Makes sense. Racism is really a “white person problem,” not a “people of colour problem.”
As for trying to emphasize the racist implications of individualism, I’d say the message is clear. Individualism likes to presuppose that one’s work ethic, character, and merit fairly determine one’s station in life. If you’re poor, it’s because you haven’t worked hard enough, and if you’re rich, it’s because you’re special and deserving. This worldview makes it so challenging for white people to accept that there are invisible barriers standing in the way holding people of colour back. This worldview makes it so easy for white people to shout that everyone should just shut up about racism because it will magically go away if we only stop talking about it—and that black people have “all the same opportunities as we do” to “make something of their lives.”
If you ask me, these are exactly the beliefs that sit at the centre of white people’s problems with diversity and racism, so I’m all for any program that tries to eat away at these cancers directly. Race is real. Racism is real. Equity preaches that we recognize people may need different things to succeed, and that we try to give everyone appropriate, targeted supports. In this case, it’s very clear that white people need a hell of a lot more to uproot their biases than racialized folk do. Let’s give it to them—it’ll help everyone.
Race is only real in our society because Europeans made it real 400 years ago. Other than that it's a social construct. Are you using Eurocentric norms to define race?
Also, I certainly haven't seen anyone in this thread say "shut up about racism" or anything close to it. We just don't think segregation, however brief, is means towards ending bigotry.
To me at least, comments such as this, from lily white Canadians who probably have a grand total of one black associate, are just "race realism" with good PR on top.
I don’t really care what you think about my motives. I do take issue with the way you seem to think I’m stupid, though. Believe it or not, I’m well aware that race is a social construct, thanks—but the fact that it’s a social construct doesn’t make it any less real. It’s way
too real. The way to stop it from being the all-too-deterministic factor it is, however, is not to shut anti-racists up. And contrary to the words you put in my mouth, I was
not accusing anyone of doing that in this thread (that is, until you decided to attack me personally so you could call my words cheap). I was saying that an ideology of individualism tends to go hand-in-hand with the lie of meritocracy. Pretending we can just have a fair meritocracy without doing anything about existing, race-based inequality of opportunity is a huge problem that perpetuates systemic racism. That is what’s tantamount to calling on everyone to shut up about race. We here in this thread may know better, but I should hope that we aren’t the people who most need diversity training (though, of course, we could still benefit from it).
Not sure what to say in response to your belief that white folk and people of colour should always have the same diversity training, though. We “segregate” training based on need all the time. I’ll admit it’s not typically done by race, but if the issue itself
is race, it makes a lot of sense. The only reason we wouldn’t do it is because we’d be “scared” to talk frankly about the realities of racism or to acknowledge something “awkward.” We need to get rid of that stigma. Plus, I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be a black person sitting through a diversity training session listening to that one token white guy “play devil’s advocate.” Or to be the person everyone looks at in the room. Or to be relied on as “the expert.” Or to receive the implicit message that racism is something I need to work on too, as if I am to blame for white people treating me differently.
To argue that this is “segregation” in the way that whites-only pools were is intellectually dishonest. It’s needs-based training. If you think white people don’t need different anti-racism training than people of colour, that’s a whole different can of worms.
