From: "April Biccum" <april_biccum-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: West is White????
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 13:42:55 PDT





----Original Message Follows----
From: ayelet.zohar-AT-ipc.co.il (Ayelet Zohar)
Reply-To: postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
To: postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject: West is White????
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 20:27:20 GMT

->  If Michael Ondaatje, Ceylon-born Canadian, has Kip (an Indian Sikh 
in
-> _the English Patient_) respond to bombing of Hiroshima with "they 
would
-> have never dropped it on a white nation" is he making the same 
-> West=white equation, and if so, is He racist in so doing, or is it 
-> simply a racist act (if there is meant to be a distinction?)? or is 
-> the "they" specifically the USA and not the West, and is the 
-> White=USA comment any less problematic than the White=west?


>>If I remember well, it was the USA which excluded its non-White (in 
this
case - Japanese) citizens, kept them in camps, and saw them as enemies
within, on the basis of their ancestry. So I would agree with Kip's
comment - I can't remember any equivalent treatment of American 
citizens
with german ancestry.

ayelet.zohar-AT-ipc.co.il

THis doesn't mean that the US can be equated with whiteness, all it 
points to is the power and privilege of white people within the US and 
I should add, Canada.  The rhetoric which assumes that Canada and the 
US are *white* countries is part and parcel of this power and 
privilege which keeps white people, and mostly men, in possession of 
most of the wealth, discursive space and policy making power.  THe 
ellision of the presence of people of colour within North American 
national borders, from national narratives, identities and histories 
is very very troublesome. It's part of the larger rhetoric of racism 
which pervades both countries.

April 









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