By Justin Rhoden

We are in a moment. Weeks of protest in the United States against anti-black racism and the systemic injustices Black people face every day have reignited similar conversations across the globe. In Canada, communities have mobilized in solidarity to advocate against the injustices Black and Indigenous communities experience, despite the health concerns of the current pandemic.

While others still baffle with the reality that systemic racism exists in Canada, endless inquiries, reports, books, articles, and research have exhaustively discussed the pervasive role racism plays in our societies. This moment is certainly not to debate the experiences of many communities across Canada.

It is the moment for change, as all moments in time have been. However, unlike times before, we have the opportunity to transition from the little steps social advocacy has grown accustomed to practicing in which we demand change in small portions: enough to alleviate some suffering but not too much as to upset the oppressors.

In the past, these small victories have been a necessary strategy to cultivate the climate of change that we are currently experiencing. It has allowed us to preserve ourselves and our communities while working tirelessly to decolonize and deconstruct the oppressive systems.

As a result, countless communities of leaders, activists, and educators have produced a wealth of knowledge and resources to guide us towards liberating futures. Now is the moment we collectively create those futures.

Communities are already attempting this by sounding the alarm to defund the police to address systemic racism, police brutality, surveillance, profiling, and the excessive budget used to do this. Of course, racism is not about the police. While many recognize this, it is still the dominant strategy presented to seize this moment and begin addressing racism in Canada.

The injustices Black and Indigenous communities face are not separated and isolated phenomena but are intertwined in a complex structure of marginalization: simultaneously sustained and mediated by various institutions. Policing is merely a single institution that intersects with education, the economy, the government, healthcare, and the media. However, in this fight for justice, we default to reducing violent systems into individual institutions, placing them into categories, and obscuring the interdependence that underscores its functionality.

The masters tools will never dismantle the masters house Audrey Lorde.

Engaging with racism as a separate and unique form of injustice is unmistakably the oppressors tools. The fight against racism is a resistance to all types of oppression. The racism that disadvantages myself as a Black man also disadvantages Black and Indigenous women, so this is also the fight against misogyny, misogynoir, and violence against women. The same racism impacts those that are made materially deprived, so this is the fight against poverty. It affects our communities and environments; this is the fight against environmental pollution and climate change. It affects LGTBQ members and two-spirited people; this is the fight against gendered and sexual discrimination. It affects people in distant places overseas whose humanity is denied and exploited; this is the fight against imperialism.

Racism is not divorced from these various forms of oppression nor the institutions that sustain them. Social change advocacy that decontextualizes racism erases the complexities of the systems we are addressing, reduces the degree of action needed, resolves the stakeholders, and distorts the ability for all communities to recognize their role in addressing systemic racism in Canada. We cannot advocate against racism and not fight against poverty, or epistemic violence, or climate change, or sexual discrimination, or settler colonialism, or imperialism, oppressive education, and so forth.

These complex intersections of our positionalities and the injustices we face are the driving force for large-scale advocacy and change. They are our own tools that we must use to equip ourselves. Then, we can begin creating new collective realities rather than fragmented change, often subjected to the oppressors insidious co-optation of the justice we seek.

The call to defund the police cannot be divorced from the need to address the entire system of oppression: violent curriculums in education, an exploitative economy, a government that continuously undermines its commitments to Indigenous communities, the historical material deprivation of BIPOCs, etc.

Advocating for these widespread and multifaceted changes is the responsibility of all allies wherever they reside. With so much research, recommendations, and models for transformative change already developed by previous and existing communities, social change is only a matter of unwavering collective action and reflection. For example, all teachers and educators who consider themselves allies need to mobilize the curriculum recommendations and resources curated by Black and Indigenous communities to eliminate the epistemic injustices and taught racism reproduced through education. Likewise, all allies need to organize and advocate for authentic change within the space(s) that they operate in solidarity with Black and Indigenous Peoples and their complex intersectionalities.

Whenever the system fails to meet our demands for systemic justice and social change, we must then collectively reflect on the limitations of the structures that currently exist and collectively create and support our own. If the education system refuses to redesign its racist curriculums, the alternative cannot be to continue students education in these violent environments. Instead, the solution is to begin collectively creating new educational structures that are reflective of anti-oppressive values. We must activate and sustain our agency as social beings to collectively redefine and reorganize our society. However, such transformational movements are only possible if we authentically unite in action and reflection.

We are in a profound moment, where there are many networks, experiences, and resources available to change these systems or create entirely new ones that are reflective of our collective humanity. This moment is for all allies everywhere to meaningfully organize and mobilize for the liberating realities we deserve.

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Opinion: How to make the most of this moment: A letter to anyone who cares about social change - Anishinabek News