Multiculturalism as a way of silencing anti-racism

[tamago23]

Restructure is a Canadian anti-racist blogger (and she is immensely awesome, FTR). She has an LJ feed at restructurefeed if anyone wants to follow it. Anyway, she posted an entry about multiculturalism that I think is important enough that I want to repost it (because I know if I just provide the link, few of you will click through, but most of you will read it

Comments

[kettunainen]

i agree -- it just seems like a more obscure version of the US's delusional melting pot argument -- there's no racism here! We're a big melting pot!

[alexisyael]

To a certain extent, I think we need stop using the word racism (since race does not exist, biologically/ physically) and find a better word. I'm not sure what that word would be, but the biases people have are against other cultures. The policies that enable white privilege are also privileging assimilation.

[nimbrethil]

I think it's a mistake to say that the bias is solely against a person's culture, because the average person DOES still divide people into different races, and more than a few people perceive a culture as inferior specifically because they view that person's race as inferior. And so long as people do still believe in the concept of race, then it is racism, irrespective of whether or not there's any factual basis to it. Only after we dismantle that myth on a widespread scale do we need to nitpick over the validity of the word. The word "racism" does a perfectly fine job of describing the mindset, whether or not the bias is toward "race" or culture. And honestly, it's a form of privilege to quibble over the technical correctness of a term, when that should be the least of an anti-racist's concerns.

[tamago23]

What nimbrethil said. Also, if it were solely against culture, then the adopted PoC children of white parents, who are raised in a white culture, wouldn't face racism. But they still do, because it isn't about culture, it really is about race. And while race doesn't exist on a biological level, it sure as hell exists on a social one.

[the_axel]

But they still do, because it isn't about culture, it really is about race.

I disagree with that. I think it's about both.

Or to be more accurate, it's about tribalism and hierarchy.

Skin colour, accent, dress, etc. are markers for putting someone into a pecking order where the ones most like us are at the top.

For example, an English born & bred POC in England will face less discrimination in many situations (job interviews, etc.) than a white Polish immigrant, because cultural privilege trumps colour privilege.