Category: Language and race

November 2024: What’s in a name? Why identifying the specificity of racism matters

Delia

In previous blogs I have talked about the politics of naming.

To recap:
Naming matters.
Why?
Because, if something isn’t named, then, it doesn’t exist…it is not in the
realm of possibility…

Oppression, discrimination, equity, bias, microaggression…

And so – it – goes…. All are important words, but we have to wonder why these words refer to
Anything.
But.
Racism.

The ‘disappearing’ of racism is an all too familiar tactic.
Why?
Because racism persists alongside its denial…

Talking about race is necessary because of racism.

Building on the initiatives that were outlined in the September blog, this month I want to discuss both the rationale and contents of the Foundations of Race, Racism, and Anti-Racism module that was done in collaboration with the production team at KnowledgeOne in Quebec.

The module will be available to members of the RFHS and the wider community at the end of this month (via UM Learn and Continuing Professional Development).

The motivation behind the course
An important point of departure was the recognition that we inherit the legacy of that which has come before: we live in a present created by dispossession, genocide, enslavement, and ongoing settler colonial projects.

We live these histories intimately, intensely, quietly, and, at times, grievously.

Another important consideration was the overall silence regarding the meaning and significance of race, and the persistence of racism, in all of our institutions – that includes universities. In this context, it was also important to outline the pervasiveness and ordinariness of racism and the associated need to activate systemic change.

Racism is a determinant of mental and physical health and well-being, and the impact spans generations.

Where we live now: The course addresses the politics of race and racism
I often say that there is no place to stand outside of racism – and so a key point of departure in this course is not IF race matters, but How and Why.

More often than not, in Canada, when racism is mentioned, it is framed as an individual matter or an aberration, as opposed to an integral component of the creation of the Canadian nation-state.

Following the murder of Mr. Floyd in May 2020, tens of thousands marched across the United States in support of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and inspired global protests against police brutality, anti-Black racism, and racial injustice. Many people wanted a toolkit, or a 1-hour seminar – thinking that was all that was needed to either “understand” or “solve” racism.

It took us several centuries to get here…There is no quick fix or toolkit that can solve racism – if it were easy, we would be in a different place right now…

Some of the topics covered are:
Why race matters
What is race?
White matters: The social construction of whiteness
Racisms and their impact
Racial ideology and racial identity
What is racism?
Impacts of racism
Continuing your journey: Next steps

The intended audience for this course
I appreciate that people have a varied understanding of the foundations of race, racism, and anti-racism. As a society, our racial literacy leaves a lot to be desired. The course is intended to encourage people to understand that anti-racism is a journey, not a destination.

Participants will not be experts upon completion of this module. Far from it – I recognize that people come to this material from different vantage points and that they are on different paths personally and within their units/programs/Colleges/organizations.

The materials provide a range of ideas, theories, and empirical evidence, some of which will be unfamiliar and uncomfortable. Some of the materials raise deep-rooted issues, and the materials may question the values and beliefs that we hold dear. Some may prompt a more visceral response than others, and one of the learners’ challenges is to ask why that is the case.

To disrupt and dismantle racism in its various forms, we must first understand it. This course allows learners to expand their understanding of the meaning and significance of race and the persistence of racism. I hope folx will recognize how the historical past shapes the racial present and that racism is entrenched in our structures.

The course is part of our general efforts to address racism in the RFHS
The Disruption of All Forms of Racism Policy is a point of departure, not an endpoint.

By the same token, this course is a mechanism that builds on the Policy by providing people with a resource to cultivate their racial literacy by providing Faculty, staff and learners with a vocabulary for identifying and speaking to each other across our differences and facilitate the transformation of institutional and organizational cultures in the service of social justice.

The potential impact of this course on broader conversations and actions regarding racism and anti-racism
We have been in a long emergency with respect to acknowledging and addressing manifestations of systemic racism. The urgent need for organizational and institutional change has been laid bare as we have seen how race shapes who lives and who dies through the parallel pandemics of systemic racism(s) and Covid-19. As long the impact of racism(s) continues to be marginalized/ignored/denied, interpersonal and social relations will be compromised, talent will be lost, and Black, Indigenous, and racialized minority people will continue to suffer trauma and harm in a host of ways which includes death.

A new path forward toward racial justice is challenging but possible if we commit to new learning, building relationships, cultural shifts, and structural change.

I hope that it will motivate people to strategize on their responsibilities in addressing racism.

Lastly, I hope the course will encourage people to understand that anti-racism involves lifelong learning and that we all have a role to play in the disruption and dismantling of all forms of racism.

We will be taking a break in December.

See you in 2025.

September 2024: Working towards more just futures

“It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have”

(James Baldwin, 1972, p. 149). No name in the street. New York: The Dial Press.

Marcia

Welcome to the 2024-2025 academic year. I’m really proud of the work across Indigenous health, social justice and anti-racism, and the ongoing efforts to contribute to more culturally safe and racially just outcomes. Dr. Douglas continues to provide leadership in developing new educational initiatives to enhance the racial literacy of the Rady community.

Working with the Offices of Equity, Access and Participation, and Community Engagement and Social Accountability, the new dialogue series will align with the Faculty strategic priority of reciprocal  community engagement and build from passive receipt of knowledge to active dialogue. These offices provide excellent educational resources to our community, but it is up to each of us to apply that knowledge in our work and learning environments.

This year I encourage you to reflect regularly on how you can take the new things you learn, and apply this new knowledge in meaningful ways that result in more culturally safe and anti-racist environments for our increasingly diverse community. It is through your individual and collective actions that positive change will happen.

Delia

September greetings! A new academic year is upon us and as part of our commitment in working towards more just futures we will be launching a number of initiatives that we want to tell you about.

