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In this post, I asked what responsibility we have for ensuring racist images are not perpetuated. Here’s another example.
Looking for an atlas for my child who is at an age when greater knowledge of the world is required, I was shocked at the abundance of racist images. (BTW, all suggestions for something for the 7-10 age group, not too complicated, with general info about population, climate, geography, and maybe some cultural stuff are welcome.) People are depicted in cartoon images, and the asians have slitty eyes.
I mentioned to the bookstore clerk that perhaps they would like to discontinue stocking this item. (This was not Chapters or Barnes & Noble, but a neighbourhood, privately owned store.) I was informed that it would be impossible not to stock this type of image because it is “part and parcel of the iconography for children’s books”, and that I should take it up with the publishers.
Now honestly, who do you think has greater weight here? The individual who writes a snotty letter to the publisher, or the bookstore who refuses to stock the book in question?
I was bemused by this article that discusses when to stop adding children to your family through adoption. I mean, why should the reasons be any different from those of a biological family? Oh yeah, I forgot - adoption is also about ’saving the children’. <sigh>
Anyway, this paragraph in particular screamed privilege at me:
Loving these children, our gifts from other mothers, countries, and cultures, has opened doors to the world that I no longer hesitate to enter. Our children have introduced us to the world of birth families, world cultures, racial issues, traumatic realities, unexpected surgeries, parasites completely unfamiliar to US doctorsour children have forced my husband and I to gain knowledge, face prejudice, challenge beliefs, explore religions, compare cultures, establish behavioral routines and stretch our otherwise-normal-and possibly-boring lives to embrace five vibrant, fabulous human beings whom we love desperately.
Health issues aside - of which I hope most people remain ignorant, APs or not - it seems to me such a shame that such everyday phenomena as “world cultures” and “racial issues”, things that surround most of us or are at the very least easily accessible, just aren’t on the radar of the majority. And of course, there is no mention of cultures within the author’s own country which might differ from her own and be similar to the birth cultures of her children.
And what responsibility she puts on her children! They have introduced her to and forced her to face new things and, heaven forbid!, gain knowledge. One day, they may figure that out.
It was heartening to see Canada apologise to its First Nations yesterday and compensate them for the effects. The expression of regret came on the heels of Australia’s apology (without compensation) to the ’stolen generations’ of Aborigine children in February. Both these stories made headline news around the world.
But in the wake of this historic moment, the only mention of the near identical American situation is in passing in the LA Times. With not even a hint at the apology amendment to the Indian Health Care Bill. In fact, on closer inspection, hardly any refernce to this so-called apology, or even the bill itself, can be found anywhere except in Native-American-specialised press, community websites and blogs.
Pathetic, eh?
That’s a tongue-in-cheek reference to the number of times my fellow bloggers and I have heard or read that racism doesn’t exist in Canada. Statscan has just released a report on hate crimes which, although not overwhelming in terms of sheer numbers, as the extreme of a racist continuum they shed some light on the everyday situation in Canada.
The most horrifying aspect of the report is the fact that most perps are between 12 and 17 years old! Perhaps that is good enough justification in itself for removing children from racist homes… (see neo-Nazi post)
Another interesting comment found in my local paper:
Errol Mendes, a law professor at the University of Ottawa who specializes in human rights, said the report could be cause for concern. “Hate crimes normally go up in an atmosphere where propaganda is also on the rise,” he said. “And apart from a few incidences reported, there hasn’t been a spike in that in Canada, so that’s very worrying.”
Manitoba Child and Family Services have removed two children from their home due to worries that their neo-Nazi father is corrupting them. No charges have been laid but the father has been interviewed for “hate crimes involving children”. Click here for story.
I find it fascinating and uplifting that “inciting racial hatred” (one of the definitions of hate crime in Canada) is considered to be possible towards one’s own children, though I’m not entirely sure where that might lead.
What is the role of personal responsibility in the perpetuation of racist images?
