Our skin colour does not define who we are

This week someone posted a message on the door of the Indigenous studies office at the University of Alberta. The sign stated that it was “Okay to be white.” A day later, the same notice appeared in downtown Saskatoon.

The message is lost on me because I never heard anyone say that it wasn’t OK to be white. Let’s face it: you are what you are and the colour of one’s skin is an accident of birth.

Is this a statement of suppressed white guilt, or is it fear that white privilege is somehow under attack? This statement seems more like a cry for help than a forceful statement.

I don’t know if there is any coincidence, but it was 500 years ago that Martin Luther nailed his theses on the church door at Wittenberg, Germany. In his case, he lit the flame for the Protestant Reformation. I don’t see any close comparison in the act of posting a vague comment on the door of an Indigenous studies office, but in any event it’s not an original idea.

The Chinese have a curse that states, “May you live in interesting times,” and that is certainly the case today. We have the rise of the altright, spoiled white boys marching with Nazi flags and tiki torches and a white supremacist in office in the White House. White people somehow feel that they are under attack like never before. But is that really the case?

In reality we are living in a more egalitarian society where white privilege is disappearing and equality is becoming the norm. There should be no loser here — as they say, a rising tide lifts all boats.

But rather than confront the poor, misguided souls who post these nebulous statements, we should welcome them and bring them into the fold. These are the guys who wear sweatpants and live in their parents’ basements. They need our pity and guidance.

“White people” is cliche and rapidly becoming obsolete; Caucasian sounds too clinical — besides, it can also refer to a person from the caucus mountains in southern Russia. The recent census indicates that Canada is 22 per cent people of colour, so white people are on a demographic slide. Clearly we need a broader term.

So what do we call our pigmentally challenged brethren?

One option is to turn to the Cree view of humanity. When one thinks of humankind, think of a large bird, perhaps a turkey. In the Cree language, white people are referred to as wapiskwiyas, which translates as “white meat.” Dark-skinned people are called kaskitewiyas or literally “dark meat.” First Nations and other brown people sit in the middle, nice and toasty brown. In this analogy, we are all part of the same bird — left wing, right wing, whatever.

Another term that doesn’t refer to race is gaining traction in Indian country. The term “settler” is becoming a more commonly used word and concept to refer to the newcomers.

When she was speaking to the topic of a settlement with the victims of the ’60s Scoop, Carolyn Bennett, minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, stated, “I don’t know what people were thinking, why settlers or government thought they could do a better job than the village ...”

The media was trying to define the term ’60s Scoop — the systematic removal of First Nations children from their parents to be adopted by non-Indian homes — and along came this reference to Canadians as settlers.

“What does she mean?” one confused CBC commentator remarked.

“Settler” is a catch-all term that covers anyone who has come to the Americas post 1492. It can refer to someone who homesteaded and tilled the virgin soil, or it can refer to someone who recently immigrated and settled in Toronto and lives in an apartment.

Do white people have to worry? Is it time to circle the wagons and fight off the attacking hordes of people of colour? Are they afraid that they will become outnumbered and become a despised minority? We’ve been down that road and it isn’t fun.

It’s time to step back and relax. We need to go forward, not backward. After all, isn’t racism just a pigment of the imagination?

Isn’t racism just a pigment of the imagination?