Category: Social justice

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/

June 2024: Bodies in motion, bodies at play: What’s race got to do with it?

“Everyone I see playing basketball is black. Everyone playing basketball must be black. If I am not black, I can’t play basketball; if you are black, you must be a basketball player”

Patricia J. Williams, 1997, p. 51. (Seeing a Color Blind Future. New York, NY: Noonday Press).

Marcia

I love to watch the Olympics, and I’m looking forward to the Summer Games this year. As I watch events this year, I’ll be holding questions from the blog Dr. Douglas has written below. Sport- like in some arenas of medicine- has some deeply engrained biologic assumptions about race. I wonder how these seep into my consciousness when I think about who is on the podium at what events, what this means about my assumptions about muscle mass and how this might infiltrate my thinking then when I’m in clinical spaces. This year, and with the very helpful critical reflections below, I’ll be challenging myself to see where I still carry assumptions about “natural ability” and push myself to see the hard work, persistence, and discipline of the athletes.  I’ll ask myself the challenging questions about how income and opportunity gaps that do occur by race are impacting who we see represented in what events, in the results, and in the media coverage.

Delia

Continuing the conversation about sport matters, this month’s blog takes up the question of race, sex, gender, and embodiment….

The WNBA (Coming to Toronto in 2026!), NBA, PWHL, NHL, soccer, tennis, pickleball, track and field… oh yeah, and golf …

Although sport is a key part of North American culture, we tend to underestimate its cultural and political significance: it is a place where different histories, traditions, and myths meet and intersect, creating cultural meanings and identities which travel across different mediums, national borders and commercial markets. It is a place where major cultural and political debates about identity, community and politics are staged and performed.

Sport is a visual and a visible field. It is a place where social dramas play out between different groups – historically and in the present.  Recall Jesse Owen’s victories at the Berlin Olympics, Althea Gibson breaking the colour bar at Wimbledon, Jackie Robinson’s trailblazing in MLB, Taffy Abel and Willie O’Ree’s groundbreaking presence in the NHL, Evonne Goolagong’s victory at the French Open, Cathy Freeman’s run to gold at the Sydney Olympic Games, and South Carolina vs Iowa in the NCAA women’s basketball final (I gotta give Coach Staley and co their flowers).

Because sport (and physical activity) are bodily practices, they enable the continued observation and discussion of sex, gender identity and expression, and racial difference in analyses of performance. In this context, the preponderance of certain groups in particular physical activities, coupled with their absence in others, has been readily interpreted as evidence of the natural differences in the ability and potential of different social groups. These patterns of participation are significant precisely because their visibility/visual logic conveys power and privilege; over time what we see becomes what we recognize and believe. potent cultural narratives about different groups are produced and normalized. In turn, because we have been socialized to be unaware of the ways in which power and privilege work in these settings, customary patterns of perception regarding sex, gender, racial, and sexual differences are perpetuated.

Sport studies scholars CL Cole and Susan Birrell explore how sport is a difference and power producing system” (1990, p. 18): it “works to differentiate winners from losers, the men from the boys, and the men from the women” (p. 18). I would add that sport also works to differentiate different racialized, engendered (gender identity and expression) and embodied groups. Simply put sport constructs and normalizes a binary logic of separation – this either/or framing does not allow for nuance, diversity, or complexity.

Think of it like this – putting a basketball in a hoop and explosive speed are actions that are seen, rather than interpreted. This is one of the key elements of the power of sport; namely, it is an area of life that seems to exist in the realm of the natural and is therefore not seen as requiring interpretation (Willis, 1982).

However, things are not so simple. We are socialized to be unaware of how the “seeing” of race and other social differences are in fact an interpretation rather than an objective account of what is ‘there.’ For example, the hypervisibility of some groups and the exclusion of others tends to bolster prevailing beliefs about racial difference that rely on biology to explain performance and participation rates.

For example, the fact that the times for the men’s 100 metres, the distance thrown for the shot put, etc. are different from those for women have been used as a way of reinforcing prevailing gender ideologies about a clear binary, one that confirms the so-called superiority of “men” over “women” (Willis, 1982). In the same way the success of Black athletes in basketball and sprint events, reinforces longstanding beliefs about the presumed natural athleticism of Black athletes. FYI – in the 1970s and 80s the sprint events were dominated by athletes from central and eastern Europe; in the 1960s 20% of the NBA consisted of Black players, currently over 70%, and the NHL is 97% white). Correspondingly, this presumed athletic superiority is believed to indicate bodily prowess over powers of the mind.

