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How the Irish Became White

I have been getting help from a number of Ryerson faculty, Steven Solomon and Alana Butler in particular, to get my head around bring issues of race, identity and sexual orientation into my courses. Alana sent me the following link, after a conversation on hour our two cultural backgrounds would have interacted historically. In my course we did not explore so much historial interactions of groups, but I directed students to explore how each had been complicit in the oppression of others, based on Ann Curry-Stevens’ works (available at http://www.socialjustice.org/). There’s lots I need to learn, but this was really interesting:

How the Irish Became White

Ignatiev traces the tattered history of Irish and African-American relations, revealing how the Irish used labor unions, the Catholic Church and the Democratic party to succeed in American. He uncovers the roots of conflict between Irish-Americans and African-Americans and draws a powerful connection between the embracing of white supremacy and Irish “success” in 19th century American society.

Also An interview with historian Noel Ignatiev.

White canes leave the partially-blind in the dark

CTV.ca | White canes leave the partially-blind in the dark

The white cane is an important tool and a clear symbol for those who suffer from blindness. But an Ontario woman says its usefulness doesn’t extend to the more than 600,000 Canadians with a less severe form of vision impairment.
Libby Thaw, a mother of four who lives in Saugeen Shores, Ont., wants to change that.

This is from a while back. Libby’s a friend from my undergrad days. She was the first person to sensitize me to issues with low vision for individuals caught in the middle of the sighted/blind binary dialectic. This is almost 25 years ago, and she’s still got something interesting going on every time I hear from her. Go libby!

Ryerson colours

Welcome to Ryerson. Today M. Moose, Yuka, his mother and I spent the day skating on Devonia pond, and making snowmen in the quad. I assume he’s looking forward to a career as a grounds keeper.