Building a Space for Conversations about Race: Creating Respectful Dialogue

Written by Mansharn Toor, Policy Analyst of Canadian Cultural Mosaic Foundation

As a response to the current state of race relations, Anti-Racist activists — Alisha Gordon, Mel Vee, Souad Farag and Iman Bukhari —took some time over the past weekend to pass on techniques and practices they use in their activism and day-to-day. Conversations about racism are never easy to facilitate, to help guide people to build a space for respectful dialogue, our panelists identified four tools: relationship building, self-compassion, ally-ship and introspection. ​

• Relationship building
  Relationships building, is a key element of anti-racism work. Simply speaking it is creating an environment for dialogue that could be in professional, political, social or personal settings. The root of relationship building is to exposure one to different experiences. This technique requires a lot of “unlearning” as Dene and Metis activist Gordon explains, it is “creating and fostering relationships with Indigenous people.”
  
  Building honest relations requires allowing people to engage in open dialogue that fosters forgiveness and education. This means, giving room for people to say the “wrong” thing to get the conversation started. In many cases, people are afraid to take part in frank conversations about racism, but as Vee states, fear can be a common ground. One technique Souad uses is to “always make a point to tell someone that there is no question that will offend me. Even though this is not technically true, it sets a pretense so that people feel comfortable articulating themselves and know that they have the opportunity to ask.” This technique removes the guilt, fear or judgement. 
  
  
• Self-Compassion
  Treating yourself and others with kindness is critical to creating an open dialogue, however, this is not often the case which is why our panelists stressed the importance of self-care or compassion. While most of the conversations about anti-racism work deals with challenging systems and people that uphold racist ideas, many neglect the “emotional labor” that is required of anti-racism efforts. Anti-racism workers, as Vee cautions, is exhausting work that can take burden one’s mental health. Having support structures including people who you can rely on to step in if a conversation gets heated is an important part of self-care for Bukhari.
  
  The laborious effort it takes to speak about racism is difficult for all involved, however, if one is sharing their experiences, it should be seen as an honor rather than a burden. While you may feel overwhelmed by one’s experiences, it’s important to remind yourself that for people of color, some don’t have an escape from the everyday experiences of being a racialized person. For Gordon, when an Indigenous Elder takes the time out to teach you about their tradition, culture or experiences, which in itself is a difficult task, it is imperative you provide a gift to replenish the knowledge they have given you. 

• Ask, Listen and Learn
  Becoming an ally by asking, listening and learning. Meaningful anti-racism work requires the inclusion of everyone; this work cannot be completed without ally-ship. Ally’s provide people of color a support structure by being active witnesses and by reporting hate. Hate crimes are rarely reported; only 1 in 10 hate crimes are reported in Canada. Without the necessary information, it is harder for law enforcement, policy makers and activists alike to develop strategies to combat hate.
  
  Paraphrasing the sentiment of our panelist, I will take this opportunity to speak directly with white people. Given the position of power white people hold in this society (provided whiteness is not stagnant) it is critical white people speak with their community to inform and engage in tough conversations about racism. Although, white allies aren’t the only people who must engage in these conversations, it was deemed critical that white people help uplift people of color in professional, political and social environments. 
  
  
• Introspection
  This is the act of reflecting upon your own biases, privilege and position. Knowing how you may or may not contribute to the discrimination or racism off racialized people is a step everyone who wishes to work in anti-racism must engage in. The active awareness of one’s own position in society contributes to more genuine and honest dialogue and relationships. 
  
  Key element of this is not to play “oppression politics”. As our panelist made note of, everyone’s struggle is valid and when someone shares their story with you, it is a privilege to be entrusted with a very personal experience. 

Race and racism are not stagnant concepts, rather, race and racisms evolve and manifest differently, depending upon the place, time, individual and situation. Conversations about racism is never easy, however, by using the tools listed above, we hope that individuals will take the steps necessary to take part in open and respectful dialogues about racism. We thank Calgary’s Community Wise for hosting, and the panelist and audience for taking the time to have a frank conversation about racism. 

Learn how NOT to be a bystander of racism or any form of hate through our video.

Additional resources:

• Jess Berney Tweet: https://twitter.com/jesseberney/status/897951329942986752
• The Messy Truth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFX3Mrm_hTs
• 8 Ways to Disrupt Racism: https://medium.com/@solidaritycville/charlottesville-organizers-ask-you-to-take-these-8-actions-b50ec8c3cfbb
• Former White Supremacist Speaks: https://www.facebook.com/Channel4News/videos/10155149399186939/
• Dinner with White Supremacist: https://www.facebook.com/vicenews/videos/483069112058345/?hc_ref=ARTKriNNbPI6vkzfma0O7eEn53uTaHA6SYaP-V4hATPNqAutDkokxFTPAFbD878EV2E
• Having Meaningful Conversations about Race: https://www.netimpact.org/blog/the-8-r%E2%80%99s-of-talking-about-race-how-to-have-meaningful-conversations
• Let’s talk- Discussing Race: http://www.tolerance.org/sites/default/files/general/TT%20Difficult%20Conversations%20web.pdf
• Disrupting Racism through Everyday Behaviour: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/ritu-bhasin/want-to-disrupt-racism-change-your-everyday-behaviour_a_23201676/
• Maria Sharpova Racism Article: https://www.buzzfeed.com/bimadewunmi/maria-sharapovas-rivalry-with-serena-williams-is-in-her-head?utm_term=.gkwN6YRlK#.takmEQKpY
• Engagement games about Race: http://www.whatsrace.org/pages/games.html
• Privilege Walk: http://www.whatsrace.org/images/privwalk-short.pdf
• The Daily: A Conversation with a former White Nationalist: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/podcasts/the-daily/former-white-nationalist-derek-black.html?mcubz=3
• Irfan Chaudhry’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/irfanyeg?lang=en
• Racist Rhetoric in Alberta video: http://alberta.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1188870&binId=1.2002989&playlistPageNum=1
• Anger Iceberg: https://static.wixstatic.com/media/a03522_b19a88bd0550419092e7e6b28e26e92e~mv2_d_10320_13416_s_8_4_2.jpg/v1/fill/w_606,h_788/a03522_b19a88bd0550419092e7e6b28e26e92e~mv2_d_10320_13416_s_8_4_2.jpg
  
• Conflict Mode: http://orgco.weebly.com/uploads/5/0/6/8/50682599/959572_orig.jpg
  

The free event mentioned above was brought to you by a collaboration between Canadian Cultural Mosaic Foundation, Uproot YYC, and Community Wise Resource Centre.