But ask yourself this: why isn’t the visibility and success of white Europeans in winter sports not read as evidence of innate athletic superiority and the absence of intellectual ability, but instead as confirmation of discipline and mental application? This typical “reading” of difference in athletic performance between different groups illustrates how the meaning and import of athletic performance and sporting events hold a cultural and political significance that extends well beyond the fields of play.

Sport is a complex and contradictory space, for it is a place where the presence and success of 1 or 2 Black, Indigenous, or racialized minority athletes is seen as evidence of equality – or of the absence of racism – rather than exceptions to systemic racial exclusion and racial tension.

Sport is a crucial locus of social justice struggles. It not only teaches us to “see” difference, sport teaches us to regard some differences as more important than others, amplifies them, and then uses them to support beliefs about sex, race, and gender inferiority and superiority – beliefs which uphold social inequality (Willis, 1982).

We will be going on summer hiatus: the blog will return in September.

Resources

Birrell, S., & Cole, CL. (1990).Double fault: Renee Richards, and the construction and naturalization of difference, Sociology of Sport Journal, 7(1), 1-21.

Douglas, D. D. (2018). Disqualified! Serena Williams and Brittney Griner: Black female athletes and the politics of the im/possible. In K. Farquharson, K. Pillay, P. Essed, and E. White (Eds.), Relating worlds, of racism: Dehumanization, belonging and the normativity of whiteness (pp. 329-355). London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hartmann, D. (2002). Sport as Contested Terrain. In D. T. Goldberg & J. Solomos (Eds.), A companion to race and ethnic studies (pp. 405-415). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

King, C.R. (2007). Staging the Winter white Olympics: Or, why sport matters to white power. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 31(1), 89-94.

Willis, P. (1982). Women in sport in ideology. In J. Hargreaves (Ed.), Sport, culture and ideology (pp. 117-135). London, UK: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

May 2024: Sport matters: Black female athletes: Sistas are doin’ it for themselves

Marcia

It is fascinating to see how women- and in particular the majority Black players of the WNBA- are using their power to collectively advocate for health equity and racial justice. There has been lots of discussion and studies about how greater inclusion of women in medicine resulted in significant culture shift. I wonder how the leadership from Black Women in sport will shift professional sporting culture and equally be part of the work in health care to interrupt all forms of racism.

Delia

Never Surrender, the Unapologetic Lives of Black Female Athletes

I want to begin by giving a SHOUT OUT to the South Carolina Gamecocks and Head coach Dawn Staley for winning the Women’s National Collegiate Basketball Championship, capping off their undefeated season (38-0)!!

Sport matters.
An important cultural site of interracial competition, cooperation and antagonism, sport has played a profound role in civil rights and social justice struggles in North America and across the globe. For Black folx throughout the diaspora, as a visible source of entertainment and possibility, sport has provided them with opportunities to gain recognition through physical struggle, not just for their athletic achievements, but it has also been a place to pursue their dreams, secure their corporeal integrity, and declare their humanness and citizenship. While Colin Kaepernick has undeniably been a driving force for the current generation of activist athletes, the visibility of his public protest is matched by the invisibility of his Black female counterparts. Change agents in their own right, diverse Black women have always been integral to Black liberation struggles.

Celebrating its 28th year, the WNBA was built out of the labour, fierceness, and love of Black women: 76% of the players and 19% of the owners are Black.

In 2016 in the wake of the killings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling members of the Minnesota Lynx held a pregame press conference to talk about police killings. In subsequent games they along with players from other WNBA teams wore plain black T-shirts. Five days later the league fined the New York Liberty, Phoenix Mercury and Indiana Fever 5000 dollars and their players 500 dollars ostensibly for violating the league’s uniform policy, a policy that requires players to exclusively wear official league uniforms during and before all games and practices and not alter the uniforms in any way (this fine was more than the 200 the standard uniform violation fine).

To give you some context, in 2014 the WNBA initiated an LGBTQQIA+ Pride campaign during Pride month in June, the first professional sports league to do so. The league’s selective consciousness refers to the fact that when WNBA players wore t-shirts with a rainbow heart displaying the words Orlando united, after the Orlando nightclub shooting, players were not penalized. Notably, the National Basketball Association did not fine its members when they wore t-shirts stating, “I can’t breathe,” following Eric Garner’s death.”

Several days later the league rescinded the fines.

In 2020 the WNBA Social Justice Council was formed. It is an activist committee run by the WNBA and the players union. With support from advisers including Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza, they raised awareness about issues of race, voting rights, LGBTQQIA+ advocacy, and gun control.

