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Citation: 

Lund, Darren E., and Paul R. Carr. “Exposing Privilege and Racism in ‘The Great White North’: Tackling Whiteness and Identity Issues in Canadian Education.” Multicultural Perspectives 12(4) (2010): 229-34.

Abstract/Summary: 

This article talks about a collaborative "Great White North" project which began through a chance meeting of the authors at the annual meeting of the "National Association for Multicultural Education" (NAME) in Atlanta in November of 2005. The authors are two White males from Canada of about the same age (late 40s) who have both been involved in anti-racism education for over two decades each. They believe that being White includes a responsibility to better understand the complex ways Whiteness works to oppress others, and their goal with the project has been to challenge oppression through an analysis of racialized privileges. Part of their purpose with this Whiteness project was to trouble the perceived quiet complacency within Canada to expose the many underlying inequities people typically refuse to acknowledge. The resulting text builds on a desire to examine Whiteness directly while avoiding reifying its centrality in multicultural education. Prior to the publication of the authors' edited collection (Carr & Lund, 2007), they were surprised at the strong negative reaction of some people to their studying Whiteness as a way of challenging racism in Canada. To balance the negative backlash to the project, the authors note that it has received some positive recognition. They hope that the plurality of views put forward through their project will fuel an important conversation and stimulate further activism in eradicating racism and other forms of oppression.

Source/Credit: 
ERIC