anti-Black racism – Race matters

October 2024: Reflections on the CMA Apology to Indigenous Peoples

Marcia

On September 18, 2024 I was on the traditional territory of the Songhees and Xwsepsum Nations to stand with my Indigenous physician colleagues (who are more rightly called my relatives) as the Canadian Medical Association delivered its apology to Indigenous Peoples for the role of the medical profession and the organization itself in systemic racism in health care.

As a Cree-Anishinaabe woman who has experienced significant racism throughout my medical education and career as well as in receiving health care for myself and my family, my reactions are complicated and layered.

I honour the labour of my Indigenous physician colleagues, the Indigenous community members and Knowledge Keepers who advocated for and guided the CMA on this work. None of my reactions diminish the gratitude and respect I have for them.

I think of my friends and colleagues who have experienced harms from the medical profession rooted in anti-Black racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, ethnoreligious discrimination and other intersecting systems of oppression who may be wondering when their apology will come. I see you and honour your right to apologies, reparations and more just futures.

September 18^th was not the first time I stood with my Indigenous physician family to witness such a collective apology. In June 2008 we were on the beautiful island of Kauai for a gathering of the Pacific Region Indigenous Doctors Congress. With our relatives from Hawaii, Australia, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Taiwan, and from across Turtle Island we watched as then Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized for trying to “kill the Indian in the child.” We cried, and along with many others hoped that this was a signal that a new day had arrived. That new day remains a long time coming. Reactions from other Canadians ranged from complete ignorance, to shared humility and a desire to do better, to resistance and ongoing residential school denialism. The progress on reparations and reconciliation has not been linear or consistently forward moving.

I travelled to Victoria so that I could again stand with my Indigenous physician family as we witnessed this collective apology. The truth is I have experienced a lot of hurt from anti-Indigenous racism in my different workplaces since the 2008 apology, so I listened to this one with a little more doubt about the power of a collective apology. I know now that I/ we cannot expect quick or consistent change.

That day in our conversations and in an interview, my very wise colleague Dr. Nel Wieman said that it’s not the words spoken that day that mattered, it’s the actions that come afterwards. In the days following the apology I was reading the book This Here Flesh by Cole Arthur Riley. I happened to be on Chapter 11, entitled “Repair” which is all about apologies. She writes:

“Truth-telling is critical to repair. But confession alone- which tends to serve the confessor more than the oppressed- will never be enough. Reparations are required. To expect repair without some kind of remittance would be injustice doubled.”

So to the Indigenous faculty, staff and students one of the things I want to say to you is that it is okay to wait and see what happens next before deciding how you feel about this apology. There’s no rush to accept it or to believe that it means things will be truly different. We have done and are doing our share of the work. We can hold back and see how the non-Indigenous individuals (recognizing that within what we might term “non-Indigenous” are folks with a range of privileges and/ or harms they experience themselves due to white supremacy and the cis-heteropatriarchy) around us personalize the collective apology. We can wait to see if those who have personally harmed us make their own apologies. We can hold off on taking more steps together until we see evidence of unlearning and new learning. We can let trust be earned or be re-established by witnessing our non-Indigenous peers take on the work of intervening and disrupting acts of white supremacy and Indigenous-specific racism.

On the day of the apology one of the Elders who spoke talked about how a bridge has to be built from both sides and meet in the middle. The Elder acknowledged that we as Indigenous people have built our side of the bridge and it’s up to non-Indigenous people to build their side and meet us in the middle. Some of the communities we work with in consensual solidarity have led the way in this work of building bridges towards us. This solidarity work involves navigating complex histories and realities of harm, marginalization and exclusion while avoiding competition or undermining these complex histories and realities.

In addition to this solidarity work, there are people and departments in our Faculty who have committed to and started this bridge building work. These people are leading examples of what it means and what it takes to make an apology more than words. I am really grateful for these people, because they are part of why I have hope that in our Faculty we have actually started a meaningful reconciliation journey and that we are creating a different future. These are people I trust to walk alongside. I wonder what conversations they are having with their peers about this CMA apology and how they might help guide, encourage, and hold folks accountable to it as we move forward.

Note: Thank you to Dr. Delia Douglas for providing critical feedback and insights in thinking through the many different experiences people relate to this apology from and how we continue to work in solidarity.

