Under the Gaze: Learning to Be Black in White Society

Journal of Negro Education, The, Spring 1998 by Perkins, Brian K

Under the Gaze: Learning to Be Black in White Society, by Jennifer Kelly. Halifax, Nova Scotia: Fernwood, 1998. 144 pp. $15.95, paper.

Reviewed by Brian K. Perkins, Sacred Heart University.

As the author of this book contends, race, abstractly considered, is a sociohistorical construct; in practice, however, it is an objective fact. She further maintains that recent national and international events have brought the importance of race and perceptions of race in our global community to the forefront. Such events have had a "ripple" effect, moving from the broader circles of politics and economics to the everyday lives of citizens, particularly children and their perceptions about race. The construction and interpretation of race and racism among young people of African descent are important considerations in the understanding of social processes of any nation, but particularly in Canada and the United States. Thus, Jennifer Kelly-a Jamaican-born citizen of the United Kingdom who immigrated to Alberta, Canada, where she taught in the provincial schools for 15 years-dedicates a significant segment of Under the Gaze to the establishment of an historical perspective against which the findings of her research should be considered.

As Kelly explains, history is important in the formation and interpretation of culture and identity. Yet because histories are most often written from the viewpoints of the "victors" or dominant group in a society, she points out that "vanquished" or subordinate groups are often resistant to many widely accepted historical interpretations. For this reason, the initial text beyond the introduction to this book outlines the historical construction of race in Canadian society. Kelly notes that records of Canadians of African descent date back as far as 1605. In the 1700s, many of the country's Black immigrants arrived with their masters and mistresses as slaves or as fugitives escaping slavery in the early colonies and later United States. Others came as free Blacks fleeing persecution south of the Canadian border. The location of African Canadian settlements were more or less influenced by the prevailing economic and social conditions in the provinces. For example, early attempts by Blacks to settle in Halifax were met with Whites' resistance to Black labor competition. Racial segregation during this era led to some of the earliest recorded practices of environmental racism. Blacks arrived in Ontario in increasing numbers during the 19th century, as this city was one of the final "stops" on the route out of slavery via the so-called Underground Railroad. As Kelly affirms, these historical facts have clear implications for the manner in which today's African Canadians construct their racial identities.

Early in her description of her research, Kelly acknowledges the difficulties associated with using conventional terminology and categories to investigate and discuss issues related to race. These constructs, she asserts, are overwhelmingly the products of assumptions held by members of the dominant racial group. In the Americas, Whites of European descent have the power to influence such conventions. In the Canadian setting in particular, Kelly points out that recent studies conducted by the McGill Consortium for Ethnicity and Strategic Social Planning have demonstrated the complex nature of collecting census data related to racial categories. These studies revealed significant underestimates in the Black population of some Canadian provinces when African Canadians were asked to identify themselves. Thus, Kelly explains that she set out to conduct research that could determine how the process of racialization, or giving "raced" meanings to social situations, takes place in the lives of Black students in the Canadian setting. Yet, rather than simply setting out to answer this question or prove her thesis, she investigated and expanded upon some points that may contribute to general notions about how Black youth develop racialized identities in majority-White settings. She maintains, for instance, that selfidentification and racial categorization are directly linked to the formation and evolution of racial identity. Therefore, how that identity is formulated was deemed paramount to her research, which not only gives voice to a frequently unheard-from participant in Canadian society, but explicates this important process in the socialization of Black Canadian youth.

The setting of Kelly's research was several high schools in Alberta, selected, according to the author, on the basis of "observation"; unfortunately, she does not detail the process by which the African Canadian students were selected to participate. Most of the students, however, were born in Canada. A significant majority of the Canadian-born Black students had parents who were born in the Caribbean. A few others had immigrated to Canada with their families during their junior high school years. Kelly indicates that her data was derived mainly from focus group activities designed to gain insights into the youths' "natural" vocabulary when discussing issues of racialization and identity. Students' journal entries and one-on-one interviews were used to collect additional information. As she explains, the focus-group approach was chosen in an attempt to create a "binocular effect," such that the students' opinions would stand clear and distinct next to her own interpretations. She also notes that while her personal experiences have been quite similar to those of many native-born African Canadians, not being a product of the Canadian socialization process may have resulted in some bias in her interpretations of the study findings. These are important understandings that significantly influence the lenses through which this book's conclusions should be viewed.