Abstract
Over the ten years that I have been teaching Caribbean Studies in Toronto, Canada, I have come to realize that many students new to Caribbean Studies bring certain assumptions into the classroom vis a vis the Caribbean and its people. This is partially due to persistent stereotypical images (the vacation paradise, happy natives, luxury) and negative images of Caribbean people in the media, (gun-related violence, gangbanging, drug-dealing, and so on). Racial profiling by Toronto's police (which was denied by former Toronto police chief Julian Fantino despite evidence to the contrary) 1 and monolithic constructions of Caribbean identity in which all Caribbean people are Jamaican and/or Black, provide specific challenges to the teaching of Caribbean Studies in the Canadian classroom. Conversely, “positive” stereotypical images of happy, party-loving, sexy and sexually available “natives” are also prevalent (Kempadoo, 1999; Ford-Smith, 1995). By challenging these negative assumptions, educators are able to address a variety of issues such as diversity, complexity, racism, hegemony, privilege, ethnocentrism, and colonialism/neocolonialism.
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