Here Come the Modules:

Foundations of Race, Racism, and Anti-Racism

This online module is one mechanism that builds on the Disruption of All Forms of Racism Policy by providing people with a resource to cultivate their racial literacy.

I understand that people come to this material from different vantage points. This module is an opportunity to expand our understanding of the meaning and significance of race and the persistence of racism because to combat racism in its various forms, we must first understand it.

You cannot get to anti-racism without reckoning with racism, so this course is an opportunity for folx to enhance their racial literacy by providing them with a vocabulary for identifying and speaking to each other across our differences in the service of social justice.

Some of the topics covered include:

  • Why race matters
  • What is race?
  • White matters: The social construction of whiteness
  • Racisms and their impact
  • What is racism?
  • Impacts of racism
  • Continuing your journey: Next steps

The Black Health Primer

The Black Health Primer officially launched on March 21, 2024, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The Primer is an 8 module online, self-paced, and asynchronous course, comprised of quizzes, case studies, reflections, and multimedia. Designed for learners from across health disciplines, professions, organizations and communities, the Primer was created in response to gaps in education and training on Black health and anti-Black racism in medicine and public health in Canada.

The Primer describes the historical context of racial oppression, explains how anti-Black racism influences the social determinants of health, and acts as a barrier to health equity. Participants will gain knowledge about anti-Black racism and Black health and this knowledge will improve the racial literacy of health care practitioners. This will enrich the health of Black communities, as well as the health of all patients. Enhanced racial literacy is imperative, as it is integral to the delivery of anti-racist care.

Dialogues of Disruption

The third initiative is a collaborative effort by all the offices that fall under the portfolio of Dr. Marcia Anderson, Vice Dean of Indigenous Health, Social Justice and Anti-Racism. This includes the Offices of Anti-Racism, Equity, Access and Participation, and Community Engagement and Social Accountability. 

In the upcoming academic year, we will be hosting a series of events in the upcoming academic year under the title: Dialogues of disruption: An invitation to work towards more just futures.

These monthly events will address a variety of themes that correspond to our areas of work, some of which include disability justice; connections, coalitions and false equivalencies: the indivisible connections between racial, gender, and lgbtqia+ justice; and anti-racism and engagement with newcomer, refugee and immigrant communities.

We wanted to draw attention to under-served and under-represented communities, along with local organizations, exploring areas of silence, marginalization, and invisibility by providing a meeting ground to collaborate in our work towards more just futures. In this spirit we will be inviting members from some of these communities to provide their indispensable input about the needs and priorities in their communities so that we may engage with them in ways that are appropriate and meaningful. It is our hope that disrupting dialogues will offer guidance in the journey of un-learning and learning, while encouraging and inspiring change and possibility.

The first event will be an introduction to each of the Offices mentioned above and an opportunity to speak to our distinct and shared work with a Q & A at the end.

Dialogues of Disruption: Upcoming Event

This event will be held on September 24, 12 to 1:00 pm. It will be a hybrid event taking place in Basic Medical Sciences Theatre-B and online. For more information or to register, visit our event page.

We all have a role to play. We look forward to working towards more just futures with you.

Resources

Black Health Education Collaborative: bhec.ca

Knowledge One Interview Foundations of race, racism, and anti-racism: https://knowledgeone.ca/interview-foundations-of-race-racism-and-anti-racism-online-course/

March 2024: Integrate this! Grammars of recognition, survival, and resistance

Marcia

As Dr. Douglas notes below, March contains both International Women’s Day and the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Maybe we need an International Day for Intersectionality to recognize the fullness and wholeness of our identities and how that intersects with our experiences of social systems that structure access to power, money and resources- including the resource of health care.

From the time I was a junior faculty member, I would often use the predictors of referral for cardiac catheterization (table 5 from Schulman et al. – linked below) to highlight how it’s not enough to just say women receive inequitable treatment for heart disease, we have to look more closely at how different women are treated.[1] This isn’t a standalone study. Other research demonstrates Black Women have a higher risk of heart disease, hyperlipidemia, high blood pressure and  diabetes but are significantly less likely to receive appropriate preventive care.[2] From maternal health outcomes to gender pay gaps, when we look more closely we see the interaction of race and gender- reminding us that both our analysis and our action needs to be more complex than trying to reduce our experiences of difference to a single variable.

[1] Table from Schulman et al. The Effect of Race and Sex on Physicians’ Recommendations for Cardiac Catheterization. NEJM (1999). https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm199902253400806.

[2] Jha et al. Differences in Medical Care and Disease Outcomes Among Black and White Women with Heart Disease. Circulation (2003). https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/01.cir.0000085994.38132.e5

Delia

Following a landmark ruling by Canada’s highest court of appeal in October 1929, some women were legally recognized as “persons.” Notably, this ruling did not apply to Black, Indigenous, or racialized minority women.

March is Women’s History Month.
March 8 is International Women’s Day.
March 21st is International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

While that ruling was passed nearly a century ago, the question of personhood, of humanness, remains a site of struggle.

I have been thinking about ongoing efforts to discipline and punish those on the margins.

Who is often excluded in language that homogenizes…which women are we referring to when we say women?

I have been thinking about women, 2SLGBTQQIA+, folx, and disabled folx – where and when (if at all) does race enter these conversations?

To put it another way, disability, gender identity, and expression, and sexuality are always racialized. Race is always present whether or not it is named. What I mean is this – there is a tendency to address race as if it is only relevant to those perceived to be raced subjects – Black, Indigenous, and racialized minority folx. Excluding whiteness from the racial order fails to identify the racialization processes assigned to people of European ancestry.

Racism occurs in 2SLGBTQQIA+ spaces. Racism occurs in disability politics. Racism occurs between and among diverse women…there is no place to stand outside of racism.

All our lives are shaped by multiple axes of power.

I have been thinking about recognition, survival, and resistance.