This year the league is focusing on women’s health reproductive rights and civic engagement (with a focus on how voting impacts reproductive health within racialized minority communities in the U.S.). They have partnered with Opill which is an over-the-counter daily birth control pill that is available in the U.S.

“Everyone watches women’s sports”
The t-shirt ain’t lying: 18. 9 watched the women’s national basketball final between South Carolina and Iowa, peaking at 24 million (FYI: 14.8 million watched the men’s final).

Former WTA superstar Serena Williams and retired track and field icon Allyson Felix have drawn attention to Black maternal health following their life-threatening experiences during childbirth. Initially doctors did not believe Williams whose knowledge of her own body and medical history, namely her previous experiences with blood clots, led to her challenging the skepticism of her doctors, and ultimately saving her own life.

According to U.S. data the maternal mortality rate for Black women is 2.6 times the rate for white women. In May 2023 former U.S. track and field athlete, Torie Bowie died due to complications related to her pregnancy. The autopsy revealed respiratory distress, high blood pressure and eclampsia. Towie’s teammate, Allyson Felix, developed preeclampsia (as did Beyoncé) during her first pregnancy resulting in an emergency C-section at 32 weeks. All three of the gold medalists on the 4 x 100 metre relay team at the Rio Olympics, three Black women, had serious complications during their pregnancy. Felix’s relay teammate, Tianna Madison disclosed that went she went into labour at 26 weeks, she went to the hospital with her will and healthcare directive. Both she and Felix continue advocating for better Black maternal care.

With respect to reproductive health Black women in Canada are three times more likely to have fibroids than white women, are more prone to endometriosis (and less often diagnosed) and are screened less often for cervical cancer. In addition, the lack of accurate data regarding maternal mortality in this country is highly problematic. What we do know is that racism and racial inequality play a part in maternal mortality across North America (see Martis 2020).

World champion gymnast Simone Biles and WTA star player Naomi Osaka are advocates for prioritizing mental health and are working to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness.

I wanted to draw attention to diverse Black female athletes’ resistance and activism because their labour, love, and commitment are an important step towards acknowledgement of the complexity and the interconnection of Black liberation struggles. Their experiences and insights provide an opportunity for us to begin to recognize places of common or related oppression and struggle, which could subsequently offer a foundation for coalition work in support of justice and recognition of the value of all Black Lives (Cohen 452).

This is an Olympic year, so more there will be more sport talk coming.
Stay tuned.

Resources

Cohen, Cathy J. (1997).  “Punks, bulldaggers and welfare queens: The Radical potential of queer politics?” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 3(4), 437-465.

Felix, Allyson. (15 June, 2023). Allyson Felix: Tori Bowie can’t die in vain. Time.com. https://time.com/6287392/tori-bowie-allyson-felix-black-maternal-health/.

Giroday, Gabrielle. (15 November, 2019). Lack of health data hurting Black Canadian women u of t researchers find. U of T News. https://www.utoronto.ca/news/lack-health-data-hurting-black-canadian-women-u-t-researchers-find.

Martis, Eternity. (4 June 2020). Why Black women fear for their lives in the delivery room. Huffpost.com. https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/black-maternal-health-canada_ca_5ed90ae3c5b685164f2eab93.

Parris, Amanda. (1 February, 2024). I made a documentary about the Black maternal health crisis. Then I experienced it. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/i-made-a-documentary-about-the-black-maternal-health-crisis-then-i-experienced-it-1.7101607.
(see her documentary Standard of Care).

Reuters. (15 June 2023). Allyson Felix demands better maternity care. Reuters.com. https://www.reuters.com/sports/athletics/felix-demands-better-maternity-care-black-women-following-bowies-death-2023-06-15/.

von Stackelberg, Marina. (24 April 2024). Canada’s cancer screening guidelines are out of date. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cancer-screening-canada-guidelines-1.7180878.

WNBA. (9 April, 2024). Opill and WNBA team up for ground breaking partnership. WNBA.com
https://www.wnba.com/news/opill-and-wnba-team-up-2024.

n.d. Every breast counts. Women’s College Hospital Healthcare. https://www.womenscollegehospital.ca/care-programs/peter-gilgan-centre-for-womens-cancers/every-breast-counts/.

April 2024: In/tolerable violences and the damage done

“I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name. My name is my own my own my own”

(June Jordan, 2005, pp. 309-311).