Resources

Canadian Medical Association’s apology to Indigenous Peoples

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.

January 2024: Self-care and self-preservation: Rest as radical resistance

Marcia

In 2022 it became too obvious to me that I was not going to be able to continue doing all of the work that I was doing in all the places that I was doing it. I was experiencing worsening mental health and symptoms of burnout- like over 50% of physicians who participated in the 2021 National Physician Health Survey. As noted in the Health Workforce Assessment by the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences in addition to burnout and moral distress, I was experiencing workplace violence and discrimination and that created an intention for me to partially leave the health workforce. Other research papers and reports document how often Black, Indigenous, and racially marginalized individuals experience racism in the workplace or academy, and how that increases the risk for burnout and other negative impacts to mental health. I knew that I needed to decrease the arenas in which I both experienced racial violence and was also expected to lead systemic change. I left my public health job, increased my time at the university and took July off to rest. In rest came more clarity and creativity in how I approach my work in Indigenous health, social justice, and anti-racism.

I had a head start, maybe, from having worked with a coach since 2007, being a Certified Executive Coach, and coaching others over the past year on rest and joy while doing social justice work. What has become increasingly clear to me is:

Black, Indigenous, and racially marginalized folks need to center rest and joy in their lives in order to be most effective at anti-racism and social justice work. This includes by honouring our own humanity, and thus creating the example and expectation for others to do the same.
Our burnout will not be the thing that ends or fixes racism.
We cannot get out of the health workforce crisis or address racism in health care without healthy, rested, well-supported Black, Indigenous, and racially marginalized folks leading the multiple forms of anti-racism work that needs to happen.
White people also have roles to play in anti-racism that require personal decolonization work- rest will also be a foundation for this challenging work.

Delia

“I had to examine, in my dreams as well as in my immune-function tests, the devastating effects of overextension. Overextending myself is not stretching myself. I had to accept how difficult it is to monitor the difference. Necessary for me as cutting down on sugar. Crucial. Physically. Psychically. Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
(Audre Lorde, 1988, p. 125)

Audre Lorde wrote this essay in 1988 while she was fighting cancer. She died from the disease in November 1992. She was 58 years old.

In addition to Audre Lorde, writer/activist/scholars Barbara Christian, June Jordan, Bebe Moore Campbell, Toni Cade Bambara, Gloria Anzaldua, Claudia Tate, Beverly Robinson, Ruth Frankenberg, and Patricia Monture (to name but a few) all died from cancer. Erica Garner. bell hooks.

We persist.

Freedom struggles continue, as self-determination and emancipation remain unfinished projects.

There is no place to stand outside of racism, of white supremacy, of heteropatriarchy, of ableism.

There is a tendency to underestimate both the impact of everyday injustices and systemic discrimination and the impact of the fight against oppression.

The effects are cumulative and multidimensional. They are embodied, emotional, and psychological. They are matters of life and death.

We know racism is a public health issue and a key determinant of wellness, well-being, and health.

Fighting racism is also a public health issue and a key determinant of wellness, well-being, and health.

There is a cost for those who decide to name both the particularities of one’s oppression. There is a cost to fighting racial oppression – to fighting all manifestations of oppression.

The cost is not shared equitably.

In the university Black, Indigenous, and racialized staff and faculty have consistently had to bear the added weight of expectations, responsibilities, and burdens associated with addressing issues related to diversity and racial inequality, however, 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 racism.

We bear the brunt of racism, and we disproportionately bear the weight of addressing it.

Racism dehumanizes, rendering Black, Indigenous and racialized minority peoples as disposable.

Rest is recognition of our humanness. Rest is affirmation of our right to be…

I am mindful of Audre Lorde’s distinction between overextending versus stretching. I interpret overextending as going too far, beyond one’s capacity, to one’s detriment, while stretching involves growth and expansion, a broadening of perspectives, an unfolding of possibilities. I interpret stretching as the opposite of contracting or diminishing. Stretching is integral to the processes of learning and unlearning.

Rest, self-care, and self-preservation offer different paths forward – one that involves reflection, restoration, rejuvenation, reconnection to the many parts of ourselves that we suppress, ignore, silence.

Self-care is self-preservation.

Self-care is resistance.

