I thought Dr Ronit Lentin’s piece on the ‘assumption of whiteness’ (15 January 2012) was spot on in a number of observations, particularly where she notes that institutional and State racism continue.
I had noted the same thing in a letter I sent to the marketing executive of a large and very expensive project that was once planned for Carrigaline town centre in Co Cork, after the developers encouraged feedback from local residents.
I wrote of the plans: “They contain for me one unsettling aspect: the projected users of these new facilities would be exclusively white. I concluded this because the human figures portrayed in your drawings/artist’s rendition exclude depiction of any other race.
“I know quite a number of local residents, all tax paying, some who are Irish citizens, others married to Irish natives, who are of Asian, African, and South American descent. The demographic composition of the entire Cork region has been changing significantly in recent years but this is not reflected in your drawings. And yet, these people would be valued paying customers of your new facilities.
“Furthermore, their very presence would contribute significantly toward the new Carrigaline gaining a reputation for genuine cosmopolitanism. Yet representations of their races are omitted from the projected future of Carrigaline which you have on display.
“So I would be very pleased if you could rework the human dimension in your drawings so that our non-white local residents do not feel cold-shouldered from the new Carrigaline.”
Eventually the whole project went belly-up as we hit hard times. But that attitude, the presumption of whiteness, continues right on.
Imelda O’Connor
Carrigaline, Co Cork