How might we begin to make sense of the complex ways in which race, gender, sexuality, and disability operate independently and simultaneously to shape our diverse lived experiences?

Diverse women are differently vulnerable in a society organized around heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism, and ableism. Not all women experience these violences, harms, and wounds in the same way.

We must acknowledge and prioritize complexity.

Disrupting and dismantling racial-sexual-gender-ableist hierarchies requires nuance and a rejection of either/or thinking.

The rejection and denial of difference, the rejection and denial of complexity, and the rejection and denial of personhood are part of past and present settler colonial projects.

If we can’t recognize the specific identities and experiences of people, then we won’t be able to adequately respond to their needs.

Kimberlé Crenshaw’s framing of intersectionality discourages us from attempting to determine one form of inequality as separate from other forms of inequality. For example, it does not see race as more or less important than gender, rather it acknowledges and responds to people’s experiences as simultaneously shaped by the intersections of the various elements of identity, including race, gender identity, and expression, sexual orientation and ability. Intersectionality is a lens that does not position forms of inequality against each other to determine who has endured harm, resulting in a hierarchy of oppression which is itself another form of harm.

So, I am thinking about the need for a racial literacy that is expansive in its capacity to identify and challenge multiple systems of oppressions at once. It is a racial literacy that considers disability and its integration with anti-racist, feminist, and queer practices in its conceptualization of social justice struggles.

Resources

Lindsey, Treva, B. (2015). “Post-Ferguson: A “Herstorical” Approach to Black Violability.”  Feminist Studies, 41(1), 232-237.

Simms, Sy, Nicolazzo, Z., & Jones, Alden. (2023). Don’t say sorry, do better: Trans students of color, disidentification, and internet futures. Diversity in Higher Eduation,16(3), 297-308.

December 2023: Creating anti-racism pathways: Being the change

Delia

In August 2020, the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences Faculty Executive Council approved The Disruption of All Forms of Racism Policy (DAFR), the first anti-racism policy to be passed by any Faculty or post secondary institution in Canada. In November 2023 the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences Faculty Executive Council approved revisions to the DAFR Policy.

The DAFR Policy constitutes a formal recognition of racial harassment, racial discrimination, racial vilification, and racism. It is an affirmation of a) the histories of dispossession, enslavement, genocide, and their legacies; b) ongoing settler colonial projects; and c) the humanity, rights, dignity, and safety of Black, Indigenous, and racialized minority learners, staff, and faculty.

However, while the Policy is an important structural intervention, it represents a point of departure and not an end point.

In conversations about anti-racism, I often hear “I don’t know what to do/what should I do”?

This very question can place an added weight of expectations, responsibilities, and burdens associated with addressing issues related to racial (in)equity, racism, and racial justice on Black, Indigenous, and racialized minoritized persons. I mention this, because this question can be an expression of defensiveness/resistance, which can result in inaction.

You may be familiar with the phrase: the “only way out” is through… Some of the next steps associated with disrupting and dismantling racism(s) involve the active process of challenging one’s own biases and prejudices, as well as actively engaging in the work of disrupting systemic racism by dismantling the policies/social relations/attitudes/practices that promote and/or sustain racial inequality.

In response we have drafted a number of documents to guide and support you in your efforts to enhance your racial literacy and efforts to disrupt/challenge/eliminate the structural arrangements/policies/social relations/attitudes/practices that promote and/or sustain racial inequality and perpetuate racism.

Marcia

I spend a lot of time thinking about how anti-racist and social justice change will happen in our faculty and in the health care system. We have done a lot of work to offer educational opportunities and resources, and there are many more options to enhance your racial literacy online, at conferences and in the arts. However, as we know from every single behavioral health intervention ever, education alone is not enough. Like many aspects of organizational culture, racism is deeply embedded not just in policies, procedures and practices but also in the more invisible aspects like the stories that get told, the coded language that gets used, and the disapproval and even backlash people face when they try to speak up.

These parts of the invisible organizational culture are not things we can change from the Dean’s Office or the Office of Anti-Racism. These require us all to show commitment and leadership in meaningful action. The tools attached are meant to guide your work at the Unit, Department or College level as you seek to build your anti-racism strategies, hire more diverse candidates with anti-racism expertise, and build your own and your team’s racial literacy.

In November I launched a group coaching program to support Faculty Leaders in their anti-racism and social justice work. In 2024 the Office of Anti-Racism will be launching a council or community of practice to support you as you take action across Rady’s Units, Departments and Colleges. If we are going to have a New Year’s Resolution, let it be this: that we all develop a further understanding of our individual and collective anti-racism and social justice responsibilities, and begin (or for some continue) taking visible and meaningful action.

Resources

In November 2023, Dr. Marcia Anderson (Vice-Dean, Indigenous Health, Social Justice and Anti-Racism) launched a group coaching program to support Faculty leaders in their social justice and anti-racism work.

In 2024 the Office of Anti-Racism will launch an Anti-Racism Community of Practice- stay tuned for a formal announcement, name and dates.

This work requires all of us to understand and act on our responsibilities as members of the RFHS community.

We hope that the attached tools will help you on the next steps in your Units, Departments and Colleges. The toolkit contains the following resources:

  • Anti-Racism Strategy Template
  • Anti-Racism Resource List
  • Rady Equity, Access and Participation Strategy
  • Anti-Racism and Social Justice Terms of Reference Review
  • Anti-Racism and Social Justice Syllabus Statement
  • Guide for the Implementation of Anti-Racism and Social Justice Syllabus Statement
  • Suggested Anti-Racism Competencies for Job Descriptions
  • Rady Performance Conversation Review with Anti-Racism and Equity
  • Guideline to Anti-Racism and Equity on Performance Conversation Review

These materials can be found on the Office of anti-racism website.

