Module 5, Race, Ethnicity & Physical Culture

Question 1

Race

Answer 1

refers to socially constructed distinctions between groups of people based on physical or genetic characteristics, such as skin colour, hair type, and facial features
- race depends on a classification system through which meanings are given to physical traits

Question 2

Racism

Answer 2

refers to the assumptions, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of individuals and the institutional policies, processes and practices that flow from those understandings
- when individuals are treated in a discriminatory or prejudicial way because of their biologically different “race”

Question 3

Critical Race Theory (CRT)

Answer 3

is a term used to describe activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship between race, racism and power in society

Question 4

White supremacy

Answer 4

to describe a socio political economic system of domination based on racial categories that benefits those defined defined and percieved as white
- does not refer to individual white people and their individual intentions or actions but an overarching political, economic and social system of domination

Question 5

Core Principles: CRT

Answer 5

1. racism is not an aberration in Western societies such as Canada and the U.S., but is part of the very fabric of those societies
2. CRT rejects liberal approaches to racial justice, particularly liberal assumption of objectivity, meritocracy,, and multiculturalism
3. CRT does not endorse a zero sum understanding of power, where it is assumed that some groups have all of the power while others are powerless
4. race intersects with other axes of privilege and marginalization, such as gender, sexuality, social class, disability to name a few
5. it is not enough to focus on, and acknowledge, the outcomes of personal, organization and systemic racism in sport because this often leaves the privileges of whiteness ignored and firmly entrenched

Question 6

Situational and interpersonal racism

Answer 6

words or actions of people who believe in the superiority of one group of people (or race) over another group of people
- interpersonal racism can be unconscious or conscious

Question 7

Systemic racism (opression)

Answer 7

form of racism structured into political and social institutions
- occurs when organizations, institutions, or governments discriminate either deliberately or indirectly, against certain groups of people
- often operates through providing differential access to resource based on race
(important concept in white supremacy)

Question 8

Unconscious bias

Answer 8

are social stereotypes about certain groups of people that we form outside our conscious awareness
- unconscious biases can influence our everyday decisions and practices shaping

Question 9

White supremacy & sport

Answer 9

when whitestream cultural practices are normalized as the ‘norm,’ selecting sporting practices of individuals and groups become reframed by those in positions of power as different, less desired, and thus not worthy of support

Question 10

Ethnicity (t)

Answer 10

refers to cultural characteristics shared by a social group, such as customs, language, beliefs and history that “hold the group together and assist others to recognize them as separate”

Question 11

Indigenous peoples (t)

Answer 11

the first people/nation who inhabited a land/territory, and who thus have a right to maintain their own cultural practices and forms of societal organization on that land

Question 12

Linguistic duality (t)

Answer 12

presence of two linguistic majorities cohabiting in the same country, with linguistic minority communities spread across the country

Question 13

Multiculturalism (t)

Answer 13

can be interpreted in different ways: descriptively (as a social condition of cultural diversity resulting from immigration), politically (as policy and laws for managing that diversity), or normatively (as an ideology endorsing a free and diverse society)

Question 14

Reconcillation (t)

Answer 14

establishing and maintaining a mutually respectful relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in Canada, through an awareness of the past, acknowledgement of the harm that has been inflicted, atonement for the causes, and action to change behaviour

Question 15

Visible minorities (t)

Answer 15

defined as “persons, other than aboriginal persons, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour”

Question 16

Whitestream sport (t)

Answer 16

Canadian sport has been primarily shaped by individuals of white European heritage in ways that privilege their traditions, practices, meanings, and sport structure

Question 17

Assimilation

Answer 17

Refers to the loss of a minority group’s cultural identity as people in that group become absorbed into the dominant culture

Question 18

Coloniailism

Answer 18

The policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically