Some Personal Reflections

Growing up as a Chinese-Canadian in British Columbia I was aware from an early age about racial inequality. British Columbia has a long legacy of anti-Asian sentiment and white supremacy. The schools I went to condoned racist books. Images that depicted Asian women as coy, shy and submissive or mysterious, manipulative and exotic were not only accepted but promoted. Throughout my whole elementary and high school education teachers treated me according to these two stereotypes. I knew that this was racist but I had no means of fighting it. It was just too overwhelming. Even if I was able to complain who would believe me? A white guidance counsellor?

My undergraduate studies at the University of British Columbia (a bastion of white Anglo-Saxon protestant hegemony) helped me put my experience into perspective. There I met Aboriginal-Canadians and other Asian-Canadians who could relate to the issue of racism, and white Canadians who sympathized. I learned from these people that racism was part of an overall system of class which generated, maintained, and protected the power and the privileges of a small minority. It was in the best interest of this minority to keep people of different ethnic groups in subordinate positions. That way they could use us as cheap labor when times were good, as "whipping posts" when things were so-so and as scapegoats when times were bad.

But it was not until I was working in international student counseling and saw my clients being treated in openly racist ways that I began to feel that racism was morally wrong. When looking into the issue of employment I heard numerous horror stories about people who had been scientists, teachers or accountants in their own country and were now working at non-unionized, menial, minimum-wage jobs. I knew I had to do something to change the existing system.

Working With Feminist Groups

I have found it both challenging and rewarding to work with the feminist or women's community. The challenges I have encountered help me to become more committed in my work, while the benefits are so numerous I cannot even begin to count them.

Three main challenges surface when working with white feminists. The first is getting them to admit that the women's movement, like the rest of society, is inherently racist. While some white women openly exploit non-white women to maintain and preserve their power and privileges, most do not. Most, do, however, make suppositions about non- white women that are not based on dialogue or knowledge of non-white women's struggles but on their own perceptions of these struggles. Often non-white women are stereotyped as "backward" with no fully developed sense of feminism, or as more victimized by men than white women.

White women also attempt to speak for all women and in doing so ignore the fact that non-white women can speak for themselves and may have something different to say. The majority of white women likewise exclude non-white women from their institutions and organizations, whose focus is usually on the struggles women have with sexism and patriarchy and not with the struggles women have with racism. Few white women have any context for recognizing and validating the racism that non-white women feel.

Most white feminists do not do any of these things out of maliciousness or ill intent but out of lack of experience with non-white women, ignorance of their needs, and fear of making contact with the "unknown." They are afraid of what will happen when they approach non-white women or women who do not speak English. Are they going to be perceived as radicals, stereotyped as "bra-burners," or laughed at? Many white women also find it time consuming to try to make contact with non-white women and non-white women's groups. To have a true women's movement, however, white women's organizations and institutions have to recognize the existence of racism and change their attitudes and structures to become more inclusive. Few women would dispute this but almost all would ask how.