November 2023: Raceing gender engendering race: Collective struggles and the “fierce urgency of now”

“Encounters between dominant and subordinate groups cannot be ‘managed’ simply as pedagogical moments requiring cultural, racial, or gender sensitivity. Without an understanding of how responses to subordinate groups are socially organized to sustain existing power arrangements, we cannot hope either to communicate across social hierarchies or to work to eliminate them.”

Sherene H. Razack (1998, p. 8). Looking white people in the eye: Gender, race, and culture in courtrooms and classrooms. University of Toronto Press.

Marcia

Last year I read the United Nations Human Development Report with concern as it documents a decline in the global Human Development Index for the second year. Trends in increasing and intensifying polarization that I thought maybe I was just seeing in the work I do were reported as part of a global phenomenon in increasing uncertainty. Democratic backsliding was identified, which raises concerns about the erosion of human rights for structurally oppressed populations. As described below we’ve seen this evidence very close to home – and in my role I always have to question how this will impact members of our Faculty community and the communities we serve? As the quote below says – this is a time for vigorous and positive action.

Delia

August 28, 1963. At the March on Washington, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated that “we are confronted with the fierce urgency of now,” adding “[t]his is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”

November 2023. 60 years on…Dr. King’s statements remain true.

This past May some residents in the Southern Central Region of Manitoba attempted to defund the library and have sexual education books designed for children removed from their library system.

In June a 24-year-old former University of Waterloo student entered a gender studies class stabbing two students and an instructor. According to police this was a planned and targeted hate motivated attack linked to gender identity and expression. The accused also damaged a pride flag.

In June and August provincial governments in New Brunswick and Saskatchewan have moved to require parental consent before students under 16 can have schools use their preferred pronouns and name. In October the Premier of Saskatchewan invoked the notwithstanding clause to ensure that his policy, Bill 137 passed. Parental consent is now required before a child under the age of 16 can use a different gender related name or pronoun at school.

Here in Winnipeg, in June protests occurred during the Louis Riel School Division’s school trustee meeting where antagonistic behaviour, along with homophobic, transphobic, and racist remarks were directed towards staff and families. The police were called in and the meeting ended early. In response the Louis Riel School division moved its September Board meeting online due to ongoing tensions and hostility regarding members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

This past September (20th and 24th) was followed by two protests and counter protests that took place at the Manitoba Legislature regarding the teaching of sexual and gender diversity and related policies in public schools.

While safety is a varying condition, at school and in the workplace, using the name a person wants to be called is not only respectful, it is an affirmation of that individual’s personhood. It is an affirmation of their humanity.

Furthermore, affirming the gender identity of queer, non-binary, and trans folx is linked to lower rates of suicide attempts.

“This is no time for apathy or complacency.”

Gender Diversity

In April 2022 Statistics Canada began disseminating census data on the gender diversity of the population. Here are some of the findings:

  • One in 300 people in Canada aged 15 and older are transgender or non-binary.
  • In May 2021, there were 59,460 people in Canada aged 15 and older living in a private household who were transgender (0.19%) and 41,355 who were non-binary (0.14%).
  • Close to two-thirds (62.0%) of the 100,815 individuals who were transgender or non-binary were younger than 35.

Beyond the Binary

Sexuality, gender diversity, gender identity, and expression. What’s race got to do with it?

While the Stats Can information on gender diversity begins to address a notable data gap, it does not tell us about their racial and/or ethnic identity. Queer, transgender, and non-binary folx are not a homogenous group. Our multiple identities influence our access to different levels of power. There are those who have a measure of protection or more privilege within marginalized groups.

To put it simply – we are not equally vulnerable – our vulnerabilities, and consequently our harms, are not the same. It is therefore imperative that we make visible and acknowledge those who are “the margins of marginalization” (Lindsey, 2015, p. 237).

Racism(s) and white supremacy expose Black, Indigenous, and racialized minority 2SLGBTQQIA+ peoples to more danger and greater risk of discrimination. 

Representation matters. This has implications for how we respond to and organize for social justice.

It is imperative that we make visible and affirm the experiences, interests, and needs of Black, Indigenous, and racialized minority 2SLGBTQQIA+ folx.

Racism, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and settler colonialism are local/regional inter/national problems. We cannot eradicate inequality and injustice unless we recognize the interconnectedness of systems of domination and challenge the divisiveness of hierarchies of oppression.

We are undeniably living in challenging times as local and intern/national policies and practices become more ruthless, intensifying existing inequalities.

We must broaden, complicate, and connect our discussions and activism regarding gender, race, and sexuality so that we are better able to respond to the varied interpersonal and systemic violences that shape where we live now.

“This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”

Resources

Cacho, Lisa. M. (2012). Social death: Racialized rightlessness and the criminalization of the unprotected. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Lindsey, Treva B. (2015). Post-Ferguson: A “herstorical” approach to Black violability. Feminist Studies, 41(1), 232-237.

Statistics Canada. (April 2022). Filling the gaps: Information on gender in the 2021 census. Available at: https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/ref/98-20-0001/982000012021001-eng.cfm.

Travers. (2019). The trans generation: How trans kids (and their parents) are creating a gender revolution. New York, NY: New York University Press.

United Nations Development Program. (2022). Uncertain times, unsettled lives. Available at: https://hdr.undp.org/content/human-development-report-2021-22.

October 2023: Racial mythologies, racial realities, and the damage done

“Unlike the United States, where there is at least an admission of the fact that racism exists and has a history, in this country one is faced with a stupefying innocence.”

Dionne Brand, 1998, p. 191. Bread out of stone. Toronto, ON: Vintage.

Marcia

The academic year of 2023-24 is going to be a year where we focus on supporting anti-racist change in the day-to-day environments that our Faculty community is learning and working in. Over the past few years (and building on decades of work before), we’ve passed a policy, learned some lessons through early implementation of it, and developed many supportive tools and resources. The Office of Anti-Racism continues to work on additional educational resources, but policies and education aren’t enough until they begin to result in different actions in our work and learning environments. Our focus this year is to help bridge that gap by working with leaders and by challenging some of the narratives or discourses that get in the way.

