This week has revealed what S. Razack calls Canada's racial "amnesia," the persistent denial of our long history of racism. As an historian, this forgetting is frustrating but not surprising. Here's a thread, using Heritage Minutes, to show how this amnesia is actually learned.
First, let me cite Razack's work. Check out the essays in this book, including the introduction by Razack and her difficult chapter on the murder of Indigenous woman Pamela George in Regina: btlbooks.com/book/race-spac…
Razack argues that Canadians hold certain core myths about themselves - they are tolerant, multicultural, peacekeepers et al. - that are invented, propagated, and learned in ways that serve to hide the real history of racism and genocide that Canada, like the US, is built on.
In short, we learn about history in selective ways that reinforces racial amnesia, protects the status quo, and leaves Canada's deep, systemic racism in tact - allowing people to make denialist claims today. Let me use a couple of Heritage Minutes to show how this works. #cdnhist
Heritage Minutes are pretty ubiquitous - like them or not, they have been influential in shaping the way many people think about "Canada's History." For more, see @JohnHenryHarter's recent piece: canadiandimension.com/articles/view/…
Let's start with this one, on Sioux leader Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (Sitting Bull). Here the "Canadian exceptionalism" myth is on full display, that Canada, and the Mounties, treated Sitting Bull and the Sioux better than the US. That's the take away:
The actual history is more complicated. Canadian authorities were very concerned about Sitting Bull's presence in Canada, fearing he would encourage other Indigenous nations (particularly the Blackfoot) to violently resist Canadian colonization. Canada lacked an army in 1870s.
So, the NWMP was called upon to surveil and suppress any Indigenous resistance. Diplomacy was used only because Canada did not have the resources for war. Moreover, as is referenced quickly at the end, Canada used other abuses to get their way, including starvation polices.
For more on starvation as colonial policy and the violence of western colonization that corrects Canadian myths of benevolence re: Indigenous peoples, see Howard Adams "Prison of Grass" and James Daschuk "Clearing the Plains." abebooks.com/9780773610293/…
Here is another minute that provides a historical lesson that *teaches* racial amnesia. This minute informs the viewer that many enslaved Blacks from the US fled to Canada between 1840-1860 via what is known as the Underground Railway:
The Underground Railway minute again pushes the myth of "exceptionalism" - that Canada is better than the US re: treatment of Blacks - but fails to mention that Canada, too, has a history of slavery. Here is a piece by @NHenryFundi on that history.
Here, also, is the work of @naomimmoyer and Funké Aladejebi on the story of Chloe Cooley: graphichistorycollective.com/project/poster… 
On more recent anti-Black racism, see @LateefMartin's poster on the George Williams protest, with an essay by Funké Aladejebi: graphichistorycollective.com/project/poster…
OK, last example, is Nitro, about Chinese labourers building the railway. Now, after watching you might say - but, Sean, this one does not make the white foreman look very good, how does this promote racial amnesia like the others? historicacanada.ca/content/herita…
Well, the minute sets up this history as the foreman simply looking for someone (who just so happens to be Chinese) to do dangerous work. The clip does not situate this in moment in systemic anti-Chinese racism - prevailing white supremacy, policies like the Head Tax etc.
As a result, it allows the viewer to see this kind of racism as an anomaly, the result of a bad apple, rather than systemic and institutionalized injustice. Historians like Tim Stanley have corrected this myth, showing how anti-Chinese racism helped build the railway and Canada.
See, for example, Stanley's writing on John A. Macdonald's anti-Asian and anti-Indigenous racism: macleans.ca/politics/ottaw….
Much more could - and should - be said about Canada's racial amnesia, its deliberate forgetting of ongoing history of racism, and how it is playing out in the current context in the statements of ignorant, white, male politicians this week: cbc.ca/news/canada/to…
And lots more could be said about recent Heritage Minutes that *try* to offer more complicated understandings of history, though I would argue they do so in ways that keep many core myths in tact, still.
I guess my small point here - which is really more of an amplification of the work of my colleagues - is that politicians like Doug Ford are wrong, obviously, when the deny the history of racism, but many Canadians have learned about history in ways that support such claims.
Canada, like the US, invents certain myths about its history that it uses to protect the status quo. These are whitewashed, selective rememberances - and it is not just the Heritage Minutes; it's uncritical statues of John A, it's bad textbooks, it's poorly designed curricula.
Rather than continuing to deny what is undeniable, then, right now is an opportunity to do better; to take stock of the past and present - and interrogate the ways we have been taught to see and understand them - to determine what kind of future we want to build together.
History education - the way we learn and teach about the past - has an important role to play here in building a better world, and we (especially white, settler Canadians) need to reckon with and rectify our learned racial amnesia. It's getting critical/has always been critical.
A starting place can be seeking out the many, many resources created by BIPOC writers, and doing the hard work of unlearning and relearning - and talking to loved ones. See canadianwomen.org/blog/ending-an…, see also this collection edited by @ProfWlkr: books.google.ca/books?id=W1YQ7…. Good luck!
As a public historian committed to history education, I'll take questions here - as long as they are respectful (racists will be blocked and reported, as usual) - and DMs are open for requests for further resources etc.