Marcia:

As a parent when I hear the dogma around parental rights in schools as it relates to gender identity and sexual health teaching, I shudder. Maybe it’s because I’m also a physician who is familiar with the evidence of how important affirming gender identity is, how it improves mental and physical health in ways that are life-saving. Over and over I have thought, please, if it is needed to protect my child, put their rights ahead of mine. I love them. I want them to be safe and wholly them. As it happens we are in community and kinship with queer and gender diverse/ expansive folks. My kids have experienced a lot of safety and freedom to explore their fluid gender identities, and they will continue to. But I need all of us to be working together to make it safer in every setting for children and youth to have the safety to do so. We must not under-estimate how important this is to their and to our community’s wellbeing. 

Delia:

We find ourselves in challenging times with multiple local/regional/inter/national events colliding. In his book Disposable youth, critical pedagogy scholar Henry A. Giroux talks about how the culture of cruelty and punishment has become normalized. In his words, “legitimate forms of organized violence against human beings increasingly considered
disposable, . . . Such practices are increasingly accompanied by forms of humiliation in which the character, dignity, and bodies of targeted individuals and groups are under attack. (p. 36)

One of the challenges we face involve the increasing attacks on 2SLGBTQQIA+ folx. These attacks are local…national…global.

In June 2023, in a gender studies class, a University of Waterloo professor and two of her students were stabbed by a recent graduate due to his hatred regarding gender identity and gender expression.

Also, in 2023 New Brunswick and Saskatchewan passed legislation targeting gender affirming care, and requiring schools to seek parental consent if a student wants to use a different pronoun or name in the classroom.

In the fall of this year Alberta’s provincial government intends to introduce legislation that will affect transgender and non-binary youth and adults. Some of these changes include requiring parental notification and consent before a school can change the name or pronouns of any child under the age of 15. In addition, parents will have the option of opting-in their children whenever a teacher plans to teach about gender identity, sexual orientation, or sexuality.

Last month Manitoba’s interim leader of the Opposition for the Progressive Conservatives voiced a desire for similar practices in the province’s schools.

These legislative moves and proposed practices are part of the widespread targeting of trans and gender diverse peoples, and sexual minorities. In February Canadian Security Intelligence Services issued a warning regarding the continued and heightened threats of violence against 2SLGBTQQIA+ communities by individuals and/or groups who adhere to violent extremism some of which is religiously motivated. They noted that the violent discourse is expressed by white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and the Freedom Movement.

This is another example of the interconnectedness of different systems of domination: white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and settler colonial projects.

In a society organized around racial, sexual, gender, and class hierarchies folx will experience their racialized gender identity and expression and sexual orientation in different ways.

On February 8 Nex Benedict, a non-binary Indigenous youth died – one day after being assaulted in the bathroom in their high school. Shortly after the altercation, they described how the continued bullying and harassment prompted the fight. They died the following day.

Let’s be clear – attempts to regulate gender identity and expression and the opposition to teaching 2SLGBTQQIA+ content is not only exclusionary, it constitutes acts of violence. These organizational efforts to deny the existence and autonomy of 2SLGBTQQIA+ youth will certainly not make members of these communities feel safe, nor will it change their gender and sexual identities. What it will do is maintain the culture of domination and render anti-2SLGBTQQIA+ hostility and aggression permissible. They will be further isolated, and leave them even more fearful, more anxious, and more vulnerable.

These strategies and proposed legislative and policy changes make clear who matters, and those who are deserving of care and consideration. The identification of these youth as disposable will legitimize harassment, bullying, and other forms of harm.

Efforts to contain, deny, erase, marginalize, mislead, silence, and exclude are discriminatory. These actions are part of dehumanizing cultural mechanisms that protect and sustain hierarchies of value and worth.

Rather than being encouraged and taught to see each other as equals, strategies of distortion and omission are being employed to bolster fear and deny the mental, physical, and emotional experiences and needs of 2SLGBTQQIA+ youth.

We are being told that the way forward is to discipline and punish trans and gender diverse folx.

Questions about which differences do and do not matter are important because they involve power.

Health care is already challenging for 2SLGBTQQIA+ folx, who are Black, Indigenous, or racialized minorities. Imposing additional restrictions on gender affirming care heightens their vulnerability and undermines their mental and physical health and well-being which could result in life altering and potentially fatal consequences.

The professed focus on parental rights is also a coded message that seeks to suppress the organization and operation of white supremacy and heteropatriarchy.

The struggle against dehumanization is relentless. The costs are many. The impacts will be immediate and long term.

Let’s recognize that the differences between us hold space and support the autonomy of the diverse members of 2SLGBTQQIA+ communities.