The work of anti-racism requires active UNLEARNING- a willingness to take in new information and let go of mythologies that we previously thought were true. Many of us were taught to think of Canada as a racial utopia- the destination of the Underground Railroad, after all. Few of us were taught about our own history of enslavement of African Peoples or of the anti-Indigenous racist narratives that underlined the first Prime Minister’s approach to Indian policy, including but not limited to his decisions regarding residential schools.

This month’s blog will help us understand why we have a hard time even seeing racism and why we often choose to only see intentions, but not the impacts of racism- but in the seeing is the possibility of change.

Delia

This month we consider racial mythologies to point out how these commonly held beliefs and practices work to distort and undermine the systemic and everyday nature of racial inequality.

Racism in Canada: The evidence of things not seen

The poignant title of Baldwin’s (1985) book, The evidence of things not seen, captures the essence of racism in Canada: that racism is not seen – or is more often denied. The refusal to believe that there is a connection between violence and prejudice is one of the consequences of narratives of a nation that continue to erase our heritage of dispossession, genocide of Indigenous peoples, the Residential School System, enslavement, the internment of the Japanese, the indentured labour of the Chinese, and racist immigration policies such as the Continuous Journey legislation, and the Domestic Scheme.

It bears repeating: We inherit that which has come before.

We’re not Racist, We’re Multicultural

“Things are not as bad as in the U.S.”

Our proximity to the United States and the attendant privileging of U.S. racial discourses, combined with its acknowledgement of its history of racial violence, supports Canadian narratives of racial guiltlessness/innocence. This has contributed to the belief that Canada’s national identity is one of racial virtue. In addition, promotion of multiculturalism and the fact of Canada’s diverse population convey generosity and goodwill. This thwarts recognition, making it practically impossible for many to acknowledge the existence of racism, or consider even the probability of racism and structured racial inequality.

It’s a thin line between tolerance and hate

I have long been wary of the eagerness to invoke the term tolerance when talking of racial relations in Canada. Does tolerance mean that we accept domination, or that we abhor it? (And who is tolerating whom here?) Who determines who/what should/should not be tolerated. I recall my father (a professor of sociology) saying that tolerance is not acceptance of difference. And therein lies the rub. We may very well be a tolerant nation, but this is hardly an admirable quality in and of itself because it does not indicate an unconditional embrace of difference; rather it suggests disingenuousness on the part of the dominant. On those rare occasions where racism is acknowledged, it is typically understood as hidden, understated, or an aberration (i.e., less harmful). We have embraced a very limited and limiting understanding of the nature and experience of racial oppression; we are virtually incapable of seeing that which stands before us.

Tolerance is a form of everyday violence.

Ways of (not) seeing

No doubt you have heard people say: “I don’t see colour, I only see people.” Growing up I was told “I don’t think of you as Black.” How does that work exactly? Or more to the point – Why?

Here is the thing – the performance of noticing, but not taking race into account is a fiction. This claim to colourblindness, or what CRT scholar Neil Gotanda refers to as “non recognition,” is not possible. In his words, “It is impossible to not think about a subject without having first thought about it at least a little.” He adds, “an individual’s assertion that [s/he/they] ‘saw but did not consider race,’ can be interpreted as a recognition of race and its attendant social implications, followed by suppression of that recognition. In other words, although non-recognition is literally impossible, colorblindness requires people to act as though it is” (as cited in Crenshaw, 1997, p. 101). In other words, colourblindness involves a particular construction of race rather than the elimination of racial difference and racial inequality.

“That was not my intent”

I want to revisit the attack on the young Black Muslim woman in the Olive Garden restaurant in Transcona earlier this year (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-olive-garden-stabbing-guilty-plea-sentencing-1.6958928). During the sentencing hearing the perpetrator apologized to the young woman, and repeated that his attack was not a hate crime.

The perpetrator and the police have stated that hate was not the motivation for the attack.

Is that it then?

Whose views count?

At the sentencing hearing, the young Somali Muslim woman provided a victim impact statement, recounting her emotional and physical struggles.

She described how she used to be active, but she now struggles to walk up stairs since she suffered a collapsed lung as a result of the stabbing, and she has difficulty holding up her head at times, because the muscles in her neck that were cut are still weak. She also described being “awake at 3 a.m. in the morning, clutching a kitchen knife under [her] pillow in the sweltering heat because [she] couldn’t bring myself to close the window for fear that [he] had somehow escaped and was waiting for the moment [she] might go down.”

“I can’t do anything except wonder why my life was so minuscule to you.”

Racism is about impact not intention.

The understanding of racism has to privilege those impacted by it, not the intentions of the actors of it.

Part of taking racism seriously involves shifting our focus from intent to impact. Why? – because the harm occurs whether or not the offender is cognizant of their intentions, and attitudes. This distinction is crucial because it decentres the feelings/claims of the perpetrators and acknowledges the experiential knowledge of the targets of racism(s).

The young Somali Muslim woman understood and experienced her attack as an expression of anti-Black gendered Islamophobia.

The notion that the targets of racism are not able to discern a situation of violence – of anti-Black gendered Islamophobia – means that the violence persists. That is how everyday racism(s) continue. The denial/the claim of knowing when and where racism enters, to impose a definition of reality where racism does/does not exist is the normalization of racism.

How many times have we heard people apologize and say that was not their intent? These are narratives of refusal. These are narratives that are integral to maintaining hierarchies of worth – hierarchies of humanness.

Until we prioritize the targets of violence we will protect and sustain an atmosphere, a social world, without accountability – a world where racism does not happen, except acts committed by mal-intended individuals. We will continue to engage in racial gaslighting – undermining, ignoring, and denying the experiences of those who are the targets of violence without remembering – their voices matter, their lives matter.