And so much more…

As Tricia Hersey explains in her book Rest is Resistance: “Rest is care. Rest is radical” (p. 12).

Here’s to a year of rest, radical care, hope, and resistance.

Resources

Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (2023). Canada’s health workforce: An overview. Available at: https://cahs-acss.ca/assessment-on-health-human-resources-hhr/.

Canadian Medical Association (2022). National Physician Health Survey. Available at: https://www.cma.ca/sites/default/files/2022-08/NPHS_final_report_EN.pdf

Fuller, Kandace. (n.d.) The heart of Erica Garner: The cost of fighting back against racial inequality. Matters of the Heart, Issue 2. Available at

https://www.womanlymag.com/matters-of-the-hearts/articles/the-heart-of-erica-garner

Hersey, Tricia. (2022). Rest is resistance. New York, NY: Little Brown Spark.

Lorde, Audre. (1988). A burst of light and other essays. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand books.

August 2023: Unspeakable: The violence(s) of disavowal

“…how people get mad, how that escalation from prejudice, to hate, to violence occurs, what and who is hated, and how it is expressed, is not unrelated to the world around us.”
Ursula Franklin, 1991, p. 9.

Delia

Where we live now: Racial realities

On June 9 2023, we learned of that a young female employee at the Olive Garden restaurant in Transcona, MB was stabbed multiple times by a customer – a young white male. The Winnipeg police subsequently described the attack as “random” and “unprovoked.” Police Chief Danny Smyth later stated that the use of the word random was meant to indicate that the perpetrator did not know his target.

The attack was not random for the victim.

Far from it.

6 weeks later we learned the identity of the target of the attack – an 18 year-old Black Muslim woman – she was wearing an hijab. We learned of her identity because members of the Muslim community challenged police claims of the random nature of the attack. They called for an investigation into the stabbing – they wanted to know why it had not been identified as a hate crime, and why the perpetrator was charged with aggravated assault, and not attempted murder.

According to Police Chief Smyth, “There is no evidence that supports it being motivated by a hate crime…. That being said, this is a very serious crime, the individual was charged with aggravated assault, which is a very serious charge. People go to jail for that kind of thing.”

The charges were laid prior to the victim issuing a statement.

No evidence to support the motivation of hate….

So, what would evidence of a hate crime look like?

Correspondingly what exactly counts as evidence? And…Who is qualified to make that determination?

The victim, a young Somali woman, does not wish to be identified.

When she was able to speak, she explained that she was the only racialized minority person in the restaurant, and the only person wearing an hijab. She described how the perpetrator watched her for 30 minutes before the attack. In her words: “He didn’t go on a random stabbing spree. He went straight for me. I know I could have died.”

She understood and experienced her attack as an expression of anti-Black gendered Islamophobia.

A Black Muslim woman, in defense of herself.

It takes courage to speak publicly about experiences of violence. It is another form of trauma.

Intentional erasures and purposeful interventions

Whose view counts?

Naming is a mechanism of control.

If it isn’t named, then it doesn’t exist…it is not in the realm of possibility.

This is where the guiding principles of Critical Race Theory (CRT) are indispensable. To recap, CRT is a framework that recognizes that racism is pervasive and not an aberration. It is a lens that recognizes that the violence is already here.

In a Canadian context CRT allows us to critically assess how the historical construction of Canada as a white settler colonial society has been, and continues to be, protected and sustained. CRT recognizes that current inequalities, institutional arrangements, and practices are tied to past and present systems of racial exclusion, hostility, and violence such as dispossession, genocide, enslavement, settler colonial projects, and immigration laws. It is a lens that sees link between racism(s) and mass incarceration, housing education, health, and income inequalities.

CRT is a framework whose guiding principles are integrative, recognizing that other forms of inequality intersect and animate each other. It positions the elimination of racial oppression as part of the broader project of eliminating all manifestations of oppression.

And crucially, CRT recognizes the experiential knowledge of Indigenous, Black, and racialized minority peoples and communities.

When and where race enters conversations of justice matters.

Efforts to deny, obscure downplay the relevance of race are productive; they facilitate the conditions which preclude the likelihood/probability of racism, as well as the contemplation of the existence of racism, in Canada’s multicultural, multiracial society.

Racism is (re)produced through silence, invisibility, and exclusion, as well as through covert, entrenched, and cumulative actions.

