By Patrick Burles - @PatrickBurles on Twitter

U of L professor discusses racism in Lethbridge

Oct 27, 2016 | 3:37 PM

LETHBRIDGE – Racial tensions were the focus of a well-attended SACPA (Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs) session Thursday afternoon.

Dr. Jo-Anne Fiske, a professor in the department of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Lethbridge – who has completed several research projects centred on the cultural and social foundations of racism – addressed the controversial matter, saying it has been brought to the surface in our community by a recent serious criminal act.

“I think one of the things that we have to recognize is that racial tensions go back as far as Lethbridge goes back, and so the expression of racial tensions that have been very bitter, vociferous recently, are not new and I do not think they were sparked by any one incidents of violence, but rather certain responses in the public have given people permission, as it were, to speak up with anger, bitterness and hatred,” stated Fiske.

She explained that the problem stems from a way of thinking, in which we look at individuals that have been disparaged and treated unfairly throughout history, through what she calls a ‘Master Status’.

“We tend to view individuals as members of a category to make assumptions about their character, their behaviours, their aspirations, which are all negative,” Fiske explained. “We use that category to blind ourselves to individuals and to justify the kind of outpouring of resentment that we see recently expressed publicly and privately.”

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While acknowledging that dealing with the problem is no easy matter, Fiske discussed what you can do to make a difference.

“What I would argue for is what we in sociological circles call a reflexive solidarity, where people have to become very much aware of themselves and the social circles in which they move, and to take great consideration of how they speak and act, and find individual and collective ways where they can stand out, where they’ll take risks… and move beyond the silencing that occurs when we see and hear something wrong.”

As for an example to follow, Fiske says you can look to those closest to the woman who was attacked nearly a month ago.

“Pay very, very close attention to the family of [the victim] and hear their words, they are asking for unity and I think we need to aspire to that and we need to take actions that show that we can move beyond tolerance to respect and embracing others.”