Sounds like an essay question, eh? It was a thought that occurred to me recently in an online forum frequented by a majority of translators (oh, oh, I’m going to be rumbled for sure…). The discussion revolved around the best way to translate “sitting indian-style”, an expression I only recently came across when my daughter came out with it, much to my horror.
It was suggested that the phrase was a “glaring stereotype” and should not be used, whereupon several comments replied that it was “just a description”, that the alternative (”tailor-fashion”) was “just as offensive to tailors”, and that the role of a translator was to translate and not judge the offensiveness of the phrase in question.
So I ask you, should everyone take responsibility or should we just say it’s not our problem?
I saw in the Quebec French-speaking press that a new simulation game is attracting huge numbers of teenage girls. Apparently the site lets you evolve your avatar by getting breast implants, choosing the right chin and various other body-image-related atrocities. Click here and here to find out more. The Quebec site had 839,000 hits alone during the month of May, which is huge for a population of 7 million total.
What gets me, though, is the failure, once again, of the general public and the media to recognise that miss bimbo is not just purveying bad body image - it is symptomatic of institutional sexism.
When will people start to realise that we are cogs in the machine and we need to force an overhaul?
I was reading the article about Yuri Kochiyama linked by resistance and I was struck by the last line: ‘ “Yuri represents to me the ability to be humble, yet fierce, at the same time,” Wong said.’
Because, rather than being “demure”, “subservient” and “quiet” , the vast majority of Asian women I know, starting with my own mother, correspond to the “humble, yet fierce” description.
For a small parish church to cancel a proven fund-raising event, requires a lot of courage. The Reverend can therefore be forgiven for trying to play down the reasons behind the decision. The fact remains that this parish council defied stereotypes (parish councils usually get press for being a bunch of bigoted, behind-the-times and out-of-touch old fogeys) and took a decision to make a stand against racism. That decision may well have significant impact on future fund-raising for the parish church, as well as on relations within this small municipality (if the comments are anything to go by).
But they did it anyway. <round of applause>
This article reports that an anti-racism programme is being introduced in nursery schools in Glasgow, Scotland. Wow! Nursery schools! (It should be noted that “Asian” in Britain means South Asian and not East Asian.)
I am buoyed by such a small but positive piece of news. It gives me hope that anti-racism can really be become institutional, because I am more and more convinced that only a concerted effort to promote anti-racism will make any difference.
Because this thought is so depressing, and because I believe that we learn by example, I have decided to seek out other stories like this, and share them with you, so that you can cite them as examples and pass them on to unbelievers.
Panracial’s comment on the latest noose post about people of colour’s feelings not being considered got me thinking about why. This is an ongoing process, but today I decided to focus on hate crime. I randomly googled and found this article, the comments to which are edifying.
It would seem then that a lot of people don’t actually understand what a hate crime is. The USA Today article that is referred to doesn’t help either as it defines a hate crime as “a crime motivated by a bias”. In most people’s minds, making a noose or even showing someone a picture of a gas chamber does not constitute a crime. No? Read the rest of this entry »
An amendment was recently proposed to Senate Bill 1108 in Arizona that would prohibit teaching of any material and courses that do not “inculcate the values of American citizenship”: story here.
Apparently,
the new proposal stems from a conflict involving an ethnic-studies course in the Tucson area, which some critics have referred to as “separatist” and “unpatriotic.
Supporters of the bill say Arizona schools should be prohibited from using public tax dollars to “promote political, religious, ideological or cultural values as truth when such values are in conflict with the values of American citizenship and the teachings of Western civilization.”
As they say where I come from, ’sounds dodgy’. What exactly are these values? What exactly are these teachings? And what exactly are they aiming for? Read the rest of this entry »
Not that I find that to be a revelation. But this Times of India article has an interesting quote:
a white MP - David Heathcote-Amory of the opposition Tory party - questioned [MP Dawn Butler's] presence at a members-only section on the terrace.
“He then proceeded to ask me: ‘Are you a member?’ And I said: ‘Yes I am, are you?’ And he turned around and said to his colleagues: ‘They’re letting anybody in nowadays’,” Butler has written.
