narrative as willed human work
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Today's readings all explore the motif of narrative—how it is sustained, created, and modified to serve individual and collective interests. Narratives act as coping mechanisms, methods of persuasion, and a means of veiling uncomfortable histories and truths.
In Canada, the narrative of multiculturalism functioned as a tool of detachment from the past, fostering a "national amnesia." The official adoption of multiculturalism in 1971 reinvented Canada as a progressive nation, proudly multiracial and rooted in liberal-democratic ideals. This narrative allowed Canada to distance itself from its history of eugenics, Nazi-aligned racial science, and, crucially, its violent colonial history of genocide against Indigenous peoples and ecocide of their landscapes. By reconfiguring its past narrative, Canada has shaped a present one that obscures such legacies. Racism and colonial practices were reframed as relics, embodied by fringe groups like skinheads, while mainstream Canadian whites adopted the guise of a tolerant, inclusive society.
(It's worth noting that Canada's opening up to immigration was motivated more by economic necessity—the need for labor—than by any genuine embrace of diversity. Efforts to improve race relations were efforts to expand business opportunities.)
This progressive narrative does not dismantle white supremacy but works to uphold it in subtler, more insidious ways. Multiculturalism itself is laden with contradiction. While portraying Canada as a bilingual and bicultural nation (English and French), it relegates minority groups to fit within these preexisting structures of whiteness. Non=white communities are homogenized, reduced to neat, monolithic cultural blocks that erase internal diversity and intersectional nuances.
This framework reconstitutes white subjects as tolerant and benevolent cosmopolitans, while minority subjects are positioned as in need of guidance, tolerance, and integration. Immigration becomes a transactional relationship: immigrants and subsequent descendants are accepted as contributors cultural diversity—an asset under Canada's pluralistic facade. Canada distances itself from its colonial peers while rebranding cultural diversity as a property right.
It is unsettling to trace the evolution of racism in this new context of increased racial proximity between whites and non-whites. Racism shifted from overt discrimination based on biology and skin pigment to a more insidious form that ties race to culture. Canada's emphasis on culture supresses public discourse on institutional racism while sidelining the complex realities within these groups. This focus on cultural compatibility within a dominant bilingual, bicultural narrative renders historical issues ahistorical.
What is heartbreaking is the tendency of some immigrants to deny or minimize the racism they face—reminiscent of how women often downplay violence inflicted by men they live with. This denial maybe stems from a sense of indebtedness to the country that admitted them. I think of conversations with my father, who has never once complained about the racism he has experienced—whether overt or subtle. Instead, he frames his narrative around gratitude for the opportunities Canada and the States provided for him and his children.
This tension is depicted in "Blood Brothers." The narrative of money—the world's most powerful fiction—dominates one brother's life, drawing him toward material success in the West but alienating him from his roots and family. As someone who grew up materially well-off and diasporic, it is easy to criticize his choices, especially when contrasted with his brother's decision to remain at home, close to kin and heritage.
(Overall, it's easy to be dismissive or critical in a classroom setting like McGill, where the nuances of racism and multiculturalism and migration can be dissected at leisure, far removed from the lived experience.)