Nice/Good people aren’t/can’t be racist

I am sure you have heard people assert that a) they/a friend/colleague, etc. is not a racist/could not possibly be racist, because they are good/nice/educated/kind/well intentioned. According to this claim, they could not be racist, because racism consists of intentional explicit acts of hatred directed against someone because of their perceived racial gender sexual identity. This narrative is focused on the goodness or badness of a person and returns us to the idea that racism is an individual act that is the result of willful intent. So, if a person doesn’t set out to make racist statements or acts, then they are not racist, and racism did not happen. Nothing to see here. I would call this response an escape strategy. This claim is significant because we are taught to see how racism puts people at a disadvantage but, not how it simultaneously advantages others.

Racism is about impact not intention.

Making a claim that one is not a racist, is not the same as being an anti-racist. Anti-racism refers to ways of being and thinking that work to disrupt/challenge/eliminate the structural arrangements/policies/social relations/attitudes/practices that promote and/or sustain racial inequality. Anti-racism involves the commitment to eliminate all forms of racism as well as the discrimination, injustice(s), inequalities, and harms that are the result of racism(s). It refers to the active process of acting to challenge not only one’s own biases and prejudices, but to engage in the work of actively dismantling racism(s) as part of a system of oppression.

Moments of danger moments of possibility

Behind claims of a successful multiculturalism lies a much harsher racial reality. We are undeniably living in challenging times as local and global practices become more ruthless, intensifying existing inequalities.

Racism(s) may look different in Canada, but it is still racism. Seeing this, seeing these racisms, is where the possibility of change enters.

Resources

Baldwin, James. (1985). The evidence of things not seen. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company.

Crenshaw, Kimberlé. (1997). Color-blind dreams and racial nightmares: Reconfiguring racism in the post-civil rights era. In T. Morrison & C. B. Lacour (Eds.), Birth of a nation‘hood: Gaze, script, and spectacle in the O. J. Simpson case (pp. 97-168). New York, NY: Pantheon Books.

Essed, Philomena. (2002). Everyday racism: A new approach to the study of racism. In P. Essed, & D.T. Goldberg (Eds.),Race critical theories: Text and context (pp. 176-194). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

McKendrick. D. (September 7, 2023). ‘I have been struggling’: Victim of Olive Garden stabbing shares horrors of attack, man sentenced. Winnipeg CTV News. Available at https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/i-have-been-struggling-victim-of-winnipeg-olive-garden-stabbing-shares-horrors-of-incident-man-sentenced-1.6552108.

July Blog: Part 2: Identifying grammars of resistance and refusal on the ground

Delia

The Politics of Language

Thinking about language as a site of struggle provides new sets of questions and invites new way of thinking, speaking, and disrupting racism(s). 

Case in point, we need to be attentive to the fact that anti-Black racism is not one thing.

Following the murder of Mr. George Floyd in May 2020, attacks on Black and racialized minority Muslim women in Canada increased. Identifying these attacks solely as incidents of Islamophobia does not capture the specific vulnerabilities, stereotypes, and harms different Muslim women face. The violence that these women experienced is emblematic of anti-Black gendered Islamophobia. We need to employ language that recognizes the specificity of Black and racialized minority Muslim women’s experiences as this provides clarity and furthers our ability to understand and respond to their needs. To do otherwise is to dehumanize the very targets of racial violence and terror further by denying them the supports and resources they require and deserve.

As Audre Lorde reminds us, “We don’t lead single issue lives.” In order to understand the full effects of racism, we have to see how race intersects with other forms of difference such as gender identity and expression, sexuality, dis/ability, etc. 

Language matters.

Just as Black folx are diverse, so too are manifestations of anti-Black racism.

So, if our consideration and commitment to addressing anti-Blackness focuses solely on the violence done to cis Black heterosexual men, while ignoring the voices and experiences of Black Muslims, Black queer, trans, and gender diverse folx, and Black disabled folx, then we undermine the movement for all Black lives. We cannot disregard or erase those in our communities who are typically positioned on the margins – our language should take in to account the diversity and complexity of Black peoples. 

A grammar of resistance and refusal refers to language that captures the nuances and complexities of racism(s) expands the conversation and enables us to attend to the fullness of who we are. 

In 2010 Moya Bailey and Trudy introduced the concept misogynoir to capture the particular forms of discrimination Black women experience when anti-Black racism and anti-Black misogyny collide in popular culture. Their insights are a purposeful intervention, one that recognizes the gender and sexual diversity that exists among Black women and captures the unique challenges/experiences/violences that confront diverse Black women. They also coined the term transmisogynoir to describe the particular challenges and forms of dehumanization that Black trans women face. 

Enter Eternity Martis: This past March the University of Manitoba invited Eternity Martis to give the Robert and Elizabeth Knight Distinguished lecture. Martis, a Black and South Asian journalist, author, and faculty member at Toronto Metropolitan University discussed her 2020 memoir They said this would be fun: Race, campus life, and growing up. Describing how she was simultaneously exoticized, desired, and disparaged, Martis offered a critical lens regarding the intricacies and intimacies of how anti-Black misogyny, anti-Black gendered racism, and anti-Black sexual and gender-based violence are embodied. Crucially, she linked the all too familiar ways in which she was perceived and treated according to Canada’s history of enslavement, and the attendant white supremacist narratives about Black women’s sexual availability. Martis also offered points of connection and points of difference among and between diverse Black, Indigenous, and racialized minority women, providing potential pathways to establishing support for coalition and solidarity work in the areas of racialized sexual and gender-based violence and policing within Black communities and beyond.  