Disavowal is violence.

Nothing can be changed unless it is acknowledged…

Indeed. The very definition of racism remains a site of struggle. As Dr. Wahneema Lubiano (1997) asserts, “central to the existence of racism, is the politics of its denial” (p. viii).

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

And so it goes…. Anything. But. Racism.

The rejection of racism – of anti-Black gendered Islamophobia – to be precise, is significant because it obscures the unmarked white Western settler colonial arrangements, relationships, and practices that pervade all of our systems, while simultaneously reinforcing the national narrative that manifestations of racism in Canada are unusual. These disavowals do not exist in isolation, they are part of social relations, organizational cultures and institutional structures that work to maintain the status quo of inequality and the normalization of racism.

How we respond to violence has an impact on an individual’s health and well-being.

…the “escalation from prejudice, to hate, to violence” – “who is hated and how it is expressed” is inextricably linked to the legacies of violence to legacies which shape where we live now…. (Franklin).

Racial matters

As long as the reality and character of racism(s) are defined by the dominant, members of Black, Indigenous, and racialized minority communities will continue to suffer trauma and harm in a host of ways, some of which will include death.

Anti-racism work involves the active process of acting to challenge not only one’s own biases and prejudices, this work also involves the dismantling of the policies/social relations/attitudes/practices that promote and/or sustain racial inequality and racial oppression.

Bold solidarity and courageous collaboration are acts of radical resistance –creating spaces that recognize the humanity, diversity, and complexity of Black, Indigenous, and racialized minority folx.

Listen to the targets of violence…

As bell hooks (1996) reminds us: “The oppressed struggle in language to recover ourselves, to reconcile, to reunite, to renew. Our words are not without meaning, they are an action, a resistance” (p. 146).

We need language that is expansive, disruptive, and ultimately transformative.

Bigotry and hate crimes directed against Muslims are on the rise in Canada.

Recall…Quebec City, London, Ontario, Edmonton, AB, …Winnipeg, MB….

Anti-Black gendered Islamophobia.

See her.

Hear her.

Believe her.

Resources:

Bernhardt, Darren. (18, July 2023). Muslim community suggests Olive Garden attack on Black woman motivated by hate. CBC News.

Canadian Council of Muslim Women .

Douglas, Delia. D. (2020). Un/Covering white lies: Exposing racism in the era of racelessness. Journal of Critical Race Inquiry, 7(2), 22-45.

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

Franklin, Ursula. (1991). Commemoration for the Montreal massacre victims. Canadian Woman Studies, 11(4), 9.

Greenslade, Brittany. (9, June 2023). Olive Garden employee repeatedly stabbed in ‘unprovoked and random’ attack at restaurant: Police. CBC News.

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

Lubiano, Wahneema. (Ed.). Introduction. The house that race built (pp. vii- ix). New York, NY: Pantheon Books.

Thompson, Sam. (18, July 2023). Winnipeg’s Muslim community calls for investigation into Olive Garden stabbing of hijabi woman. Global News.

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.

May 2023: The past is the prologue

Delia Douglas and Marcia Anderson

May 25 marks 3 years since the murder of Mr. George Floyd.

In the aftermath, 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 George Floyd’s family and the Black Lives Matter movement, drawing attention to racialized police violence, systemic racism, and inequality. In Winnipeg thousands attending the Justice 4 Black Lives rally called for justice for Black people and an end to state violence and racial injustice, the organizers of the demonstration at the Legislature carried out a series of protests for eight consecutive days beginning June 22 at the Winnipeg Law Courts, in recognition of the urgency and pervasiveness of racism and racial inequality in Winnipeg and across the country.

These protests took place at a time when large public gatherings had been banned to prevent transmission of the virus, massive crowds of Black, Indigenous, and racially diverse groups of people took to the streets, risking their lives. Truth be told their lives were already at risk – they were fighting two pandemics that inhibit our ability to breathe: racism and COVID-19. The protests were not a choice, but a necessity, a matter of life and death. stand against racial terror and a rejection of the status quo. For Black, Indigenous, and racialized minority folx, these demonstrations were an affirmation of our humanness, and a confirmation of our commitment to building a better future. One where race does not shape who lives and who dies. As physician Rhea Boyd explains, “protest is a vital public health intervention.” Notably, thousands of health care practitioners across Canada and the US penned an open letter, offering their full support for those who are working to demolish racist institutions, stating “white supremacy is a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to COVID-19.”

