• • Media Savvy
  • Race and Racism
  • Rape Culture

  Adrian MacNair: White Knight(mare)

  February 18, 2011 • Anoushka Ratnarajah

  Yet another incredibly offensive piece of racism and xenophobia was recently featured in a Canadian publication. And it wasn’t Maclean’s!

  The article is called “Cultural Violence Can’t be Talked into Disappearing,” authored by Adrian MacNair and published in the National Post. In the piece, MacNair criticizes the federal government’s decision to financially support communities who seek to end gender-based violence. This is in itself reprehensible, considering the cuts to women’s organizations across the nation since Stephen Harper was voted in. But what makes this already racist and xenophobic point of view even more disgusting is the colonial paternalism displayed by MacNair. The whole article is rife with a fear-mongering superiority complex that would make Bill O’Reilly proud.

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• • Media Savvy
  • Race and Racism

  The Maclean’s “Controversy,” Part Two – White Privilege

  February 1, 2011 • Anoushka Ratnarajah

  [The Maclean’s article was first discussed on Shameless here.]

  So, the title “Too Asian” has been officially replaced by “The Enrollment Controversy” on the controversial article on the Maclean’s website. [Ed. note: the URL still says “Too Asian”! Good try, Maclean’s!]

  Apparently labeling something “controversial” means you don’t have to take responsibility for your actions. Now that I know this, I’m never apologizing for hurting anyone ever again! “Oh, what’s that? I just elbowed you in the face? Well I’m NOT SORRY, because my body’s just being controversial today. You’re probably overreacting anyways.”

  Not once do the words “apology,” “I’m sorry,” or “horrible mistake” make an appearance in the response from Maclean’s. And Findlay and Koller (Köhler? It’s been printed with both spellings), the writers of the piece, have been totally silent. Except for this little gem from Findlay. Words fail me. It’s like the first article, only the sexist edition.

  But we shall leave that for now. Instead, we return to the very non-apologetic nature of Maclean’s‘ response to the outrage that met their article, because it has been very interestingly mirrored by a response from a commenter to my own first article here on Shameless.

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• • Media Savvy
  • Race and Racism

  Not White Enough: What the Maclean’s article says about our country, our media, and our schools.

  November 25, 2010 • Anoushka Ratnarajah

  There is so much ugly in this picture, I hardly know where to start. But as a woman of colour, a Canadian, and a recent graduate of UBC, I have to respond.

  Dear Canada. Dear Maclean’s. Dear Stephanie Findlay and Nicholas Koller. This is going to hurt. But not as much as you have hurt us.

  When I read “Too Asian?” I wanted to stop right there. The title really could have been all they printed – and it would have been more succinct. Because that was the point. You say that “Too Asian?” is not about racism”? No. “Too Asian?” is exactly about racism. And no amount of unachievable journalistic impartiality can cover that up. “Too Asian” as a category implies that there is a norm from which this “Asianness” is deviating. And that norm, in Canada, is whiteness; to be Canadian is to be white. Multiculturalism in our country is not about equality. It’s about consumption. Food, clothing, celebrations, dancing, music – these are all cultural “others” that we enjoy from time to time. But when it comes to treating people of colour like we belong here – no. “They” are Indo-Canadian, Chinese-Canadian, African-Canadian … in the discourse of nationalism, even the Indigenous peoples of this land, ironically, are not allowed to belong here. We are all other. But not white people. White people get to be Canadian, no hyphen.

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