“ This man could not equate the image he saw in front of him with that of an MP. It was quite upsetting for my team and so we had to take it further.”
[...] Heathcote-Amory denied the charge, saying, “I simply asked her what she was doing at the end of the terraced, and they are quite sensitive about this kind of thing, they think that any kind of reprimand from anyone is racially motivated.”
“They”?
I’m sitting in the clinic filling forms, waiting for my test appointments. It’s a clinic that caters to a bilingual population, i.e the patients usually speak one of two languages.
The technician calls my name. She’s standing right next to me. I look at her and say, in my normal tone of voice, that I am here. I’m speaking Martian - fluently; not in her accent, granted, but in the accent of a native speaker. She calls my name again. I reply slightly louder. She calls my name again and I repeat in a much louder voice that I am here and, for good measure, add that that is the third time I have said so.
I follow her into an ante-room where she tells me what I need to do, but in Venusian. I ask her why she’s speaking to me in Venusian since I speak Martian and have already spoken to her in that language. Perhaps it’s because I look Neptunian and everyone knows that Neptunians don’t speak Martian, only Venusian.
I have another test later. This technician addresses me in Martian and asks whether I speak it fluently. Fair enough. She then asks me what my nationality is. I smile to myself and answer truthfully: Jupiterian. “Ah,” she says - this isn’t going how she planned - “it’s just that I thought you looked a bit Neptunian and the benchmarks are different for Neptunians.” Fair enough. But what has that got to do with nationality?
“My mother was Neptunian,” I say. “Ah, ” (here we go again), “well, I don’t really know what category to put you in.”
Story of my life.
That question was posed here. Apparently Canada’s Labour Minister has an answer: it harms the economy.
Things to note in this article:
1) the acknowledgement of systemic racism and how it is not generally acknowledged
2) the fact that the number of poc who have never encountered racial discrimination is unimportant compared to those who have and to the number of white people who have
3) how apparently, racism in Canada is different from racism in the US… ;-P (just kidding)
Say a woman meets a guy in a bar and has amazing (or not) sex with him. She then gives blood at her office’s blood drive a week later. That must happen right? And probably quite often. Should we ban all single heterosexual women from giving blood? Or just the irresponsible ones?
Apparently in Canada (and no doubt elsewhere), according to this article:
“a woman who has had sex with an intravenous drug user or a bisexual man must wait a year before being eligible to give blood. Yet a gay man - unless he had sex with a man before 1977 - can never give blood.“
There are 15 people round the meeting table, and on the agenda a list of desired facilities for the personnel1. The attendees are asked to add any facilities2 they feel would be beneficial to the company3.
The lone woman4 expresses a desire to see a new addition5: sanitary protection available in the women’s washroom6.
It is put forward that this is already covered by “improved sanitary facilities7”, particularly as only 20% of the personnel are women8. The woman4 begs to differ. ‘Sanitary facilities’ does not mean sanitary protection9, and it is not because the minority is a minority that it should not be taken into account.
But improvements to the facilities will include whatever is necessary10, retort other attendees. Sanitary protection is surely considered necessary11. This is not a given according to the woman4: since none will be installed in the men’s washroom too, it may be overlooked12.
But we can’t provide sanitary protection for everyone13, argue other attendees: every woman is different and surely has their own preferences in feminine hygiene products14. But providing sanitary protection does not mean providing a range of products9, insists the woman4. It is availability of any sort of product that counts15.
It is proposed that another point5 be added: “specific sanitary facilities in the women’s washroom16”. 14 people vote for the motion. The lone woman4 abstains.
That little gem comes from a psychologist, but you can find it all over the web. Just google it. It’s not that I disagree; I was once a child and remember it well. It’s just I don’t like what’s implicit in that statement.
You see, the reason that people often cite this truism is to explain schoolyard “teasing”. And based on this incontrovertible fact of life, this is what we tell children to do when “teased”:
Ignore it.