The struggle to be Free to be is unceasing…. Let y/our motto be resistance…Our collective futures depend on it

Resources

Giroux, Henry, A. (2012). Disposable youth: Racialized memories and the culture of cruelty. New York, NY: Routledge.

Hayes, Kelly. (23 February, 2024). Our mourning for Nex Benedict calls us to action against transphobia and fascism. Truthout. https://truthout.org/articles/our-mourning-for-nex-benedict-calls-us-to-action-against-transphobia-and-fascism/.

Jordan, June. (2005). Directed by desire. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press.

Rummler, Orion. (19 March 2024). States’ anti-LGBTQ moves may have disastrous health impacts experts say. Truthout. https://truthout.org/articles/states-anti-lgbtq-moves-may-have-disastrous-health-impacts-experts-say/.

Staff. (13 March, 2024). MB Tories parental consent should be required for student pronoun changes. Canadian Press. https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/parental-consent-should-be-required-for-student-pronoun-changes-manitoba-tories-1.6805365.

Tunney, Catharine. (15 February, 2024). CSIS warns that ‘anti-gender movement’ poses a threat of ‘extreme violence.’ CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/csis-lgbtq-warning-violence-1.7114801

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.

February 2024: Black life matters

“Anti-blackness in Canada often goes unspoken. When acknowledged, it is assumed to exist, perhaps, but in another time (centuries ago), or in another place (the United States)” (Robyn Maynard, 2017, p. 3.) Policing Black lives: State violence in Canada from slavery to the present.

Winnipeg, MB: Fernwood Publishing.

Marcia

As Black History Month starts, I’m reflecting on what I was taught about Canada’s history with enslavement in school: that we were the utopian endpoint of the Underground Railroad. It wasn’t until much later in life that my unlearning and relearning happened, often at the expense of the labour of Black friends and scholars like Drs. Delia Douglas, Onye Nnorom, and OmiSoore Dryden. Dr. Douglas is the Director of the Office of Anti-Racism, and Drs. Nnorom and Dryden visited our faculty in 2022, providing education on Anti-Black racism, including the social and physiological health impacts of injustice.

I think about the weight of this labour as Black History Month begins, and knowing how that weight is amplified by ongoing experiences of Anti-Black racism and violence, and the recent tragic killing of Afolabi Stephen Opaso. I am reminded that our collective responsibilities to address Anti-Black racism and enlarge and protect space for Black flourishing last all year long and offer a return to our January blog on rest for those who need a pause from their labour.

Delia

Breathing while Black: Bearing witness

It is Black History Month (BHM) – I regard this month’s blog as an opportunity to have a conversation that needs and deserves space… breathing space – the space that recognition of our humanness demands.

Black History Month 2024 takes place amid the tragic death of Afolabi Stephen Opaso, a 19-year-old student from Nigeria who had been attending the University of Manitoba. Mr.  Opaso had been experiencing a mental health crisis on December 31, 2023, when he was fatally shot by a member of the Winnipeg Police Service (WPS).

Machuar Madut’s family continues to wait for an inquest, five years after Mr. Madut, originally from South Sudan, was fatally shot by a member of the WPS on Feb. 23, 2019. Mr. Madut, aged 43 at the time of his death, had been struggling with mental issues. In 2020 the officer involved was cleared of any wrongdoing. In its final report into Madut’s death, the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba said it found the use of lethal force by the officer was “reasonable, necessary, justified and unavoidable.”

According to a WPS spokesperson use of lethal force is justified when the life of an officer or other person is in immediate danger, or the police member or another person is in immediate danger of grievous bodily harm.

Keep in mind that Black folx are overrepresented in use of force, fatal shootings, and enforcement arrests, and charge rates in Canada.

In 2016 a UN Report from the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent on its mission to Canada expressed their trepidation about police involved deaths of at-risk peoples of African descent who were experiencing a mental health crisis.

Breathing is necessary to life.

Anti-Black racism(s) is part of local/regional/national/global political landscapes.

In enslavement’s afterlife Black folx continue to struggle to breathe. Is it any wonder that Black people cannot live, owing to white supremacy and anti-Black racism given that breath is required for life?

2020 was both a moment and a movement. Following George Floyd’s murder, 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. Across Canada people organized and gathered to stand in solidarity with Mr. Floyd’s family and the Black Lives Matter movement, drawing attention to racialized police violence, systemic racism, and inequality. In Winnipeg, Justice 4 Black Lives organized a rally called for justice an end to state violence and racial injustice which thousands attended. 

