Racism at first sight.
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“The sight of someone’s body was vested with the capacity to judge that person’s identity” (Larochelle, 101). That pretty much sums it up. This is what was basically taught and is being taught not only to Quebecois but also to other white communities. The phenotypic qualities of a person (including the sartorial equivalents of phenotype) were enough to perceive, characterize and recognize the ‘Other’.
The goal was the creation of an erudite population capable of keeping up with increasing globalization global affairs. However, it is done by constructing racial identities that were reduced to “morphological clues”. These clues are not superficial or merely phenotypic. They are indicators of morality and also the capacity for moral thought. It also particularizes the type of intelligence that these people could possess. It created a hierarchy of races. As a matter of fact, the discipline of Anthropology was basically white scholars attempting to categorize other peoples while simultaneously creating racial hierarchies, making sure that white supremacy was unequivocally maintained and reinforced.
Badri Narayanan’s experience in Beauce is a very good example of lasting racial notions that have been generationally inculcated. In many cases the identity has been reduced to one word. Tamoul and Paki, are particularly lazy examples of these. Though the term “curry munchers” may be more accurately reductionist. Larochelle mentioned something important about children’s education. It is important to note that children are very often taught through visualizations and works of imagination. Both create mental images of the Other. Both project the Other as different. Now ‘different’ can be either good or bad. But, the long-standing tradition of racialism makes it almost an automatic practice to place the Other as inferior on the totem pole of racial hierarchies. But even if the Other is not seen as inferior, he is still seen as “not-white” and thus, existing outside of the normal. His birth place and level of integration always remains a secondary element to his phenotypes.
Larochelle and even Martin have argued that since the phenotype is the first characteristic perceived (visually), it is the one that starts the process of judgment. To the eye that has been trained to recognize and judge people based of their appearance, the character of the person matters less. For the most part, the race (and related phenotypes) is enough to modulate one’s behavior during an interaction. In other words, it is racism at first sight.