Some regarded this massive mobilization as a racial reckoning, derived from widespread recognition of the brutality and lethalness of systemic racism.

Some wondered if this was simply a moment – an expression symbolic solidarity that would not result in substantive change: a moment that might be followed by no change at all.

3 years on – where are we at now?

Black learners, physicians and educators have provided leadership that would move systems beyond symbolic solidary to substantive change.

The Black Medical Students Association of Canada provided recommendations to Canadian medical schools and to the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada.

The Black Health Education Collaborative began working on competencies for learning and a Black Health Primer to support the transformation of medical and health professional education to improve the health Black communities across Canada. They also pushed the CMAJ to publish two special issues on anti-Black racism the its effect on health in Canada.

And yet: racism persists. Race continues to shape who lives and who dies: it remains a public health crisis. The lives of Black, Indigenous, and racialized minority folx remains at risk.

Real talk: How has the labour and leadership of Black folx been met with reciprocity and effort by your institution? What have you done personally to advance anti-Black racism, or anti-racism, ‘lately’? As in the past 3 years lately?

In August 2020 the Disruption of All Forms of Racism Policy was passed by the Rady Faculty Council. It is currently being revised and will be supported by a disclosures and reporting document. The policy was created in and against the backdrop of the histories and the enduring legacies of the racial violence and hostility that created the Canadian nation state some of which include dispossession, enslavement, genocide, the Indian Act, Residential Schools, and immigration laws.

The prioritization of racism is important because racism is entrenched in our day-to-day lives both in and outside of the university. Racism is (re)produced through silence, invisibility, and exclusion, as well as through covert, entrenched and cumulative actions that can be difficult to identify.

In this context, the creation of an anti-racism policy signals that manifestations of racism are a key concern of the RFHS, and evidence of its commitment to building a safe community, where all are valued equally and treated with dignity and respect.

It is also important to note this policy goes beyond consideration of individual behaviours or the notion that racism simply involves individual acts, to focus on structures, as one tool that is integral to achieve organizational cultural change.

While the passing of the policy was groundbreaking, there remain many barriers and challenges to actively advancing and sustaining the work of anti-racism. We continue to have much work to do at a system level and at individual levels to realize its aspirational goals.

Here are a few examples:

There is a significant knowledge gap regarding the meaning and significance of race and racism. The only reason we are talking about race, is because of the pervasive problem of racism – so we need to address it. The knowledge gap means that the work necessary to disrupt/eliminate the various barriers/social relations/attitudes/practices that promote and/or sustain racial inequality and the damage of racism have not been taken up. We need more individuals across our Faculty to commit time and effort to their own unlearning and learning. The Office of Anti-Racism provides a starting point to explore learning resources available.

The profound under representation of Black, Indigenous, and racialized minority people in Faculty and Senior Leadership positions sustains racial hierarchies and puts unmanageable burdens and responsibilities on the Black, Indigenous, and racialized minority folx who are present- this is one form of the minority tax. We need leaders to prioritize the relevant expertise that representation brings as they are considering job descriptions and hiring decisions to support the recruitment and retention of Black, Indigenous and racialized minority folx.

One of the consequences of inadequate representation is that decisions regarding the meaning and significance of race and racism are largely in the hands of those who are Not the targets. The absence of a critical mass of Black, Indigenous, and racialized minority learners, staff, and faculty also makes it difficult for the targets of repression to speak up for fear of reprisal. One of the resources we developed is a template to review committee Terms of Reference to support critical reflection on how all RFHS committees explicitly support our stated commitments to anti-racism. We need committee chairs and leaders to have open conversations with the Black, Indigenous and racialized minority folx in their departments about how to prioritize their participation in committees that most align with their own goals and career trajectories AND support high impact, anti-racist decision-making.

These are just a few actions that at the individual level can help support a continued movement away from symbolic statements and towards racial justice and equity.

Resources

Rhea Boyd, “You Realize It’s a Privilege to Worry That Protests Will Cause a Second Wave of Coronavirus, Right?” Cosmopolitan, 16 June 2020, https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a32782471/protesting-saves-lives-even-during-coronavirus-pandemic/

^[1] Rhea Boyd, “You Realize It’s a Privilege,” para. 12.

