published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

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This thesis explores the notion of whether or not race is a determining factor in how African-Canadians perceive their subjective well-being. To this end, this study seeks to understand Blacks perception of what constitutes their identity and how they resist against minority consciousness. Also examined are their integration aspirations and the set of strategies they use to claim mobility status in mainstream North American society. The areas explored reflect interviewees' perceptions of the social factors that determine how they view their well-being. The data for this inquiry is gathered from in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Data from focus groups, are discussions that I facilitated while working on the Montreal Black Communities Demographic Project. Empirical research is used to support the data at specific points. / Analysis of the data does not support the view that Blacks perceive their well-being as dependent on their status as racialized subjects. Research findings do however show that the social determinant of race has an impact on the strategies Blacks choose to obtain socio-economic status.

This creative project has been a poetic attempt to deal with the inner experience of black culture. Many schools of thought have been explored in relating the peculiar plight and circumstances that surround the black man in American society today. This study follows the conditions and thoughts of the black man during slavery up until the present day in America. The topics explored are: On Slavery, On The Ghetto, On Equality, On The Believers, On Black Education And Miseducation, and On Black Beauty.Much of the poetry and interpretations in this creative project speaks directly to black people. However, a large proportion speaks directly to white people; hopefully it will stir both race's social imagination to right the critical racial problems that plague the United States.

This dissertation asks how we should conceptualize white identity in the United States. I examine how we should measure white identity and assess the characteristics of white identity, primarily the robustness and durability of white identification. Taken together, the four papers offer two conclusions. First, traditional measures of white identity underemphasize the relationship between political preferences and white identification. I argue that we should instead characterize white identity in terms of adherence to white racial norms. Second, as opposed to narratives that portray white identity as reactionary, I find that white identity is remarkably durable in the face of both positive and negative information about whiteness.

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