Read the rest of this entry »
Something strange happened to me last week. I became invisible.
Well, I say, “strange”, and “became”, but I suppose that what was strange was I’m actually more used to being overly visible, and this was the first time I was conscious of being INvisible .
While researching an article on Eric Clapton, I came across a name that has stuck in my memory for the last 30 years. Partly this is because I loved the song, but mostly it is the face of this woman that has stayed in my mind — a face that looked like mine.
I have never harboured any desires to be a singer, but this woman showed me that people who looked like me could be real people doing normal things (as far as singing on the telly can be considered “normal”).
Ladies and Gentlemen: Yvonne Elliman!
I have become an anti-racist because
a) a loved one may or does suffer from racism
b) it is the right thing to do
c) like Miss Clavel in “Madeline”, you woke up one night, turned on the light and said, “something is not right!”
I know I am an anti-racist because
a) I believe that racists are ignorant
b) I believe that racists are ignorant and I tell everyone so
c) I support racism-awareness campaigning through donations and/or volunteer work
d) I have educated myself on the full meaning of racism
e) I speak up when people make racist remarks
f) I write to the media when I come across examples of institutional racism
g) I educate others about the insidiousness of systemic racism
Got your answers?
Context
A recent post by Resistance concluded: “systemic racism can be harmful in more ways than we ever dreamed possible”. A commenter recounted an anecdote that described white people’s discriminatory behaviour to poc as “almost innate”.
Etiology
Racists are not born; they are made - by society. Racists exist around the world because societies around the world create the breeding ground for them to thrive.
Observations
Since we all live in society, every one of us has racist tendencies, not innate but learned.
Some of us make conscious effort to examine our thoughts, feelings and actions and to raise consciousness in others. It can be done.
Conclusions and recommendations
Let us not make the mistake of thinking that because discriminatory behaviour and the feeling of superiority are not conscious, people cannot be blamed for their racism (or any other –ism).
Question yourself, question others, question society.
A friend of mine just had a frustrating week. Asked to propose a design for an international non-profit organisation’s New Year cards, he offered a stylised snowflake, cleverly incorporating one of the organisations symbols. It was refused on the grounds that snow at New Year is only significant to people in Europe and North America.
Apart from the fact that China and Japan don’t seem to figure on the client’s radar, this is a good example of the sort of “inverted ethnocentrism” rife in so-called international business today.
Read the rest of this entry »
While Mariani is trying to keep foreign kids out of France, others are trying to bring them in, the BBC reports. French charity, Zoe’s Ark, is being accused of kidnapping 103 Darfuri “orphans” in order to spirit them away to France in the name of children’s human rights.
I’m not going to debate whether the international community is doing enough in Darfur. I’m not going to get into whether the French government unofficially supported the group (for those who read French, click here). I’m not even going to talk about whether the group is really involved in child trafficking or not. Read the press, form your own opinion.
What I want to point out is the mindset of the organisations, (and the individuals that comprise them), behind such initiatives.
Read the rest of this entry »
In France, the Mariani bill proposes to amend the law on reuniting immigrant families. From now on, immigrants wishing to sponsor their children would be urged to prove – by means of DNA testing – that they are actually related by blood. Read the rest of this entry »
The “debate” over “reasonable accommodation” of minorities in Quebec has hotted up in recent weeks.
The Bouchard-Taylor Commission, mandated by the provincial government in March, aims to report on the extent of so-called accommodation through consultation with the public and institutions, and make recommendations on what is considered “reasonable” – the benchmark being whether it respects common Quebec values.
The commission was set up following wide media coverage and public outcry at such incidents as the internationally reported “Herouxville debacle” and other incidents including the banning of hijabs on the soccer field.
With public forums allowing everyone to have their say, you would expect a fair amount of ridiculousness. But I honestly did not expect public figures to come up with such gems as these. Read the rest of this entry »
I read the “dossier” on the Virginia Tech shooting in my local paper yesterday. There was a whole section on backlash and fears of it or not, mostly from articles reprinted from the American press. It’s funny, (not) but when there was a similar shooting at a college in Montreal last September, no-one mentioned backlash.
