Post-colonialism on the Radio

Last week, a group in our class featured a presentation on Colonial and Post-Colonial Theory. I'm still a little unclear as to the actual methodology of research in this area. The presentation mainly focused on the viewpoints that are expressed explicitly, implicitly, or sometimes without conscious intent. It also highlighted the under-representation of works from the minorities in post-colonial culture. This does not simply mean " in a country that has experienced confederation" or in post-colony status as the label "post-colonial" would seem to be literally. It simply refers to those sectors of society that are either minority status by number or possibly not having as much "power" in society.

As we have progressed through the course over the first 7 weeks or so, I have come to the realization that I'm not a big fan of labels. When we put a label on a person, group, or research methodology for example, our thought patterns seem to have a tendency to become so narrowed. It's almost as though we pigeon-hole our thought processes and forget that maybe there is a larger picture that we miss or disregard.

That is not to say that all labels are bad and we should not have labels for anything because of course they serve purpose. i.e. the names of people, or buildings, but there are times when I find people, including myself, get bogged down into placing items into categories when they don't fit necessarily into one category with one label. If we attempt to place items or ideas into one category, we may have a tendency to limit our ability to view or think about it from another perspective.

Example: Man took bread from a convenience store without paying.

Label: This man is bad because he stole bread. He should go to jail.

Other viewpoints

1) The man stole bread to feed his three children who live on the street with him. He has no job.
2) The man stole the bread because it was turning green with mold. He asked the shopkeeper to remove the bread because the bread could be harmful to someone's health. The shopkeeper said he would not remove the bread and was going to sell it to someone anyway.
3) The man wanted to purchase the bread but did not have enough money. The shopkeeper gave him a freebie.

Without investigating the other possible viewpoints or getting to see the other potential sides of the story, we may misjudge or make poor decisions with significant consequences.

Ok...the radio.

I was listening to CBC radio last night and they had an interview that I was not really listening to. It was more like white noise while driving than anything else until I heard the word "Post-colonialism" and it caught my attention. Interesting how I was not actively listening to the radio yet a key word grabbed my full attention.

The man in the interview was discussing how an Afro-Caribbean man growing up in the Caribbean in a "white" school and "white" influences led to a confused sense of self later in life. He said that he felt as though he was a "black" man wearing a "white" mask all the time and that he felt like he was always dressed up in a costume of sorts and that no one was able to know the real person, even he did not know.

Ironically, his last name was White. I can't recall his first name but he might go by Mr. White. He told the story of how his family a couple of generations ago worked for a European family, a "white" European family. Their family was fortunate enough to be able to be educated to better themselves. They were told however that it would be best if they were to change their last name to a more respectable name in society. This would help them to be looked at in a different and "more fortunate" way. They changed their last name to White.

On a separate note....I had my students fill out the HRSB student survey yesterday in class. It is a bubble sheet type of test where they shade in answers to various questions. Some of the questions were based on a scale of strongly disagree to strongly agree. Other questions were of a yes/no variety. when going over the survey, I noticed Question #4 I believe it was and it jumped out at me.

Are you racially visible? (you would shade the box if you were)

What does that really mean? Isn't everyone "racially visible"? Now I know what they were trying to ask. They were trying to find out if you were not "pure-white" or if by looking at you, people could say you were "something else". What poor wording of a question in my opinion. To me it sounded like " If you are not one of us, you must be"different".

Labels!!....not a big fan.