Week 3: Race, Ethnicity, and Colonialism

What are some characteristics of race?

•Race is falsely connected to biology

•Race is a social construct

• Race has been used to justify unequal treatment

Ethnicity

aspects of a person's identity that is associated with common cultural or social traits of a group

- Ethnic identity is fluid

Racialized

The process by which society imposes a racial identity on an individual or a group of people

•This classification can influence all areas of a person's life

•Term allows for a more critical examination of how racial identity

Racism

the ideology and practice based on the belief that certain racial groups are inherently superior or inferior to others

What are the two types of racism?

1. Interpersonal racism - slurs, hate crime, microaggressions

2. Structural or systemic racism - Embedded in polices and practices in society

Structural Racism and Swimming

- Swimming has historically been known as a white dominated activity

- Swimming was impacted by the segregation of swimming pools and beaches

- Segregation denied Black Canadians the equality of opportunity to swim

-Once segregation was lifted, pools were still unsafe

"See" sport performances in "racialized" terms

• Athlete's abilities, characteristics, successes

• Their womanhood

• Actions in sport and beyond

• Use whiteness as the taken-for-granted standard and norm

• A white cross-country skier from Switzerland

• Do we talk about their race? The biology of a white person?

• Explain the success or failure of people in racial terms

The achievements of white athletes are due to

• Character

• Culture

•Organization

The achievements of Black athletes are due to

•Biology

•Natural physical abilities

White supremacy

the overarching system of power that disproportionately benefits white citizens

- doesn't mean that white individuals can't/ don't experience inequality

A Note on Language - Indigenous

- "indigenous" collapses the unique histories, cultures, and experiences of various groups into a manageable category

•Indigenous people and their experiences are not homogeneous

Colonialism

The domination of people, territory, and/or an area by an outside nation or state

• Includes the political, economic, social control, and governing

- Sometimes seen as something of the past - this is incorrect

Settler-colonialism

a form of colonization where settlers claim Indigenous lands as their own and attempt to replace Indigenous societies with settler societies

Coloniality

The existence of ideas, beliefs, and narratives that help legitimize and sustain colonial hierarchies and that shape social systems •We must consider how knowledge is created and controlled to produce and reproduce colonialism

•Social sees sport through a Euro-Western lens

Settler-Colonialism and Sport

Sport and physical culture are critical sites where settler-colonialism is both affirmed and naturalized and challenged and disrupted

Three structures of invasion

• Spaces

• Systems

• Stories

Spaces

•Settler-colonialism is about land

•Securing control over Indigenous land by remaking them into settler spaces

Systems

•How sport systems reflect and uphold white settler structures, traditions, meanings, and practices

Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)

2015: the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) published 94 calls to action

•Canadians and governments are being called upon to implement these calls

- Five of the calls were related to sports

- National Sporting Organizations have not engaged with reconciliation and truth telling (acknowledging and learning about the role of sport in colonialism)

•Only 13 of the calls to action have been completed and only one is related to sport

Stories

•Stories are the stories settler Canadians collectively tell themselves about Canada, its history, and ongoing relations with Indigenous Peoples

•The hockey story:

•Canada's game

•Canadian landscape

•Playing outdoors

•Stories forge a deep symbolic connection between a people and a place

Sport as Resistance

- In Mexico City in 1968, runners Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fist during the American national anthem

-Alwyn Morris in 1984 won Gold in the Summer Olympics for kayaking

- 2012: Miami Heat - " I cant breathe"

- 2016: Kaepernick took a knee

- 2016: Minnesota Lynx

Decolonization

the unravelling of broader systems of oppression

•North American Indigenous Games (NAIG)

• created by Indigenous people for Indigenous people

•It addresses some issues Indigenous athletes face