Research Assistant 2022 - To Change We Must Reflect

It’s essential to address the catalyst to the social justice empowerment that was activated in the last several years. This is all owed to the Black Lives Matter Movement and most importantly the frontline of the movement which are Black women. The BLM movement was founded by Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi They paved the path for the uproar of the oppressed and for that we must be forever grateful. The Black Lives Matter Movement gained traction June 2020 with the murder of George Floyd by police brutality. This initiated an international movement of support against police violence towards Black Americans and expanded into police violence of Black people everywhere. For background information about Black Lives Matter, please view the video below or take a look at their website. There are also toolkits + resources available for further learning.

Through this traumatic time for Black folks, the institution failed to provide support for its few Black students - even resisting to make a public statement in support of BLM and those souls that have been lost to police brutality. I discussed this frustration with other folks at the institution and we individually contacted the president, Gillian Sidall, to question as to why the institution was staying silent through this deeply significant time for Black folks. Her response was a formal email that did not bring forward a solution. About a week later, the institution released a statement (see below) acknowledging BLM, the deaths of George Floyd along with the rise of anti-Asian hate due to COVID-19’s origin in China. They did not even recognize these significant and very different issues separately. This further caused harm to these groups through classifying the issues they were facing as equal, without considering intersectionality and the variety of discrimination experienced by these groups. Not to mention that the experience of Black Canadians needs to be recognized as an individual issue outside of other POC issues.

The silence of the school caused chaos in the comments of their Instagram page. From students to faculty, everyone was upset by the blindness the school displayed during this time of need. 

Following this statement, which was also posted on their Instagram page, the University posted about the achievement of one of the few Black students at the school at the time. This student had been achieving big things in his career all while in school and was only first recognized publicly for it following the Instagram backlash. According to the Instagram comments on their page, it seems as though this student was not contacted or made aware of this post ahead of time. From a lack of action to performative activism, the University continued to upset more and more people until eventually it evolved into individuals and collectives taking action.