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.

January 2023: Where we live now: Ways forward, critical race theory and anti-racism

Delia Douglas

“If there’s shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going”
Harriet Tubman, n.d.

A new year is often a time for reflection, and the making of resolutions. I begin with the words of renowned resistance fighter Harriet Tubman, who crossed the colonial boundaries of Canada and the United States in the service of Black liberation. Her words are an important reminder that anti-racism is a journey – not a destination. My use of the word journey here is deliberate…To quote the late James Baldwin, a Black American gay activist and writer across many genres, “A journey is called that because you cannot know what you will do with what you find, or what you find will do to you” (excerpt from Raoul Peck 2016 documentary, I am not your Negro).

We inherit the legacies of that which has come before.

We live in a present created by dispossession, genocide, enslavement, and ongoing white settler colonial projects and heteropatriarchy.

So, what has Critical Race Theory got to do with it?

Well, Critical Race Theory (CRT) emerged in the US in the late 70s early 1980s among a group of racialized legal scholars (e.g., Derrick Bell, Mari Matsuda, Kimberlè Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado), to examine the roles that race, and racism played in American legal structures in the post-Civil Rights context. Their work was political in nature, growing alongside movements for social justice and equality that recognized that history and context inform the character and structure of social life.

Rather than being one perspective or approach, CRT advances our understanding of the meaning and significance of race and racism. It is a collection of theoretical positions and disciplines that self-consciously views the construct of race through a critical lens, posing new questions on the persistence, if not the intensification, of race and the multicultural “colour line” where we live now. It has subsequently been taken up across a range of disciplines such as sociology, education, feminist studies, and more recently in health studies.

Some of CRT’s guiding principles are that race is a sociohistorical construct and that racism is pervasive and not an aberration. CRT recognizes that current inequalities and institutional arrangements and practices are tied to past and present systems of racial exclusion, hostility, and violence such as dispossession, genocide, enslavement, settler colonial projects, and immigration laws. It is a lens that sees link between racism and mass incarceration, housing, education, income, and health inequalities.

CRT is a purposeful intervention – one that explicit names race. This identification is important because it means that we can explicitly identify the existence of racism. The Disruption of All Forms of Racism Policy is aligned with CRT in a number of ways, beginning with acknowledgement of the continuing significance of race and the prevalence of racism in many systems in Canadian society, including health care. Crucially, the Policy also goes beyond a focus on individual behaviours but focuses on structures, as one tool as part of organizational cultural change.

With respect to health care, CRT offers a framework to disrupt the false binary that exists between the social sciences and health sciences, by enabling us to challenge claims that health care is race-neutral, objective, and “colourblind.” Consequently, CRT also enables us to think about how racism is a public health crisis that disproportionately impacts Indigenous, Black, and racialized communities.

In addition, the forthcoming revisions to to the Canadian Medical Education Directives for Specialists (CanMEDS) provide an opportunity to address the racism inherent in its existing framework. Similarly, this year the General Standards of Accreditation for Institutions with Residency Programs are scheduled to make changes to make them more inclusive of Indigenous and Black perspectives and address anti-Indigenous and anti-Black racism(s).

Together Critical Race Theory and anti-racism work can be a meeting ground – a site of disruption and of possibility – a combination that has the potential to create community, solidarity, and advance movements for health equity and related movements for social justice.

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

The process/journey of working in solidarity involves unlearning and building relationships that are based in transparency, consistency, and accountability.

Our futures are linked; the potential from strategic solidarity would be transformative.

References

Delia Douglas, Sume Ndumbe-Eyoh, Kannin Osei-Tutu, Barbara-Ann Hamilton-Hinch, Gaynor Watson-Creed, Onye Nnorom, and OmiSoore H. Dryden; on behalf of the Black Health Education Collaborative. (2022). Black Health Education Collaborative: the important role of Critical Race Theory in disrupting anti-Black racism in medical practice and education. Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), 194 (41) E1422-E1424; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.221503.

Mari J. Matsuda, Charles R. Lawrence III, Richard Delgado, and Kimberlè W. Crenshaw. (1993). Words that wound: Critical race theory, assaultive speech, and the First Amendment. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.