The perp there was of South Asian origin, and there was some discussion of how racism and being caught between two cultures might have been difficult for him and set him on the rocky road to gunning down a bunch of people and then himself. However, when backlash was briefly described a week later, it was not in a racial context, but in the form of testimonies from young people in the goth movement, who reported that people looked at them even more warily now (the guy had posted several graphic videos about being some kind of grim reaper on goth-community sites), and some even said they’d been the object of hateful outbursts in the street.
So yesterday morning I thought, “what does that say about American society to even have to ask the question about backlash at all?”
If those adopting parents who re-name their new children western-style are doing it so they fit in to the majority culture, what are the reasons behind re-naming your child with an ‘ethnic’ name, ‘evocative’ of their heritage?
Let me explain. I regularly come across little girls adopted from China who bear names such as Lucy-Mei, Li-An, Sherry-Lin, Mary-Liu. Why not call them Lucy-May, Leann, Sherilynne or Marylou (this last pronunciation-mangling particularly annoys me)? And then there are those who swap the given Chinese name wholesale for a different Chinese name they either heard and liked, or even made up. I know of children named Mulan and Shaolin.
Is this supposed to re-connect them to their heritage? Is this supposed to help them blend in with other children of Chinese origin?
Or is it just plain orientalism?
I suggest a-parents concentrate on learning how to spell and pronounce correctly the names of their children’s orphanages and provinces of origin.
You say I’m beautiful,
With my almond-shaped eyes,
With my jet-black hair,
With my chocolate-coloured skin,
With my mixed blood.
You say I’m lucky.
I don’t feel beautiful,
With my different-shaped eyes,
With my non-blonde hair,
With my non-creamy skin,
With my non-pure blood.
I don’t feel lucky.
I know I’m beautiful,
Because of my sparkling eyes,
Because of my healthy, well-styled hair,
Because of my smooth, soft skin,
Because of who I am.
Not what you want me to be.
Why is it that many white people cannot have a discussion about systemic racism without feeling personally accused of being a racist? And why is it that they then find no other retort than to accuse the people of colour they are talking to of being racist themselves?
I am so sick to death of being told that I am perpetuating racism by pointing out it exists and that we all need to do something about it.
Give me a f*cking break!
End of rant.
In honour of the International Day for the Elimination of Racism, my local broadsheet paper devoted one whole page to the subject of racial discrimination.
Three-quarters of it was a story on the results of a survey on racial prejudice in Canada, which concluded that less exposure to racial minorities makes people more intolerant. Doh! And half that space was taken up by a photo of a white woman calmly listening to a hijab-wearing arab woman talking in what was obviously a relatively heated manner.
There were two other pieces in the remaining quarter. A comments piece by a (White) columnist lamented that, after 24 years, he was still having the same conversations with a representative of an association that helps Black people in racial discrimination cases, and therefore nothing had changed. A final short story reported a mass wedding by a Black deputy-mayor in Belgium, arranged in support of him after three couples cancelled their wedding plans so as not to be married by a Black man.
Well zippety-doo. And what of the issues of Why? What of the issues of systemic racism? What about giving a voice to people of colour?
Is it so difficult to side with a cause because it is RIGHT?
Because we recognise that men and women, whatever their sexuality, whatever the colour of their skin or the shape of their eyes, are equal (which does not mean “the same”), neither better than nor worse than as a whole, and that everyone should have the right to the same opportunities and the same respect?
You feel accused of racism. You feel that we have called you racist. You feel insulted. You hope that we too can feel these feelings of being attacked, being accused, being insulted.
Oh yeah. We feel it. We feel it every time you try to detract from what we say. We feel it every time you get on your high horse and tell us we’re wrong. We feel it every time you say you’re going to carry on just like you’ve always done (because political correctness is getting out of hand and you didn’t mean anything by it anyway). We feel it when you say, in short, that we are talking crap.