The marginalization of violence against Black women and their disposability endures – these are some of the circumstances behind the activism of two Black women – namely Tarana Burke’s life work and her founding of the MeToo Movement, and the Say Her Name campaign initiated by Kimberlé Crenshaw.

Denial, disposability, and the damage done

In August 2022, Daniella Mallia, a 23-year-old Black woman, sought support and police protection from a violent former domestic partner. Ms. Mallia reported her concerns to two members of the Toronto police force. However, despite providing abundant evidence to substantiate her concerns about the threat her ex-partner posed, Ms. Mallia was cautioned: she was treated as a perpetrator rather than a target. Three days after filing a report with the Toronto police, Ms. Mallia was found in an underground parkade, the victim of a shooting. Her ex-partner has since been charged with first degree murder and one Toronto police constable is facing numerous charges including neglect of duty and making false or misleading statements related to his encounter with Ms. Mallia (a second officer is involved but the charges have not yet been made public). Ms. Mallia was not simply disregarded, she was criminalized. Ms. Mallia was not deemed worthy of protection – rendering her disposable. The absence of empathy demonstrates how the intersection of systemic anti-Black gendered racism, anti-Black misogyny, and gender-based violence contributed to the tragic violent end to Ms. Mallia’s life. 

Expanding our circles of connection is part of an ethics of struggle. 

Creating spaces that recognize our humanity, diversity, and complexity offer possibilities for Black, Indigenous, and racialized minority folx to find connections across our differences.

This journey towards racial justice invites a commitment to learning and unlearning. We cannot disrupt and dismantle all forms of racism unless we challenge the divisiveness of hierarchies of oppression and recognize the interconnectedness of systems of domination.  Just as we have to recognize that people’s experiences of racism are simultaneously shaped by their gender identity and expression, class, sexuality, dis/ability, and spiritual practices, we have to recognize the ways in which our histories and our communities are simultaneously distinct and connected.

Holla if you hear me…

#Tarana Burke: #MeToo
#Kimberlé Crenshaw: #Intersectionality; #SayHerName

Resources

Bailey, Moya and Trudy.  (2018). On misogynoir, citation, erasure, and plagiarism. Feminist Media Studies, 18(4), 762-768.

Beauttah, Biko. (19, April, 2021). Commentary: Black trans women need to be listened to, supported. Global News.

Carter, Adam. (29, March, 2023). Toronto cop who allegedly ignored domestic violence report charged after woman’s death. CBC. 

Huncar, Andrea. (4, March 2021). Edmonton Muslim women rally in solidarity after hate-fueled attacks. CBC. 

Martis, Eternity. (2020). They said this would be fun: Race, campus life, and growing up. Toronto, ON: McClelland & Stewart.

Reclaiming power and place: The final report of the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people.

Sengupta, Joyita. (28, June 2020). In a time of protest, Black LGBTQ voices rise.

Statistics Canada. (2021). Gender based violence.

Ware, Syrus M. (2017). All power to all people? Black LGBTTI2QQ activism, remembrance, and archiving in Toronto. Transgender Studies Quarterly, 4(2), 170-180.

Yourex-West, Heather (2021). Why are Alberta’s Black, Muslim women being attacked.

April 2023: Part 1: Integrate this! Identifying grammars of resistance and refusal

“The oppressed struggle in language to recover ourselves, to reconcile, to reunite, to renew. Our words are not without meaning, they are an action, a resistance. Language is also a place of struggle.” bell hooks (1996, p. 146). 

“There is no thing as a single-issue struggle, because we do not live single-issue lives.” Audre Lorde (1984, p. 138).

(This month’s blog is part 1 of a two part discussion on the politics of language).

Delia Douglas

Where we live now: Translation terms and racial realities 

Language matters.

We have been in the long emergency with respect to acknowledging and addressing manifestations of systemic racism. The events of the past few years have laid bare the ordinariness of racism, underscoring that there is no place to stand outside of its reach. The parallel pandemics of systemic racism(s) and COVID-19 highlight how race shapes who lives and who dies. From the disproportionate impact of the virus on Indigenous, Black, and racialized minority communities, to the police violence directed against Indigenous and Black folx, to the racist targeting people of East Asian descent, and the rise in Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. These most recent examples emphasize the normalization of racism which is the very definition of systemic racism.

As long the impact of racism(s) continues to be homogenized/marginalized/ignored/denied interpersonal and social relations are compromised, talent will be lost, and people will continue suffer trauma and harm in a host of ways which will include death.

In order for us to disrupt and dismantle racism, we have to understand it. Racism is typically understood in simplistic and homogenous manner, however, there is no singular definition of racism. Rather, racism takes many forms, some of which include symbolic, embodied, psychological, institutional/systemic, every day, and interpersonal. 

The violence is psychological, physical, and cultural. We are far more familiar (and indeed comfortable) with allegations of racism that involve white supremacist and extremist groups. There has been far less attention given to the ways in which our daily lives are crucial sites through which practices and beliefs regarding white racial superiority/power/domination are produced.

Racism is dynamic, and our language must adapt so that we are able to address our racial realities and avoid oversimplification/erasure/silence/lateral violence. We need language that is expansive, disruptive, and ultimately transformative.

As Audre Lorde reminds us, “We don’t lead single issue lives.”  Consequently, if we are to understand the full effects of racism, we have to see how race intersects with other forms of difference such as gender identity and expression, sexuality, dis/ability, class, etc. 

Dr. George Sefa Dei, a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, uses the term “integrative anti-racism” to address the fact that people’s experiences of racism are shaped by the multiple elements of their identity such as gender, class, sexuality, and ableness. Talking about intersections is vital for us to be able to adequately understand and respond to the various ways in which racism(s) are manifest. However, while policies, strategies, and practices should address the integrative character of racism(s), he argued that we also need to be able to respond to the distinctiveness of anti-Black racism(s), anti-Indigenous racism(s), and Islamophobia in their myriad forms (e.g., engendered, dis/ability, sexuality). 

