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Samuel D Chown
b. April 11, 1853,
d. Jan. 30, 1933
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Did you know that in 1925, when the
United Church
was born, Rev. Samuel Dwight Chown, a Methodist minister and well-loved by
many, gave up the position as the first moderator of the United Church United Church
Last week, I read a quote by Rev.
Chown that shows a very different side.
He wrote, “The immigration question is the most vital one in Canada
today, as it has to do with the purity of our national life-blood…It is foolish
to dribble away the vitality of our own country in a vain endeavor to
assimilate the world’s non-adjustable, profligate and indolent social
parasites.”[1] It’s a shocking quote for us to hear
today. This doesn’t mean though that
Rev. Chown wasn’t still a grace-filled person, but that he wrote this from a
very different time and is reflective of colonialism thoughts and practices of
the time.
Last week, I was in Saskatoon for a course
called, “Racism, Post-Colonialism, Canadian Identities, and Intercultural
Ministries.” This is quite a mouthful
but the instructors find the title fits what they are trying to teach. I had the opportunity to read some great work
by people like Kwok Pui-lan, Gloria Anzaldua, Edward Said, and Robert Young and
watched some powerful videos like “Between: Living Between the Hyphen” about
being bi-racial, and “Whitewashed: Unmasking the World of Whiteness.” (Check
them out on YouTube.)
One article by Peggy McIntosh
called, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” offers some ways
in which we might recognize the white privilege that many of us carry. She writes, “whites are taught to think of
their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that
when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work with will allow “them” to
be more like “us.”
McIntosh tries to identify some of
this white privilege and identifies 46 white privileges we carry in our
knapsack, mostly without being aware they are even there. Here are a few[2]:
·
I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of
people of my race most of the time.
·
I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty
well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
·
I can turn on the television or open to the
front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
·
When I am told about our national heritage or
about ‘civilization,’ I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
·
I did not have to educate our children to be
aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.
·
I can do well in a challenging situation without
being called a credit to my race.
·
I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to
“the person in charge” I will be facing a person of my race.
·
I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture
books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children’s magazines featuring the
people of my race.
·
I can choose blemish color or bandages in
“flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin.
Can you connect with any of
these? How does it make you feel to be
carrying this invisible and seemingly weightless knapsack? We live in a culture where white is the norm
and everyone else is seen as different and foreign. Even those who have been born and raised Canada
and might be a third-generation Canadian get asked where they come from, who
their parents are and how they came to be here.
For those of us who are white, we don’t have to think about racism and
how it affects our lives. For those of
us who are not white, it can affect our whole lives.
I don’t like to think of myself as
racist. In fact, when some people are
accused of being racist or of saying or doing something racist, they get very
defensive and angry. The fact is that
most of us carry some racial prejudice and the white race holds the power in
our culture. Being racist is a symptom
of this problem. The more aware we
become, the more we can address this problem, but being non-racist could take
generations.
