26 June 20
A new word has entered the lexicon: racialized. It is a word used to name people who aren’t white. But does the construction of the word ‘racialized’ itself betray an underlying racism?
To racialize, you have to start with something and change it into something else. For example, to radicalize a person you start with someone of commonplace views and, by some process, change them into a person of radical views. Hence, to racialize you start with someone who has no race and you give them one. Imparting someone a race is the act of racialization, and, from nothing, the person so processed is racialized. That’s literally what “racialized” means, the product of a completed process of imparting a race.
White people are not considered racialized. They have no race. They are the matter you start with that you racialize. Whiteness is posited as the norm, the blank canvas you start with, and then racialize into a “racialized” person.
What are the values implied by the term racialized? The protesters imply that racialized means something different from the norm, and possibly inferior on that account. After all, they’re protesting that the imputation of inferiority is wrong.
‘Racialized’ means that blacks, Hispanics, aboriginals, etc. are construed as derivatives from whites, and whiteness is the parent norm. This foundation of a hierarchy of racial classification carries the stench of a deplorable racism. Cancel it.
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