Of course, our experience counts for nothing. Of course, our feelings count for nothing.
You don’t wonder why we choose to share our experience and knowledge with you, why we side with the anti-racism “cause”. Believe us, it’s not because we like being ignored, ridiculed and slapped down.
We do this because we believe in a better world. We hope our children (and yours) can grow up in a world where they are equal, where their difference is part of a rich tapestry and not a blot on the landscape.
We do this because we feel we have a responsability to future generations. We do not dwell on whether we are or are not responsible for what has gone before. We embrace our personal responsibility to do what is right.
I was recently told by a white person:
“It is easier for a white person to side with the cause of anti-racism if it can be admitted that racism is not peculiar to white people. I know this is irritating to you because those who are the greatest victims of racism in the world are not white. Maybe you think that we’re trying to deny our guilt. You’re probably slightly right, because we are white, but we are not responsible for what others do or have done. I hope you can feel that we feel attacked, accused, insulted.”
Read that again and replace “white” with “man” (or “men”), “anti-racism” with “feminism”, “racism” with “sexism”.
Read it again and replace “white” with “heterosexual”, “anti-racism” with “gay”, “racism” with “discrimination on the grounds of sexuality”.
Conclusion? Privilege, privilege, privilege.
A Leger marketing survey commissioned a poll for a Montreal newspaper recently. 59% of Quebecers admitted they were racist to some degree, compared to “only” 47% of other Canadians.
Having lived in both France and Quebec, I’d say the French were lying (see below).
Jack Jedwab of the Association of Canadian Studies doesn’t agree with my fellow blogger Resistance. He says it’s dangerous to admit such a high level of racism as that makes it all right in many people’s minds.
I think it would be more useful to study prejudice as a whole within society. That would help advance the debate.
It’s election time in my area of the world. There are three parties running for control of the government.
In a speech to students last week, Party X’s leader insisted on the importance of education if the West is to hold its own against “fierce competition” from Asian countries. He illustrated his argument from his personal experience of studying at Harvard where, he said, he was surprised to see about a third of students had what was reported in an English-speaking newspaper as “slanting eyes”. This report prompted a local anti-racism group to demand an apology, and a national Asian association to request clarification. Read the rest of this entry »
Do we ‘impose’ our culture on our children? And if so, is it justified?
Of course we impose our culture, because we do not give our children a choice. We could raise them to have knowledge and understanding of many cultures*, but most people don’t. And for transculturally adopted children, it’s a double whammy – no choice to stay in their birth culture, and in many cases, no choice to access that birth culture.
Many a-parents have said to me before, “But how could we do otherwise? We cannot give our children a culture that is not ours,” and they are right. They cannot ‘give’ their children any other culture than the one they know. But they shouldn’t think that lets them off the hook. Read the rest of this entry »
In western societies, any use of authority in raising a child has practically become taboo. ‘Children have rights and should not be forced to do anything’, is the underlying supposition. But many parents DO force their children to do things they don’t want to do. Sometimes they disguise it cleverly as ‘choices’, but it amounts to the same thing.
Until a child becomes an adult, society also assumes, in a very literal and legal sense, that even though they are capable of making certain choices and decisions themselves, they are not yet able to assume responsibility for the consequences.
Perhaps it would help if parents in general, and adoptive parents in particular, looked at raising a child as providing her/him with a maximum number of opportunities in order to have the maximum number of choices. We impose piano lessons so that one day our children may be able to choose to become a concert pianist rather than having to say, “I wish I’d learned piano earlier”. We force them to go to school and do their homework so that they will have a wider choice of career possibilities instead of having to take whatever they can get. We oblige them to take their medicine so that they will get better and be able to choose to go out and play rather than having to stay in bed for several days.
Our children may rebel against doing scales, complain loudly about homework, reject foul-tasting medicine, but within the context of ‘providing opportunities’, any parental imposing seems justified.
