Working with Difference

Dr. Wright discusses four different frames or ways of understanding how difference plays into our experiences in Canada.

While multiculturalism is the quintessential Canadian frame, Professor Wright argues that it is inherently limiting, casting inequality as a byproduct of individual circumstance, which institutions like philanthropy address through targeted granting. In this way, multiculturalism and meritocracy are intertwined. Regardless of your background, if you get educated and work hard, you will be tolerated and fare well.

Multiculturalism is founded on the claim that merit trumps any disadvantage of birth in Canada.

...What multiculturalism means is that Canada is characterized by tolerance, by equality, by meritocracy, etc. So that problems such as intolerance and discrimination, or poverty or other forms of inequality are an aberration. They're due to ignorance or due to unfortunate circumstances.

Now with such a conception, philanthropy can contribute to strengthen the positive qualities of multiculturalism and also contribute to ameliorate the problems that are faced by the unfortunate in community and society ...Like things are okay in general, and you just help those who might need some help.”

- Handel Kashope Wright

Professor Wright contrasts multiculturalism with anti-racism and decolonization, which start from the premise that neither merit nor tolerance is enough to compensate for the uneven field on which people from minority racial and ethnic backgrounds exist. In each of these distinct frames, community institutions are responsible for centering BIPOC (anti-racism) and Indigenous experiences (decolonization), and defining problems and solutions in reference to a longer arc of history.

...So Canada is a vertical mosaic…, built on a foundation of racist exclusion of racialized others, and the nation state still practices systemic racism against Indigenous, Black and People of Colour... To undertake philanthropy within an anti-racism framework, to my mind, is to work consciously with [racial groups], and especially minoritized racial groups, and to place the task of addressing Indigenous and visible minority or racialized groups and vulnerable communities as a priority; to contribute to community groups from [racialized neighbourhoods] and working to address racism and related problems that make for intersectional racism; that is, the inextricable combination of racism, sexism, xenophobia, religious intolerance, all of those kinds of things that sometimes people simply refer to as Islamophobia, for example, that is faced by Muslim women who wear the hijab.”

- Handel Kashope Wright

...Rather than think of the largesse of Canada in its tolerance and welcoming of immigrants, we need to think of this as deeply ironic, deeply an extension of colonization rather like invading someone's home and then inviting others to join you in squatting there, right? To undertake philanthropy within this frame, is to place Indigenous peoples - First Nations, Inuit and Métis - to place them first. It is to rethink the organization and its working from a new perspective, from an Indigenous perspective. It is to engage, support, and collaborate with Indigenous people in all the work, to make it about them, or to take their perspectives and ways of knowing and doing into account in how the work is done and how it addresses the issues of all groups.”

- Handel Kashope Wright

Finally, Professor Wright offers class as a forgotten and out-of-favour frame. This frame focuses on social hierarchy, and unequal access to material resources, power, and influence. Community institutions steeped in a class analysis would look at how society itself is organized and monetized, including considering these dynamics within minority communities. A class frame means redefining ‘‘money talk’ as transparent practice, rather than crass or taboo.

An institution with a class analysis considers whether people without university education have influence over its decisions and resource use.

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  Frames drive action

  The analysis we bring to what we experience and witness in our society informs our sense of the work to be done. This is true of individuals as well as institutions.
  
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  Multiculturalism is the dominant frame

  In Canada, especially at an institutional level the dominant way of understanding how we treat differences is encapsulated by official multiculturalism.
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  Anti-racism, Decolonization, and Class are critiques

  Other frames offer up a different explanation for why some people have higher or lower social and economic standing based on racism, colonialism, and classism.
  
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  You can apply more than one frame

  Frames aren’t mutually exclusive, though sometimes they may be in tension in terms of the factors to which they attribute the greatest influence.

Experiences & Observations

What are your own inclinations when it comes to the frames you actively apply to philanthropy (multiculturalism, anti-racism, decolonialism, class consciousness), or have an interest in exploring? Where do you feel the compatibility or incompatibility of frames in your work? What barriers do you experience to further exploring these frames?

Reactions & Impressions

Where do you feel opposition to different frames? What’s at the root of that reaction? Resentment, fear, cynicism, or another emotion? Try the ‘5 whys’ (asking ‘why’ of your initial response until you get to a deeper response, x5)

Questions & Hunches to test

Imagine a foundation you are close to adopted a different dominant frame. What is one thing you would start doing and one thing you would stop doing if that were true?