Language is indeed a site of struggle. As a tool of resistance and refusal, it can help us to create spaces that recognize our humanity, diversity, and complexity, and in so doing offer possibilities for Black, Indigenous and racialized minority folx to find connections across our differences.

…to be continued.

Resources

Dei, George S. (1995). Integrative anti-racism: Intersection of race, class, and gender. Race, Gender & Class, 2(3), 11-30.

Essed, Philomena. (2002). Everyday racism. In D. T. Goldberg & J. Solomos (Eds.), A companion to racial and ethnic studies (pp. 202-216). London, UK: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

hooks, bell. (1990). Yearning: Race, gender, and cultural politics. Toronto, ON: Between the Lines.

Lorde, Audre. (1984). Sister outsider. Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press.

March 2023: Racial matters: What is race? Who is ‘raced,’ and the role of disaggregated data in advancing health equity

“…any doctrine of racial superiority is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous and must be rejected, together with theories that attempt to determine the existence of separate human races, …”

United Nations, 74th session, January 27, 2020.

Delia Douglas

Context – Racial Matters: What is race? Who is ‘raced’? 

As a sociologist working in the health sciences, I am continually confronted by the separation that exists between the social sciences and health sciences – a division which is not unintentional, but part of the way in which white supremacy operates through the reproduction of race-based medicine and racist assessments of patients. However, in order to disrupt and dismantle the many forms of racism that exist, we must first understand it. 

So, what is race? 

Race is a social and historical construct, not a biological difference. Despite the failure of science to demonstrate that our physical differences represent racial superiority and racial inferiority, biological racism (scientific racism) persists. There remains a profound investment in the belief that our visible physical differences signal proof of one’s ability, potential, and capacity: our humanness.

Marcia Anderson

From the time I started medical school in 1998 through the H1N1 pandemic (and beyond) with the exception of some of my Black and Indigenous colleagues, if a physician taught, talked about, or researched racial gaps in health outcomes it was framed as a question of genetic difference (e.g. the thrifty gene theory or T-cell immunity differences). Framing racial health gaps as the result of racism was unpopular, to say the least.

As an early public health doctor however, one of my role models was Dr. Camara Phyllis Jones who is an anti-racism activist and academic and former President of the American Public Health Association. She defines racism as “a system of structuring opportunity and assigning value based on the social interpretation of how one looks (which is what we call “race”), that unfairly disadvantages some individuals and communities, unfairly advantages other individuals and communities, and saps the strength of the whole society through the waste of human resources.”

When I consider the differential impacts of COVID-19, HIV, and the new CMAJ guidance on the reporting of race and ethnicity in research articles, I see that this is where the social sciences and health sciences have to meet.

Delia and Marcia

The reason we need to talk about race is because of racism. 

Similar to race, racism is about how we make sense of difference, it is based on the false assumption that physical differences such as skin colour, bodily features, and hair texture are related to intellectual, moral, or cultural superiority. 

This enduring investment in innate difference is a matter of life and death – the belief is used to justify racial inequality, it informs policies, relationships, it influences how people are seen and treated. It denies the fact that racial meanings are dynamic and shaped by the social, historical, and political context in which they appear. The belief in race as a biological difference is an attempt to silence and suppress histories of genocide, dispossession, enslavement, heteropatriarchy, settler colonialism, and the attendant violence(s) of domination. In this context the role of science – of race as a biological difference – is employed to ensure that our differences are understood as inevitable/unchangeable/unalterable and thus don’t need further interrogation or intervention.

Who is ‘raced’?

Across North America, those typically identified as raced are those identified as Black, Indigenous, or a member of a racialized minority community. In other words, those identified as ‘non-white.’

This brings me to the matter of whiteness -whiteness is a location within the racial order and one of advantage, as highlighted by Dr. Jones. Whiteness is an element of identity and part of the system of racial categorization and while this also varies over time and place, it is shaped by the past and present of dispossession, genocide, enslavement, and settler colonialism. Usually unmarked, whiteness usually operates as the default category (e.g., the norm); whites are typically regarded and identify as ‘raceless,’ or simply human. Consider this –- to only regard Black, Indigenous, and members of racialized minority communities as racialized is an example of how a system of racial classification and hierarchy has been normalized. White people are “just human” while Black, Indigenous, and racialized minority folks are, well, regarded as something else: humans with caveats.

It is important to bring whiteness into this conversation because it is imperative that we acknowledge that we are all racialized, engendered, and sexualized (to name but a few components of our identities). Naming whiteness also signals how we are all located in relations of domination and subordination. Making whiteness visible allows space for us to understand how the marking of the so called ‘racial other’ simultaneously involves the making of the dominant…with respect to racism it means that we are able to not only recognize the harms and hardship of racism(s), but how it also benefits those who are not its targets.

Resources

Jude Mary Cenat. (2023). Who is Black? The urgency of accurately defining the Black population when conducting health research in Canada. CMAJ July 18, 2022, 194 (27) E948-E949; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.220274. 

Stuart Hall (1997). Race the floating signifier. Producer: Sut Jhally. Media Education Foundation.

Camara Phyllis Jones. (2018). Towards the Science and Practice of Anti-Racism: Launching a National Campaign Against Racism. Ethnicity and Disease August 9, 2018, 28 (Suppl 1) 231-234; DOI: https://doi.org/10.18865%2Fed.28.S1.231. 

Matthew B. Stanbrook and Bukola Salami. (2023). CMAJ’s new guidance on the reporting of race and ethnicity in research articles. CMAJ February 13, 2023, 195(6) E236-238; DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.230144. 

United Nations. (2020). A global call for concrete action for the elimination of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and the comprehensive implementation of and follow-up to the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action. Available at: https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N19/426/41/PDF/N1942641.pdf?OpenElement.