THE PROCESS AND IMPLICATIONS OF RACIALIZATION: A CASE STUDY by Catherine L. Slaney A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Sociology and Equity Studies Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto ©Copyright by Catherine L. 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Slaney Department of Sociology and Equity Studies Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto Abstract This social history of the process and implications of racialization explores some of the sociopolitical and economic factors that affected the ways in which members of an African Canadian/American family resisted and/or accommodated the process of racialization over the course of several generations. The impact of selected events in the social history of Canada and the US is illustrated through an interpretation of the experiences of three generations of the Abbott family as they employed various strategies in their quest for human rights and racial uplift. In addition to focusing on how these events impacted the Abbotts when they lived in Toronto and Chicago, the study follows the subsequent migration of family members as they moved and radiated across the continent, gradually developing separate lives and racial identities. During a period of racial segregation in the US many light-skinned African Canadians/Americans avoided the repercussions of racial discrimination by passing as white. They tended to seek light-skinned or white spouses and essentially raised white families. For some families this remained a secret and their descendents were not aware of their black ancestry. Yet it cannot be denied that despite the legal and social advancement of many Blacks light-skinned individuals moved up the scale ii more readily than those of a darker hue. The study progresses to the present day descendents to explore the diverse ways in which they were implicated by their ancestor's practice of passing as white. Through a series of narratives, they share their reactions and explain how they have accommodated the forces of racialization in their own lives in order to maintain their location with respect to the colour line. The present study demonstrates how the influence of the social, political and economic forces shifted over time from one generation to the next in the process of developing racial designations for stratification purposes. This cross-cultural, cross­ border (Canadian-American), cross-generational study offers rich insight to the process of racial assimilation and acculturation within a multicultural society, from both a historical and sociological perspective. 111 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor Rose Folson, the members of my esteemed committee, Ruth Sandwell, Rinaldo Walcott and Kenneth Roy Johnson and the external examiner, Carl James for all their guidance and support. Thank you Rose for sticking by me and bringing this day to fruition. It seemed like a long road at times but it was a great learning process for me and I hope you too enjoyed the experience as much as I did. Ruth, your thought-provoking one-on-one sessions provided me with a good deal of new insight that allowed me to expand and develop my thesis in a way that truly enhanced its meaning and value. I very much appreciated the kind and generous offer of your time to walk me through that journey of discovery. Rinaldo, your feedback challenged me to explore new ways of generating ideas and creative formats that contributed significantly to the final product. I believe that process drove me to dig a little deeper and seek a little more in an effort to strive to the best of my ability. Kenneth, it was truly serendipity that prevailed when you stepped into the picture for it was at a time when I was quite clearly stuck in a rut and your calm and capable manner and invaluable advice effectively calmed my fears and encouraged me to go forward with my project. Thank you so much for seeing this through to the end. Carl, I was sincerely delighted to hear that you had agreed to be the external for this examination and I am honoured that you found it worthy enough to participate in the process. IV Foreword I became intrigued by this mystery fifteen years ago when I first encountered the Abbott papers in the Toronto Reference Library. At the time I had no relevant academic experience and no research skills to speak of. But I was keen and curious and so I pursued the evidence that slowly but steadily surfaced from the primary sources that became available. Yet it remained a family story and although it proved to be of interest to many others with similar and not so similar ancestries, it was not truly an academic study. It was my belief that the Abbott papers offered an invaluable and untapped primary source for historians who were intent on investigating Canadian black history. With this in mind I had hoped that my transcriptions of the papers would make them more available to researchers as well as the general public. However, I was not convinced that they were subsequently used beyond a superficial reading and minimal interpretations that regularly appeared in the writings of historians and journalists. I felt that the papers offered much more than had yet been appreciated and thus I was compelled to undertake my own study. The study proved to be of a very complex nature that necessarily involved convolutions in and around the subject matter that compelled me to employ a particular format. In Chapter l, I established a working definition of the process of racialization and the operational definitions were presented in the initial stages of the thesis in order to provide a venue for the subsequent discussion. My personal background led directly into the limitations of the study based on my own racial and familial location. In Chapter 2, I chose to present an historical perspective based on a literature review of history to demonstrate the various social, economic and political events that predicated the actions of three generations of Abbotts (Wilson, his sons Anderson and William and Anderson's sons, Gordon and Wilson II). In Chapter 3, I held to tradition and presented the methodology that was applied to the study of the living participants, the present-day Abbott descendents. v Chapter 4 generally provides for the presentation and analysis of the findings but in this case I decided to separate it for a number of reasons: the length of the chapter was somewhat unwieldy at sixty five pages, the literature review, quite different from that presented in Chapter 2 needed to precede the presentation of the findings that arose from the responses of the participants and the data that was collected did not fit into the format in Chapter 3 which had served to simply define the methodology. And finally, Chapter 6 aligns the historical analysis with the perceptions of the participants in an effort to make meaning of the past pertinent to the present situation faced by the Abbott descendents. Overall, the study was an attempt to bring history to life and provide meaning to those who shared an interest in the lives and experiences of those who came before. Archival research provided the foundation to the study and the narratives of the participants rendered substance to that documentation. An historical overview of the life experiences of the family members presented a unique opportunity to examine the perspectives of individuals who were affected by the acts of their predecessors. The international sample provided an opportunity to examine issues from both an American and Canadian perspective. I wanted to bring the question forward into the present-day and examine the implications of what had transpired in previous generations. The intergenerational aspect provided a longitudinal format to the study that related to the historical context of the information and documentation that had been collated. Seventeen adult members of the Abbott family responded to an invitation to participate in the study and share their perceptions of their family ancestors.