{"id":25015,"date":"2012-08-28T02:27:14","date_gmt":"2012-08-28T02:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=25015"},"modified":"2012-08-28T02:27:14","modified_gmt":"2012-08-28T02:27:14","slug":"questioning-being-black-and-white-in-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=25015","title":{"rendered":"Questioning Being Black and White in Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

Questioning Being Black and White in Canada<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Canadian Dimension: for people who want to change the world<\/a>
\n2012-08-24<\/p>\n

Denise Hansen<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cCanadians have a favourite pastime, and they don\u2019t even realize it. They like to ask\u2014they absolutely love to ask\u2014where you are from if you don\u2019t look convincingly white. They want to know it, they need to know it, simply must have that information. They just can\u2019t relax until they have pin-pointed, to their satisfaction, your geographic and racial coordinates. They can go almost out of their minds with curiosity, as when driven by the need for food, water, or sex, but once they\u2019ve finally managed to find out precisely where you were born, who your parents were, and what your racial makeup is, then, man, do they feel better. They can breathe easy and get back to the business of living.\u201d \u2014An except from Lawrence Hill\u2019s<\/a> Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Lawrence Hill dubs it The Question and, indeed, for most black\/white mixed Canadians The Question has become a reoccurring topic of conversation fielded in classrooms, workplaces, out with new friends, in busy line-ups and crowded bars\u2026most any public place. Most commonly asked in the form of \u201cwhere are you from?\u201d, \u201cwhat\u2019s your background?\u201d, or put ignorantly simply as \u201cwhat are you?\u201d, The Question has become a defining aspect of the black\/white mixed race experience for people of black and white descent living in Canada.<\/p>\n

But is The Question just harmless curiosity? Or does The Question unconsciously reveal deeply held racial assumptions, sometimes even racist values? Either way, The Question puts race centre stage in a society where, ironically, the topic is often avoided, evaded at best. Is it time to take The Question as an opportunity to educate Canadians about issues of mixed race and blackness?…<\/p>\n

…\u201cPeople are socialized to uncritically accept racial categories. They want to know who mixed race people are affiliated with, perhaps as a guide to how they can engage with them,\u201d explains Professor Leanne Taylor<\/a> who studies multiracial and multiethnic identities at Brock University. Taylor adds that in Canada the idea of mixed race has even been commodified and exported internationally as the lived reality of what multiculturalism is\u2014the message (falsely) being: \u2018look at all these beautiful, mixed people as a symbol of how well people are getting along in Canada\u2019….<\/p>\n

Read the entire essay here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Questioning Being Black and White in Canada Canadian Dimension: for people who want to change the world 2012-08-24 Denise Hansen \u201cCanadians have a favourite pastime, and they don\u2019t even realize it. They like to ask\u2014they absolutely love to ask\u2014where you are from if you don\u2019t look convincingly white. They want to know it, they need […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,19,125,8],"tags":[11670,11671,1568,1324],"class_list":["post-25015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-canada","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","tag-canadian-dimension","tag-denise-hansen","tag-lawrence-hill","tag-leanne-taylor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25015\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}