Class and racialization

The person, the animal & the environment

Lecture 7
Monday February 14 2011

PEACE ST 2B03 / LABR ST 2W03 / WOMEN’S ST 2A03: Human Rights and Social Justice
Dr Colin Salter, Centre for Peace Studies, McMaster University

1
 Outline

• whiteness
• Strategic ignorance

2
 Prom night in Mississippi

Paul Saltzman (2009)

nothing changes until you do

3
 Strategic ignorance

• An active social phenomenon

• Specific knowledge practices

4
If they were panhandling or even if they were just
sitting, they felt as if they were being asked to move on
much more by the police... They felt that this was
because the Games were coming.
Jacqueline Kennelly (via CBCNews)

5
 For Wednesday & Thursday

• If poverty is — in a number of ways — structural,

what are some of the implications?

6
 Citations & further reading
Mark Achbar & Jennifer Abbott (2003) The Corporation, Big Picture Media.

Linda Alcoff (2007) ‘Epistemologies of Ignorance: Three Types’, in S. Sullivan & N Tuana (eds.) Race
and Epistemologies of Ignorance, Albany: State University of New York Press: 36-57.

Alison Bailey (2007) ‘Strategic Ignorance’, in S. Sullivan & N Tuana (eds.) Race and Epistemologies of
Ignorance, Albany: State University of New York Press: 77-94

Unknown (2011) ‘Homeless youth pushed out during Games’ CBCNews, February 13.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/02/12/bc-homeless-olympics.html

7
 Image sources
Mike Konopacki. 2000. ‘If there was justice in the world‘, 2000 — http://www.veggies.org.uk/calendar/2000.htm

‘Human Rights Champions’, 2001 — http://invisiblecollege.weblog.leidenuniv.nl/2007/03/11/who-wants-to-be-the-

new-human-rights-cha

‘Which do you pet, which do you eat?‘ — http://www.meatout.org/action/outreach.htm

Shane T. McCoy, ‘Detainees at Camp X-Ray’, 11 January 2002. Image in the domain image — http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Camp_x-ray_detainees.jpg

World Social Forum banner. ‘World Social Forum 2008: A Global Call for Action Another World Is (Still)
Possible’, Alliance 21 — http://www.alliance21.org/2003/article3291.html