Reflecting B(l)ack

Black status and identity in Canada are linked to the country’s history of enslavement – of state sanctioned authorization and use of anti-Black racial violence.

The Atlantic slave trade involved the forced removal of millions of Africans which created a diaspora. The trade was fundamental to the economic and industrial development of Europe and North America, and the simultaneous under-development of Africa. Canada benefitted from the enslavement of Africans through profits accrued by the Hudson’s Bay trading company and the fur trade, and by the British Empire through traders of sugar, cotton, and the wealth generated by the colonies throughout the Americas. Settler colonial dispossession of the ancestral and traditional lands of Indigenous peoples was funded in part through the labour of enslaved peoples of African descent. The end of enslavement was followed by other manifestations of anti-Black racism such as racial segregation in schools, housing, and employment, the desecration of slave cemeteries in Ontario and Québec, and cross burnings on the property of Black families in Nova Scotia, Manitoba, and New Brunswick.

B(l)ack to the future: Moving forward

We inherit the legacy of that which has come before.

Knowing our racial past helps us to understand our racial present. It also encourages us to imagine/dream/desire and build our futures ….

I stand on the shoulders of many who have gone before – known and unknown. My father, the late Dr. Lawrence F. Douglas, is one person whose shoulders helped lift me to where I am today.

My father was a single parent and the most influential person in my life.

He was also the first Black faculty member in the Department of Sociology at the U of M, and one of its four founding members. He retired in 1989 after 22 years of teaching. The Department would not hire another tenure track Black faculty member, for 32 years: Dr. Joseph Asomah.

Representation matters.

Fast forward: of the nearly 50 000 faculty that work across the 40 post-secondary institutions in Canada, there are approximately 900 Black faculty @ 300 of which are Black women…Black – and Indigenous peoples – are the most underrepresented Faculty in Canadian post-secondary institutions.

Racial equity matters.

In 2021 UM Law alumnus, David Sowemimo, established the David Sowemimo Law Entrance Scholarship awarded annually to Black undergraduate students enrolled full-time in the juris doctor program in UM’s Faculty of Law. It was the first scholarship of its kind at U of M.

Over the course of the past year, I have been working with Ekong Udobang in Donor Relations, to create a Fellowship in perpetuity for Black graduate students in the Department of Sociology and Criminology. The Dr. Lawrence F. Douglas Fellowship will be awarded for the first time in 2024-2025 academic year.

The Fellowship is a way for me to honour my father, and it is also an opportunity to pay it forward, to offer dedicated support to Black graduate students in their academic journey.

Where is the love?

The project of anti-racism is incomplete without addressing anti-Black racism(s). Nearly 4 years have passed since the events of 2020 – in many ways it seems like a lifetime ago. To paraphrase Janet Jackson – what have you done… lately? Or, more to the point, what will you do?

Breathing is necessary to life.

I can’t breathe

Is a proclamation…
A declaration…
A metaphor for the wounds/harms/effects of racism.
I can’t breathe is also
A protest statement,
and
A call to action…

         If not now, then when?

Resources

Dunn, T. (5 April, 2018). In deadly encounters with Toronto police more than a third of victims are Black. CBC. Available at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/police-deaths-blacks-data-1.4599215.

Olynick, H. (2021). UM Today. Alumnus creates scholarship for Black students. Available at https://news.umanitoba.ca/alumnus-creates-scholarship-for-black-law-students/.

Petz, S. 2024. (24, January). Nearly 5 years after fatal Winnipeg police shooting, Machuar Madut’s family still waiting for inquest. CBC News. Available at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/machuar-madut-family-speaks-inquest-delays-1.7092571.

United Nations report of the working group of experts on people of African descent on its mission to Canada. Available at https://ansa.novascotia.ca/sites/default/files/files/report-of-the-working-group-of-experts-on-people-of-african-descent-on-its-mission-to-canada.pdf.

“We do not accept your apology.” (16 June, 2022). CBC. Available at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-police-race-based-data-use-force-strip-searches-1.6489151.

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.

September 2023: Racial equity matters

“How excellent can a department/faculty/university be if its curriculum disseminates to students only a very minuscule, highly-selected, self-perpetuating, gender [in addition to race, sexuality, and disability]-biased representation of our collective knowledge about human beings and the world in which we live?”

