either city is a myth. Fernando fends offacademics and community leaders alike who take issue and point to the"model minority" of the Chinese who have made good, sociallyor by acquiring wealth, or by holding public office. She sees suchcompliments as false, serving to legitimize le��git��i��mize?tr.v. le��git��i��mized, le��git��i��miz��ing, le��git��i��miz��esTo legitimate.le��git the oppression of others whodon't live up. She says civic governments will not stand up for anyreal change because they are too afraid to deal with the resultingconservative backlash. Fernando sees the Chinese who hold public officein those cities as "token" Chinese, "co-opted" bythe state and there "at the whim of the existing powerstructure." These are strong, even angry, words. The tone may be necessary inFernando's view in order to crack the veneer of complacency thatshe rightly warns of. But at the same time, such language may not be inthe service of persuasion. But language aside, what does Fernandopropose as ways to proceed, to make progress? Here is the elegant partof her work, where she breaks, if tentatively, into new ground, but alsoseemingly finds her own voice. "I do not want to portray racializedminorities as powerless in the face of racialized state action,"she says. "They are anything but." Her solution? To mobilizepolitically. But how, under systemic racism, where existing powerstructures are condemned? Fernando calls for a "parallel democraticsystem" of resources to build and mobilize ethnically basedcommunity groups to push for racism to be explicitly recognized as apolitical concern. She raises the interesting possibility of coalitionbuilding, possibly with other racialized minorities, and of sharedagendas. Fernando says research is needed about how structural changecould occur, and I wish she had ventured there. I hope she does. If so,her description of the struggle for equality as "a continuingnegotiation with the state" may be a springboard. By book's end, how far had I come as a student of the author?I felt that I had failed to be as politicized a member of a racializedminority as Fernando would have liked. She would have me discouragedrather than encouraged about Canada's record or ability, generallyspeaking, to make a diverse society work, to live together withdifference, to be more inclusive than exclusive. "Misplaced mis��place?tr.v. mis��placed, mis��plac��ing, mis��plac��es1. a. To put into a wrong place: misplace punctuation in a sentence.b. optimism" says Fernando, "robs the community of a culture ofopposition [my italics] that is needed." These words did lend me anah ha! moment to explain my experience in the late 1990s serving on afederal task force that was looking at ways to increase the numbers ofvisible minorities working for the federal government, including atexecutive levels. The federal government had named only visibleminorities to our task force. I now understood why debate was so heatedbetween those who saw our most important purpose to document racism andthose who wanted to get on with it, to push for positive results, evenif incremental. Writers are always asked why they want to write. Sometimes I replythat writing allows me to transcend boundaries, including class, gender,racial, economic, political and--to really make a point--geographic,generational and dietary. As a writer, I can easily hold manyidentities. I can choose complexity over simplicity. In the real world,with heightened tensions after September 11, in times of growingupheaval and migration, I still hold that there is reason to be hopefulabout the future of race relations race relationsNoun, plthe relations between members of two or more races within a single communityrace relationsnpl → relaciones fpl raciales . I like to rely on what Susan Sontagonce wrote, in 1980, when she made a distinction between "earculture" and "eye culture," recommending the former asmore modest, less judgemental than the latter. She described hearing asthe "humbler [sense] ... less discriminating than the eye ... whichaffirms ... surfaces." I like to think that had Shanti Fernando andthose whom she first met in Kingston taken that route--becoming moreknowing by listening to each other--both she and they might have foundthe "race neutral" ground she wants for us all. I also think Imight invite that most perfect gentleman to dinner, this time to talkabout ways to tell the stories of how so many, with our multipleidentities, with our celebrated differences, including race, have somuch respect for each other. Denise Chong, the author of The Concubine's Children (Penguin,1994), was once an advisor to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.