Quote:
Originally Posted by Taualumna
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The most important thing to satisfy people's curiosity is that he is white.
I like the fact that they discuss how he's "self conscious of his whiteness." That's an excellent concept because for decades only racial and ethnic minorities were viewed as having a race and trends and patterns of behavior and culture. Whites (the Canadian and N American assimilation of different white ethnic groups from around the world) were the mainstream from which the practices of "others" derived and were perceived as different. "Whiteness studies" began in the social sciences because there was a need to study the pattern of attitudes, behaviors, and cultural practices of whites just as they had been studied from nonwhites for a century.
The Toronto part is interesting because it contributed to his knowledge of his whiteness. Whiteness studies were especially salient for the whites who grew up and mingle in contexts like this blogger did. They were the minority in their areas and had to hear nonwhites talk about their whiteness--kind of like how nonwhites have been hearing whites talk about them forever and have been self conscious in racial and ethnic heterogenous settings. Very interesting read.