So, all you hesitant a-parents, will creating a connection between your TRA child and his/her culture of origin provide him/her with opportunities or not? (Before you answer, please see my subsequent post.)
So apparently, creating a connection between a transracially adopted child (aka TRA) and their culture of birth is “force-feeding”; transmitting one’s own culture is NOT imposing that culture on a child adopted from a different one; and biculturalism is neither good for children (it disrupts personal identity) nor indeed possible (apparently there is a “major” culture and all others are “minor”), and in point of fact, there aren’t many bicultural people today (in America at any rate).
(And of course, the BTDT TRA has no idea what she is talking about. Again, ‘apparently’.)
My local video store has re-thought its filing system again, so I was paying special attention to the different categories last night. I was surprised to find among the “international” films, Toronto film director Deepa Mehta’s elements trilogy. I wondered what she would think of that, having lived in Canada for half her 57 years.
On closer inspection, it turns out that “international” basically means “foreign-language”, since British films are not included. (Oddly, films from France are, even though I live in a country where one of the official languages is French). The elements trilogy is in Hindi.
This is a question many people of colour ask themselves often. Every time someone makes a stereotyped comment, every time people negate our experiences, every time we are are the lone voice speaking out.
Of course, those in the majority never have such uncertainties. They know that all asians are good at math. They know all blacks make great athletes. They know that their view of the world is the right one. They know that those who speak out against the status quo have a chip on their shoulder / are following a political agenda / are just plain ornery.
How do they know? Because we live in societies that tell us this is so.
And that’s not all they’re telling us.
Check out the link below (you may have to cut and paste) - it’s also for a good cause - and ponder: propoganda and systemic racism, is there really such a big difference?
Much ink has been spilled in my part of the world since a soccer referee ruled that an 11-year-old female soccer player could not participate in a tournament unless she removed her hijab. Apparently, he applied a month-old directive of the Quebec soccer federation that specified that “the Islamic veil and any other religious object” is not permitted on the soccer field.
According to several other sources, this directive was a confirmation of a FIFA ruling that bans headgear on the grounds that it is a source of danger. Why then can I not find it anywhere?
Pressured by the furore, the IFAB (those that make the rules that FIFA enforces) discussed the matter within the confines of their planned rule-revision meeting a week later. Despite the headlines claiming a ruling against the hijab, the board in fact didn’t rule at all, preferring to say that their “basic equipment rule – number 4” already covers the matter. It says: “A player must not use equipment or wear anything that is dangerous to himself or another player (including any kind of jewellery).”
So what does all this mean? Is the hijab (or a Sikh turban for that matter, or a yarmulke) dangerous or not? If the danger cannot be proven, what conclusions can we draw about the IFAB decision, the Quebec federation directive, and the referee’s ruling?
Intentions were recently mentioned in Resistance’s post, “no intent = no problem”. For those who are still not quite clear on the subject, I quote from a teaching resource from the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, aimed at elementary schoolchildren:
“What’s important is not the intention, but rather the impact of our actions.”
So basically, if a board of white middle-aged men decides that head coverings can be deemed dangerous (action), Muslim women, Sikh and Jewish men will no longer have the opportunity to play soccer (impact).
Considering that their headgear is not just some whim but a fundamental part of their identity, it looks very much to me like a case of indirect religious discrimination.
And this is ironic in light of the fact that FIFA has a code of ethics from which I quote: “Article 6: Ban on discrimination - Officials, players and players’ agents may not act in a discriminatory manner, especially with regard to ethnicity, race, culture, politics, religion, gender or language.”
I’m often struck by how often people react to my taking an active stand against racism by telling me I have a “chip on my shoulder”. (Those are the brave ones. Others sometimes say, “yeah, whatever”, or “well I didn’t mean to be racist”.) In some ways, it feels like standing against oppression can only lead to more oppression. In any event, I actually do not feel like I am out in the trenches daily, but I certainly refuse to lie in the mud and let myself be shot at. I add my voice to those of other people of colour, and by making it public, I hope it will be heard.
Wut they sed