Whiteness and narratives of a racialized Canada-US border at Niagara

Abstract

This paper analyses accounts of a racialized Canada/US border gathered from young white Canadian border residents. I argue that these accounts clearly support scholarly and activist reports of the "racial profiling" of nonwhites. While some white interviewees criticized the border practices that they described, some also suggested that nonwhites were appropriately targeted for greater surveillance as part of a binational security project. Meanwhile there was little acknowledgement of the significant benefits of whiteness in the racialized border context. While these white narratives contradict official denials of "racial profiling," I suggest that they ultimately offer limited challenge to racially differentiated border im/mobilities that reproduce racial inequality. © Canadian Journal of Sociology.