Table Of ContentNew Framings on Anti-Racism and Resistance
New Framings on Anti-Racism and Resistance
Volume 1 – Anti-Racism and Transgressive Pedagogies
Foreword by George J. Sefa Dei
Edited by
Ayan Abdulle and Anne Nelun Obeyesekere
University of Toronto, Canada
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-94-6300-948-5 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-94-6300-949-2 (hardback)
ISBN: 978-94-6300-950-8 (e-book)
Published by: Sense Publishers,
P.O. Box 21858,
3001 AW Rotterdam,
The Netherlands
https://www.sensepublishers.com/
All chapters in this book have undergone peer review.
Cover image by Amanda Kali Bent
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved © 2017 Sense Publishers
No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming,
recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the
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executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
We dedicate this book to those, who despite being
relegated to the margins continue to strive tirelessly
to dismantle structures of oppression.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword ix
George J. Sefa Dei
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction xvii
1. The Fairness of Shadows: Implications of Shadeism on Urban Secondary
School Students 1
Anne Nelun Obeyesekere
2. An Exploratory Paper on Understanding Whiteness 23
Ayan Abdulle
3. Languages Are Multiple: From Turtle Island to Africa – Combatting the
Cultural Violence of Colonialism in Residential School and Christian
Missionary School 35
Christina Hutchinson
4. Are We Doing Anti-Racism?: A Critical Look at the Ontario Ministry of
Education’s Anti-Racism Policy and Social Studies Curriculum 57
Qwyn MacLachlan
5. Re-Centering Race in the Classroom: Dominant Ideologies in
Educational Spaces and Their Implications for Youth Identity Formation 69
Raagini Appadurai
6. A Journey into Anti-Racism: An Educator’s Perspective 83
Tamla Young
7. Addressing Systemic Inequities, Student Achievement, and Deficit
Thinking within Ontario’s Urban and Priority High Schools 109
Katrina Rigelhof
8. Breaking the Silence: Effects of Colonial Education on Identity and Mind 127
Sevgi Arslan
9. Viewing the Toronto Education System through an Anti-Racist
Framework: The Systematic Oppression of Black Youth in Toronto
Based on Geography, Race and Class 143
Chanel Herbert
vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
10. Epistemic Salience of Anti-Racist Education 161
Marie McLeod
11. Race and Racism in Education: Seeking Transformative Change
through an Inclusive and Anti-Racist Curriculum 171
Saynab Xasan
12. All That’s Black Is Black: The Reification of Race in Higher Education 185
Brieanne Berry Crossfield
About the Contributors 201
viii
FOREWORD
I am writing this piece at a time with much trepidation. Like many, I have been
trying to get over my intellectual emotions and political depression which surfaced
with the emergence of the new face of the United States presidency. We are facing
difficult times, especially for those of us who work on social justice and anti-racism
issues. Frankly, the future may look gloomy and understandably so. It has also not
helped much that many political pundits refuse to call out the new United States
President for his fervent production of an alternate reality based not simply on
untruths, but also on the manufacturing of lies, scapegoating, and fear mongering.
The advancement of the whole posture of ‘alternative truths’, is harmful and outright
deceitful. These pundits, who speak highly of morals and virtues are unwilling to
honour truth as the fabric of the very morals and virtues of which they propagate.
Although Donald Trump, his supporters, and more recently even the opposition,
have alluded to or made claims of voter fraud, there has been little talk of voter fraud
in the form of voter suppression.
Both historically and presently, voter suppression has been used as a tool to
support White supremacy and to deny the full and meaningful political participation
of negatively racialized people, particularly African Americans. The law, and its
ancillaries are deployed as technologies that help to produce, structure, and maintain
a social and cultural narrative of the non-White ‘Other’. The Birther movement
launched against President Barack Obama is one of many examples of how social
and cultural narratives that center Whiteness and White supremacy call into question
the constitutional legality of the non-White body as one that has been legitimately
vested with the highest power in the country. The Black body as a non-voting body,
an illegal body, whose democratic participation is suspect and must be thwarted
through legal and spatial structures, is another cultural narrative that continues to
normalize voter suppression.
Throughout the Trump campaign, another cultural narrative–the narrative of the
professional/illegal/unlawful demonstrators has been in full production. Historically,
the right to assembly and to peaceful protest can be problematized as being
asymmetrical. Black bodies protesting injustices have been subject to a vestment
of criminality and illegitimacy. The act of protesting has been seen as a respectable
space when occupied by White bodies–particularly, White men. Although that
problematization cannot be dismissed, it is important to recognize solidarity. Women
and men marching in droves worldwide to protest, the day after the President of a
hegemonic “superpower” is sworn in, is a sign of remarkable development. The
march speaks nothing of claiming shared victimhood. The protest is an insistence
and affirmation of individual and collective agencies and the power of global
resistance. The same resistance, its heterogeneity and its homogeneity is on display
ix
