Non-white travellers’ Canadian citizenships angers White Canadians.

The perpetual foreigner stereotype strikes again. If you are Canadian and died while travelling abroad, being White instead of Asian will protect you from the anger of Canadians. These Canadians will not be angry about you dying, but they will be angry that you were legally Canadian. Here are some better CBC comments responding to the racism, via Chinese in Vancouver:

I bet if the victims in question were white Canadians, we wouldn’t hear so much as a single blip from those loudly croaking about “Canadians of convenience”.

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Why is it SOOOOO hard to believe that Chinese Canadians, might well have traveled during the summer holiday to Hong Kong to visit friends and relatives and then go over to Manila (a short 2 hour hop from Hong Kong) for a simple bus tour???

All the comments about “handing out” passports and Chinese Canadians should “stay in the country” are insane and touch on blatant racism!!!

Should Canadians of European descent also be restricted from traveling?

The Myth of White Male Geek Rationality

People who consider themselves fully rational individuals are ignorant about basic psychology and their own minds.

It is easy for white men in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields to perceive themselves as more rational than other groups, because our society associates rationality with whites, men, and STEM professionals. When white men in STEM fields believe in this stereotype, they might assume that bias is more common in non-white people, women, and people in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. After all, these other groups seem to want to discuss bias more often, and unexamined associative “reasoning” would link bias to those who bring up the topic of bias. Under logical scrutiny, however, it does not follow that the act of thinking about bias makes one more biased.

Green Red Blue
Purple Blue Purple

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Blue Purple Red
Green Purple Green

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the Stroop effect refers to the fact that naming the color of the first set of words is easier and quicker than the second.

A basic tenet of contemporary psychology is that mental activity can be unconscious. Unconscious simply refers to any mental activity that is “not conscious”, and it is not equivalent to the unscientific New Age concept of the Subconscious. A good example of unconscious mental activity interfering with conscious intentions is the Stroop effect (right). If you try to name the colours of the colour words aloud, the first set of colours will be easier to name than the second set of colours, because you unconsciously read the words. This means that you do not have full control over your thoughts and behaviour, and your willpower or logical reasoning cannot overcome the unconscious cultural bias of being able to read in English. Of course, there are other unconscious cultural biases aside from English literacy bias.

Male geeks reclaim masculinity at the expense of female geeks.

Most male geeks* believe that they are subverting traditional masculinity by reclaiming and self-identifying with the term “geek”. For most male geeks, geek identity is defined partly as a rejection of the “jock” identity. According to the traditional high school male social hierarchy, jocks are high-status males and male geeks are low-status males; jocks are alpha males and male geeks are beta males; jocks are masculine and male geeks are “effeminate”. Thus, when a man proudly self-identifies as a “geek” in response, what he is doing is redefining what it is to be a man, redefining geek identity as masculine.

Typical male geeks argue that to be a geek is to be masculine by interpreting the scientific, mathematical, and technological achievements of overwhelmingly male persons as definitive proof that science, math, and technology are inherently male and define maleness. Such male geeks typically argue that there are innate differences between male and female brains that make success in science, math, and technology exclusive to men. Thus, arguments and studies that suggest otherwise are perceived as a direct attack on the masculinity and male identity of male geeks. According this male geek worldview, if women are equally capable in science, math, and technology, then male geeks lose their claim on masculinity and become low-status, beta, and “effeminate” males once again, because there would be nothing left to separate male geeks from women. Thus, male geeks—much more than non-geek men—tend to be emotionally and socially invested in maintaining the idea women’s brains are hardwired against understanding science, math, and technology to the same extent as men.

Scientists are “normal” people, children discover

In Drawings of Scientists, seventh graders draw and describe their image of scientists before and after a visit to Fermilab.

BEFORE	AFTER
The scientist has big square-shaped glasses and a big geeky nose with brown hair and blue eyes. I see a scientist working in a lab with a white lab coat . . . holding a beaker filled with solutions only he knows. Scientists are very interesting people who can figure out things we don’t even know exist.	My picture of a scientist is completely different than what it used to be! The scientist I saw doesn¹t wear a lab coat. . . . The scientists used good vocabulary and spoke like they knew what they were talking about.
Beth

Women of colour earn 53 cents for every white man’s dollar.

Race, gender remain workplace barriers in Ontario, Census data reveal – Employment equity programs needed to level workplace playing field for visible minorities (Toronto Star):

A new report based on 2005 Census data being released [June 3, 2010], shows that visible minorities in Ontario are far more likely to live in poverty, have trouble finding a job and earn less in the workplace.

Sexism and racial discrimination “pack a double wallop,” for visible minority women who earned 53.4 cents for every dollar a white man earned, said economist Sheila Block who wrote the report for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

“The Census data reveals that in 2005, at the height of pre-recession economic prosperity, women from racialized backgrounds working in Ontario faced real barriers to success,” she said. “They earned about half as much as non-racialized men.