A Tip: Go camping with your white friends
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Multiculturalism, especially in big cities, can ease the racial tensions that are more obvious in rural areas like Quebec, but it doesn’t completely erase or solve them. In a diverse urban environment, a sense of comfort and anonymity allows for smoother interactions among different cultural groups, without the same level of discomfort or suspicion you might encounter in more isolated, rural settings. I experienced this firsthand during a camping trip a few years ago with my sister and dad, when we found ourselves in a very remote part of Quebec. My dad, speaking in his best Quebecois French, asked an older white man for directions. The man leaned in close, gave us a long, silent look, and then answered. It wasn’t overt racism, but there was a noticeable tension that felt out of place in a more multicultural city like Montreal. And it wasn’t just this one interaction—at the campsite, we also got a lot of curious stares from other campers, which made it clear we weren’t exactly blending in. (To be honest, we did bring atay and merguez for the BBQ.) These interactions made me realize that, while multiculturalism in cities can create a sense of acceptance and diversity, it doesn’t address the deeper, more entrenched tensions that exist in more homogenous places.
This experience made me reflect on the limits of multiculturalism as a solution to racism. As Narayanan notes, big cities provide a certain privilege, allowing people to live in a space where diversity is more readily accepted and celebrated (4). However, this "celebration" often masks the deeper issues of racism that persist beneath the surface. Thobani’s critique of multiculturalism highlights how it is used to maintain white supremacy under the guise of tolerance. As he argues, multiculturalism has been employed to reorganize white supremacy in a postcolonial era (148). While multiculturalism may present a facade of harmony in urban centers, it often redefines racism as a cultural issue rather than a racial one, allowing dominant groups to maintain their privileges while creating a false narrative of inclusivity. Thobani further explains that multiculturalism has reified culture as the primary marker of difference, defining immigrants as distinct 'cultural communities,' perpetuating the idea that their culture was the main source of their difficulties in integrating (149). This focus on culture rather than racism itself overlooks the ongoing structural inequalities and systemic discrimination that people of color face, both in cities and rural areas. Thus, multiculturalism, in its current form, does not resolve racism—it often obscures it, reinforcing existing power dynamics rather than challenging them.
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I want to go camping with @camelia_bakouri's dad tbh