![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
Abstract
We are at a critical moment when we must confront the relationship between racial stress and white supremacy in order to provide tools and education to combat the radicalization of young white men in Canada. White fragility insulates structural white supremacy in contemporary ways that fuel resurgent far-Right nationalism by enabling fragile “whites” to define themselves against extreme acts of racial violence while protecting the social infrastructure of white supremacy and settler nationalism.
Notes
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Acknowledgement
I am grateful for the essential criticisms and careful engagement given to me over the last two years as this essay developed. Sincere gratitude to Fazeela Jiwa, Gavin Fridell, Elaine Coburn, Feyzi Baban, Benita Bunjun, Sailaja Krishnamurti, El Jones, Masuma Khan, Amina Abijiway, Brian Noble, Sunera Thobani, Cristina Rojas, Alejandro Hernandez, Srdjan Vucetic, Jennifer Matsunaga, Ben Sichel, Reddi Yalamala, Lisa Tilley, David MacDonald, Mike Middleton, Daniel Tubb, Matthew Hayes, Nissim Mannathukkaren, John Cameron, Smadar Lavie, and Madison Gateman. This paper is dedicated to Masuma Khan, for having the courage to speak while learning, when so many others would politely turn the other cheek.
Notes
1 Dubinski, “Man in Southwestern Ontario;” Omar Mosleh, “‘Citizens Don’t Feel Safe’ as Hate Fills Edmonton’s Streets.”
2 Bannerji, The Dark Side of the Nation.
3 DiAngelo, “White Fragility,” 57.
4 Coulthard, Red Skins, White Masks.
5 Scott, “Colonial Governmentality,” 194–98.
6 Razack, “From the ‘Clean Snows of Petawawa,’” 134–38.
7 Razack, Looking White People in the Eye, 60–2.
8 Thobani, Exalted Subjects, 143–78.
9 Razack, Looking White People in the Eye; Coulthard and Simpson, “Grounded Normativity/Place Based Solidarity,” 249–55.
10 Palmater, “RCMP Invasion of Wet’suwet’en Nation Territory Breaches Canada’s ‘Rule of Law:’” Crosby and Monaghan, Policing Indigenous Movements.
11 Coulthard, Red Skins, White Masks.
12 Coulthard, Red Skins, White Masks.
13 Thobani, Exalted Subjects, 155–60.
14 Lawrence and Dua, “Decolonizing Anti-Racism.”
15 Veracini, Settler Colonialism, 3.
16 Mamdani, “When Does a Settler Become a Native?”
17 LaRocque, When the Other Is Me, 7–8.
18 Mignolo, “The Geopolitics of Knowledge and the Colonial Difference.”
19 Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspectives.”
20 Maldonado-Torres, “On the Coloniality of Being.”
21 Rojas, “Contesting the Colonial Logics of the International: Towards a Relational Politics for the Pluriverse;” Thobani, Exalted Subjects, 10; Anghie “Francisco de Vittoria and the Colonial Origins of International Law.”
22 Thobani, Exalted Subjects, 10.
23 Bhambra, “Brexit, Trump, and ‘Methodological Whiteness:’ On the Misrecognition of Race and Class 1.” Arat-Koç, “Rethinking Whiteness, ‘Culturalism’ and the Bourgeoisie in the Age of Neoliberalism.”
24 Gehl, The Truth That Wampum Tells.
25 Henderson, “Hidden in Plain Sight: Racism in International Relations Theory,” 79; Cristina Rojas, “Contesting the Colonial Logics of the International,” 378.
26 Thobani, Exalted Subjects, 68–102; Parasram, “Us & Them: The Plumbing and Poetry of Canadian Citizenship.”
27 Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility, 27.
28 Razack, “From the ‘Clean Snows of Petawawa.’”
29 DiAngelo, White Fragility, 7–35.
30 Gupta, “Why Young Men of Colour are Joining White Supremacist Groups.”
31 Canadian Press, “No Charges in Halifax’s ‘Proud Boys’ Incident as Servicemen Returned to Duties: Navy.”
32 Paradkar, “Why did Masuma Khan’s Post Invite Censure from Dalhousie if Free Speech Is So Vaunted?”
33 Jones, “Sidney Crosby Should Have Done Better.”
34 Devet, “Desmond Cole on Nova Scotia’s Street Check Moratorium: It’s About Finding a Way to Continue the Practice.”
35 Trudeau, “Canada Day Address by Justin Trudeau on Parliament Hill.” Note that the words are transcribed from Mr. Trudeau’s speech as delivered and recorded on CBC, not exactly as written on the website.
36 Palmater, “Why Canada Should Stand Trial for Tina Fontaine’s Murder.”
37 MacDonald, “Canada Guilty of Forging Crisis in Indigenous Foster Care;” MacDonald, “Canada’s History Wars: Indigenous Genocide and Public Memory in the United States, Australia, and Canada.”
38 Parasram and Tilley, “Global Environmental Harm, Internal Frontiers, and Indigenous Protective Ontologies.”
39 Helliwell and Hindess, “Empire of Uniformity and the Government of Subject Peoples.”
40 “Lynn Gehl on Reconciliation.”
41 Gupta, “Why Young Men of Colour Are Joining White Supremacist Groups.”
42 It is relevant to note that part of what likely explains my generally positive experiences in these discussions is that I am a cisgendered heterosexual man, and thus aside from being visibly racialized, there are fewer embodied points of difference between me and white men. My colleagues who live along multiple intersections do not have this experience.
43 Riga, “New Zealand Mosque Shooter References.”
44 Jones, “Who Is John T. Earnest?”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Ajay Parasram
Ajay Parasram teaches in the Departments of International Development Studies and History at Dalhousie University in K’jipuktuk (Halifax), Nova Scotia, Canada.