Tag: 2SLGBTQQIA+

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.

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.

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.

February 2023: Black History Month: Meeting grounds of radical resistance, bold solidarity, and social justice

Delia Douglas

“The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us, and which knows only the oppressors’ tactics, the oppressors’ relationships.”

Audre Lorde (1984, p. 123)

Black History Month 2023 takes place in the shadows of the in-custody death of Nicous D’Andre Spring, a 21-year-old Black man who had been illegally detained in a Montreal jail in December 2022, and the January 2023 murder of Tyre Nichols, a young Black man who died in Memphis, TN following a “routine traffic stop” where he was beaten by 5 police officers, all of whom are Black. Mr. Nichols died of his injuries in hospital 3 days later. 

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 (lateral and internalized violence).

Their needless deaths remind me of the fact that we are all exposed to images, ideas, beliefs, and practices (e.g., white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, dis/ability, capitalism) which structure our institutions and shape our relationships to ourselves and each other. Simply put, we need not be racialized as white (for example) to reproduce settler colonialism and uphold anti-Blackness. 

The fact that we are not encouraged and taught to see ourselves as equals and the fact that we are not encouraged and taught to see ourselves in each other are examples of the normalization of racism. That is the very definition of systemic racism.

I am thinking about Black life matters, Black liberation, and lateral violence – within and across diverse Black communities and beyond…I am thinking about radical resistance and bold solidarity… 

In 2014 – 3 Black queer women – Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors – established the contemporary #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) movement – a sociopolitical and ethical demand for action against state sanctioned anti-Black terror and anti-Black racism. Garza, Tometi, and Cullors advanced an expansive lens that sheds light on the experiences of those who have frequently been excluded as contributors to social justice movements and victims of anti-Black violence, namely Black women and girls, Black folks who are disabled, gender non-conforming and those who identify as LGBTQIA+.

Black freedom struggles are as multifaceted and diverse as are Black folx.

The events of the past few years have not only exacerbated existing inequities, they have also laid bare how racism is a public health crisis. 

Racism lowers life chances. Racism kills.

The enduring legacies of residential schools are revealed in the uncovering of the bodies of the 215 children who died at the Kamloops Indian Residential School (and the thousands more graves identified since), the death of Joyce Echaquan, the murder of George Floyd, the rise in racism against people of East Asian descent, Islamophobia, and the death of Indigenous, Black, and racialized people in police involved shootings across Canada. These are not individual acts of racism, or the actions of a few bad apples – these are instances of systemic racism. These are acts that demonstrate how racism influences who lives and who dies. 

This is not a zero-sum game – racism is not a competition to see who has endured the most harm – comparing ourselves to each other to construct hierarchy is itself is a form of violence. Lateral violence does just involve Black people, it occurs between members of different marginalized groups. Lateral violence also occurs when we don’t show up for each other – when we adopt the settler colonial strategy of divide and conquer…

Systemic racism requires a systemic response. 

Solidarity requires courage. We cannot eradicate racial inequality and injustice unless we challenge the divisiveness of hierarchies of oppression and recognize the interconnectedness of systems of domination.
Bold solidarity is that which affirms and embraces the marginalized and excluded in our communities. 

Movements such as Idle No More, #AmINext, #BLM, #Sayhername, #MeToo, and Dream Defenders make visible and affirm the lives of Indigenous and Black women and girls, 2SLGBTQQIA and those who live along the gender spectrum as targets of, and resistors to, oppression, creating space for the recognition of the humanity of all Indigenous and Black lives. 

These are acts of radical resistance.

Our freedom struggles and futures intersect in complex and complicated ways owing to these histories of racial violence and their enduring legacies. 

There is no time like the present to analyze our investments and allegiances and to commit ourselves to broadening our understanding of the diversity and complexity of Black identity and lived experience.

Consider this February/BHM as an opportunity to examine how anti-Blackness is manifest within ourselves and in within and across our various communities…

As political activist, scholar, and freedom fighter Angela Y. Davis asserts, “freedom is a constant struggle.” 

…We…. can’t stop…We… won’t stop…

References

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

Angela Y. Davis. (2016). Freedom is a constant struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the foundations of a movement. Chicago, Il: Haymarket Books.

Alicia Garza (2014). A herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter movement.” The Feminist Wire. Available at: https://thefeministwire.com/2014/10/blacklivesmatter-2/.

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

Robyn Maynard. (2017). Policing Black lives. Winnipeg, MB: Fernwood Publishing.