Kannin Osei-Tutu, Whitney Ereyi-Osas, Priatharsini Sivananthajothy, and Doreen Rabi (2022). Antiracism as a foundational competency: reimagining CanMEDS through an antiracist lens. CMAJ. 194 (49) E1691-E1693; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.220521.

Rahel Zewude and Malika Sharma. (2021). Critical race theory in medicine. CMAJ, 193 (20) E739-E741; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.210178.

November 2022: Health and anti-Black racism the remix

“In some ways, Canada very much is a welcoming place. However, that can act as a barrier in understanding how racism manifests — it’s not just the racial slur. It’s not just the racist targeting. But it is in the very systems of continuing to practice race-based medicine. Even if we had more funding and even if we had more Black physicians and practitioners, if we do not address the very real reality of anti-Black racism — in structures and in practice — we will continue to see poor health outcomes from Black communities.”
Dr. OmiSoore Dryden, Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University

Delia Douglas

This month’s blog continues Rady’s response to the Scarborough charter. We would first like to extend our gratitude to Dr. Onye Nnorom (University of Toronto) and Dr. Omisoore Dryden (Dalhousie University) for the October 19th workshop: #Blacklivesmatter in health care: historical roots and legacies of anti-Black racism in medicine and the October 20th grand rounds: addressing anti-Black racism in the clinical setting: a look at the social and physiological heath impacts of injustice.

Anti-Black racism – what is it and why does it matter?

Dr. Akua Benjamin, professor emeritus at Toronto Metropolitan University, conceived of the term anti-Black racism to underscore the distinct nature of systemic racism on Black people in Canada that is the result of the enduring legacies of enslavement and the colonization of people of African descent in this country. Anti-Black racism is manifest in policies and practices embedded in Canadian institutions such as, health care, education, and justice that reflect and sustain beliefs, attitudes, prejudice, stereotyping and/or discrimination towards people of African descent.

Consider that the first medical education program in Canada was established in 1824, a decade before the end of enslavement in Canada (1834), and while residential schools were operating.

In 1918 Queen’s University senate voted to ban Black students from enrolling in its medical school. At that time 15 Black men were enrolled in the university’s medical school, and while those students were not formally removed, the administration actively encouraged them to leave the program. Bolstered by the ban, white students put on a minstrel show; approximately half of the Black medical students left the program, while the other half remained. Several decades later, in 1965 Black students returned to register at Queen’s School of Medicine. The ban would not be repealed by senate until the fall of 2018 and an official apology was given in 2019.

In addition, the medical schools at McGill University, Dalhousie University, and the University of Toronto also excluded Black students, or placed restrictions on their admission, for varying periods of time.

Systemic anti-Black racism is evident in the ways people of African descent have long been used to “advance” medicine. For example, J. Marion Sims, the founder of gynecology, and the doctor credited with the creating the speculum was known for developing a surgical technique to repair vesico-vaginal fistula. His breakthroughs occurred at the expense of his subjects, namely enslaved Black women, who he operated on without use of anaesthesia. Henrietta Lacks’ cervical cancer cells were taken and used without her consent. Named after Lacks, the hela cell line represents one of the most important human cell lines in medical research; they have been instrumental in cancer studies and aids research, as well as in the creation of polio and Covid-19 vaccines.

Simply put, the past and present histories of enslavement and settler colonialism in Canada form the foundation of these institutionalized expressions of anti-Black racism in society in general, and in the field of medicine and medical education programs in particular.

Anti-Black racism(s) affect the health and well-being of Black communities in multiple ways. In addition to undermining trust in health care delivery systems and practitioners, it impacts the quality of care that Black people receive, resulting in poor physical and mental health outcomes.

It is therefore imperative that medical and health education professionals are taught about how anti-Black racism affects the social and structural determinants of health for Black people.

Marcia Anderson

In order disrupt the anti-Black racism patients experience, we have to disrupt the anti-Black racism that Black learners and health professionals’ experiences. These experiences are widespread, pervasive, and cause harm including decreased academic performance, burnout and high staff turnover. Disruption requires understanding how anti-Black racism was built into our systems.

The current special issues (volume 194, issues 41 and 42) of the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) are an important intervention into this knowledge gap.