Pride Parade Vancouver

Photos taken at the Pride Parade, Vancouver, August 1, 2008.

Banal, Inconspicuous Racism...

What is it you see in this picture? Pick your choice:
A). A bunch of Chinese
B). A bunch of Asians
C). A bunch of people

If you answered A or B, you have a problem. A banal, inconspicuous problem. You see race before people. You take race to be something that defines people. Which, in a banal and inconspicuous manner, does make you a racist.

The other day, I was reading this blog post about dealing with racist stereotypes and prejudices within your own social network. Should one react to them? Should you confront your friends and acquaintances? Should you just avoid the discussion and pretend you didn't get the racism? I even left a comment on the blog, feeling like one who has been there and found the balance...

Well, I was wrong (and I hate to admit it). There is no balance. I've forgotten how difficult it is to live in a world where people judge other people based on their skin color or shape of the eyes. And how difficult it might be to react, out of many reasons (age, social status, social ties and so on). I simply left the room as soon as I could with that bitter feeling that change is next to impossible, to say the least.

The discussion started innocently, as most racist discussions do, with a story about a trip by bus.

Oh, there are so many Chinese taking the bus... Yes, many indeed, but if you think this is many, then go to Vancouver... There are almost only Chinese there... So many you (the White voice, my note) feel like a minority there... Yes, they are everywhere... And they go everywhere... They'll soon be everywhere...

I confess I didn't react. The people involved in the conversation are intellectuals, with a rich cultural experience, who traveled the world and back. The people involved in this conversation know exactly how I would react, or where I stand on this type of inconspicuously disguised racism. I know I should have reacted.

The same people are however enraged when they themselves are placed into groups and homogenized. They take offence when they are stereotyped and labeled and when they experience the status of being a minority (hard status for a white person!). Yet the logic doesn't seem to be the same when encountering other people. People are almost always perceived through what is taken to be the sign of difference: the skin, the physical traits, the ethnicity, the nationality.

I remember a girl once saying "I will never date a Russian". Why, I asked naively. "Because he would be Russian", came the self-explanatory answer. In his 1995 book entitled Banal Nationalism, Michael Billig discusses the concept arguing that we recreate daily and in a banal manner the ideas that the world is naturally divided into nations defined by particular ethno-cultural-psychological traits and that individuals are primarily defined by their belonging to their nation. The argument is pliable to racism as well. Yes, some of us might live in places proclaiming themselves to be multicultural and tolerant, but it is the daily recreation of racism, nationalism, homophobia and intolerance that needs to be seen, investigated and addressed.

Photo Credits: ernoldino

Living with difference in Vancouver

The thing I love most in Vancouver is that you can actually see and live difference in so many ways. Men holding hands in Stanley Park, women kissing on Davie Street, Asian/Caucasian couples, black/Asian couples, black/white couples, and so on, and so forth. It seems as if difference has been dealt with, accepted and metamorphosed into a way of life. The few who may be upset with it are no longer supported by a mass of followers. And the more one is brought up with accepting difference, the less difference matters.

Or at least that's what I like to believe. The truth is I have no clue what people truly think when they see difference on the streets of Vancouver. And the skeptic in me remembers that maybe people, concerned with their daily lives, do not care too much about difference. But Johan Galtung once said that peace is not only the absence of violence, but the capacity of self-restoration. Difference starts becoming an issue when something is at stake, when a threat needs to be rationalized (and thus controlled) and when when the scapegoats have to be brought to light for the catharsis (and that false sense of security) of the group. I wonder if the difference on the streets of Vancouver has grown to the point of Galtung's peace: would it have the self-restoration capacity if threats and demons would arrive to haunt it?

And then again, the difference I'm depicting here is misleading. It's closer to diversity, but concepts are like labels that grow narrow. I've seen the difference between Robson Street and the area around Chinatown/ Gastown; the difference between the fancy promenade and the scary ghetto. It's still difference, isn't it? And this one does seem to reproduce itself over and over again, irrespective of the time and place...