(Sheinin, 1998, 103)

Marcia

I’d been following the US Supreme Court case on race-conscious admissions in colleges and universities because of concern about potential impacts here, and in particular on the universities that have specific pathways under development or in place for Indigenous and Black learners. These pathways seek to mitigate the impacts of colonization and racism that have created inequitable access to the opportunity to enter health professional education, that is, to lessen disadvantage. Thankfully there have been more people who support the further refinement and advancement of these pathways than those who don’t, but there are those who question it, who get together and write op-eds about how diversity is weakening medical education.

So when the Supreme Courts said the use of race-conscious admission practices was unconstitutional and had to end, I was concerned that this might give strength to those who oppose these equity-focused pathways. However, the American Medical Association made a strong statement around how the ruling has the potential to undermine important progress towards equity in admissions and ultimately equitable health care:

“Recently established AMA policy reinforces our stance that medical schools must continue to make progress toward enrolling talented and highly qualified medical students in racial and ethnic groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in medicine. Eliminating health inequity requires more commitment to, investment in and support for Black, Latinx and Native American and Indigenous communities, and LGBTQ+ people. Yet, today’s ruling undermines policy that was producing positive results and improving the health of our patients, as well as making all physicians better practitioners. This ruling is bad for health care, bad for medicine, and undermines the health of our nation.”

This is one situation where we need to continue the path we are on, recognizing the evidence base that supports this as necessary for eliminating racial health inequities.

Delia

The recent US Supreme Court ruling on Affirmative Action and race informed admissions offers an important point of entry for a conversation about equity in Canadian universities…

On the matter of equity – what’s race got to do with it?
            In a word…. Everything…

We have over 30 years of evidence of the limited impact of federally legislated employment equity policies in Canadian post-secondary institutions. Out of the 4 groups identified by the government – Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, racialized minorities, and women – the greatest change occurred in the area of gender equity, with white abled women benefitting the most, resulting in the diversification of white folx, with little substantive structural change….

In addition, while Canadian universities make public statements and policies asserting their commitment to “equity, diversity, and inclusion,” they are governed by a leadership that remains predominantly white at all levels of administration, including deans, university chairs, and executive leadership.[1]

[1]https://www.thediversitygapcanada.com/diversity-gap-in-university-leadership.html

The gap between the academy and the community is increasing as the homogeneity of faculty stands in stark contrast to the ever-increasing diversity of the student bodies at these institutions and the changing composition of Canadian society.

Indigenous and racialized minorities constitute the youngest and fastest growing members of the population – they will soon comprise the racial majority in several of Canada’s major cities in the coming years. Yet, these young people will rarely, if ever, encounter faculty who are not white. Rather, they will continue to encounter universities across the nation that reproduce, rather than interrupt and transform, the exclusionary cultures of whiteness and racism that shape their experiences in so many ways.

Amid the nation’s increasing diversity, the predominance of whites in the academy simultaneously confirms white supremacy by reinforcing the belief that those who are there are effectively the top candidates for the job. Consequently, whites are readily understood as authorities, and they unquestionably believe themselves to be best suited for their respective professions. These patterned exclusions are significant precisely because it is white scholars and administrators who continue to make decisions about the relevance of race and the (in)significance of racism. As Queen’s university distinguished professor Dr. Audrey Kobayashi (2007) summarizes, the culture of whiteness is reflected in “the overwhelming power of white academicians which keeps the status quo in place in terms of the content and the standards of the university, in terms of research, in terms of who has access to positions.”

The underrepresentation of Indigenous, Black, and racialized minority faculty in Canadian universities has also placed an added weight of expectations, responsibilities, and burdens associated with addressing issues related to racial diversity and racial inequality. These forms of identity taxation, or racialized equity labour work, have become more onerous and more urgent owing to the perilous conditions borne of the pandemics of COVID 19 and systemic racism both in and outside of the academy.

Real talk: race consciousness has always a part of the organizational culture, institutional arrangements, and practices of Canadian universities…and beyond…

Predominantly white environments are racially structured environments – the assumption that race consciousness only enters the conversation when talking about Black, Indigenous, and racialized minority folx is one that renders whiteness the unmarked norm, the default category. We are all racialized – to only speak of so called ‘non-White’ people as raced ensures that racial hierarchies remain intact…

Nothing can be changed unless it is acknowledged…

We live in a present shaped by dispossession, genocide, enslavement, and settler colonialism…

Race is present whether or not it is named…

Achieving racial equity involves more than increasing racial diversity for appearances around the table, or in the pictures. Just as the fact of a racially diverse country does not signal the absence of racism, the presence of one or two Indigenous, Black, and/or racialized minority faculty or senior leaders does not signal racial equity, since it tells us nothing about Who we actually are, or how things are really being done.

