Canucks drop image of "Asian-looking" woman from $100 bill

This is Bank of Canada's new $100 note, introduced in November 2011. Please examine the reverse (shown above) for images of racist stereotypes. Noooo... it's not the guy with the moustache, although he looks (and was) kinda WASPy. It's the woman peering into the microscope! Can't you see that she's Asian?!

Well, Walt couldn't see it either... even though he can tell the Chinese from the Japanese from the Filipinas at 50 yards. To me she just looks politically correct, i.e. not identifiable as a member of any particular race. And so it's meant to be, because this is not the original design!

Canadian Press did some digging, using the Access to Information Act. They learned that the Bank of Canada quietly had the image redrawn before the new bill was introduced, because focus group testing revealed that the first drawing made the researcher look -- horrors! -- Asian!

A 2009 report from Strategic Counsel warned the bank, "Some have concerns that the researcher appears to be Asian. Some believe that it presents a stereotype of Asians excelling in technology and/or the sciences. Others feel that an Asian should not be the only ethnicity represented on the banknotes. Other ethnicities should also be shown."

A few even said the yellow-brown colour of the banknote reinforced the perception the woman was Asian, and "racialized" the note. Toronto focus groups were positive about the image of an Asian woman because "it is seen to represent diversity or multiculturalism". Toronto, as regular readers know, adores diversity.

However, in Québec "the inclusion of an Asian without representing any other ethnicities was seen to be contentious". And in Fredericton NB, one person commented, "The person on it appears to be of Asian descent which doesn’t rep(resent) Canada. It is fairly ugly." The image might have played better in the Anglo half of New Brunswick of the woman had been doing laundry.

The bank, in a display of wussiness unusual even for Canada, immediately ordered the design redrawn, imposing a "neutral ethnicity" on the hitherto-"Asian" woman, resulting in the inoffensive image you see above. The scientist's light features and perky 50s-style hairdo make her look, well, a bit like June Cleaver. All she needs is an apron instead of the lab coat.

Canadian taxpayers will doubtless be delighted to know that Strategic Counsel's fee for studying what Canadians think of putting "Asian" scientists on their money was a mere C$53,000 (US$53,530).

Footnote: The Bank of Canada refused to release the original design. Walt's operative in Ottawa has been dumpster diving and found this behind the Bank of Canada building. Could this be the original essay? Is Canada's prime minister a conservative? Who knows...