Racial equity is about shifting the landscape and narrowing the gap between the community and the university. It is about disrupting and dismantling the university’s practice of white exclusivity and racial segregation that continues in plain sight, hidden behind the ostensibly objective criteria of “excellence,” “competence,” “best fit,” and “best qualified.” Racial equity is about shifting a pattern aptly identified by Dr. Malinda S. Smith, political scientist and the University of Calgary’s inaugural Vice Provost of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, as “the social injustice of sameness.”

And for those who are thinking that employing racial equity will result in the university being full of unqualified faculty who come from racially underrepresented groups, the facts say otherwise. PhDs who are Indigenous, Black, or racialized minorities continue to have high unemployment rates in general. The data demonstrates that they have the qualifications, but they are un(der)employed.

…Racial equity matters…

Curricula reflect departmental cultures through allocation of teaching and research assistantships, the selection of courses. Curricula also socializes students to dominant social norms, values and ways of thinking and being. Consider that claims about “neutral” and “evidence-based health or medicine” do not take in to account how different skin disorders will present differently owing to an individual’s skin tone. A singular approach to health and well-being not only excludes, it enacts harm, sometimes with fatal consequences. Consequently, the absence of some subjects denies the existence of certain groups and/or gives the impression that one’s experience and history is not worthy of study.

The predominance of white faculty also means that there are few opportunities to provide Indigenous, Black, and racialized minority students with mentors, role models, and advisors.

What’s more, when these students do not see themselves reflected – and respected – in the curriculum they study or the professors they encounter, these exclusions reinforce notions of the inherent superiority of whites and the attendant inferiority of Indigenous, Black, and racialized minorities folx in ways that have psychological, embodied, symbolic, and material ramifications. Simply stated, the cultural identities of white students are affirmed at the same time as the cultural identities of Indigenous, Black and racialized minority students are marginalized, distorted, or rendered invisible.

I am mindful that the link between embodiment and knowledge production is neither simple or straightforward, but the lack of urgency over three decades demands that we consider the meaning and significance of the absence of certain bodies and the related absence of certain bodies of knowledge, since it is principally white scholars and administrators who make decisions about whether race matters, how it matters, and, in turn, if it matters at all.

Excellence flourishes in an environment that embraces the broadest range of people and reflects local communities. If we want racial equity, we must address racism.

As Archbishop Desmond Tutu stated: “If you are neutral in situations of

injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

I leave you with the question: Whose side are you on?

Resources:

Ahmed, Sara. (2012). On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Bowden, Olivia. (2020 September 10). CBC. Canadian university students use Instagram to reveal racism on campuses. Available at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-universities-racism-instagram-1.5716603.

Bray, Nancy. (2016). The diversity gap in university leadership. Academic Women’s Association, University of Alberta. Available at https://uofaawa.wordpress.com/awa-diversity-gap-campaign/the-diversity-gap-in-university-leadership/.

Canadian Association of University Teachers. (CAUT). (2018, April). Underrepresented and underpaid: Diversity & equity among Canada’s post-secondary education teachers. Ottawa, ON: CAUT. Available at https://www.caut.ca/sites/default/files/caut_equity_report_2018-04final.pdf.

Douglas, D. D. (2021). Access denied: Safe/guarding the university as white property. In S. Thobani (Ed.), Racial (In)Justice in the academy. Toronto, ON: Toronto University Press.

Gutiérrez y Muhs, G., Flores Niemann, Yolanda, González, Carmen G., & Harris, Angela P.  (2012). Presumed incompetent: The intersections of race and class for women in academia. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.

Hyslop, Katie. (2021, March 26). Canadian universities have a racism problem. The Tyee. Available at https://thetyee.ca/News/2021/03/26/Canadian-Universities-Racism-Problem/.

Khosla, Risha. (2021, October 1). The entrenched racism in Canadian universities. Spheres of Influence. Available at https://spheresofinfluence.ca/the-entrenched-racism-in-canadian-universities/.

Kobayashi, Audrey. (2007). “Making the visible count: Difference and embodied knowledge in the academy.” Paper presented at the annual meeting for the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, May 26-June 2.

Seatter, Erin. (2016, December 13). Canadian universities failing at diversity: Study. Ricochetmedia.com. Available at https://ricochet.media/en/1588/canadian-universities-failing-at-diversity-study.

Tomlinson, Asha, Mayor, Lisa, & Baksh, Nazim. (2021, February 24). Being Black on campus: Why students, staff and faculty say universities are failing them. CBC. Available at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/anti-black-racism-campus-university-1.5924548.