Responding With Resistance to Antiblack Racism in Canada and the Oppression of First Nations Individuals and Communities on Turtle Island

• In Event: Rehearsals for Change: Engaging in Meaningful Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Teacher Education

Abstract

1. Purposes
Canada’s social imagination has been filtered through a White supremacist settler colonial lens that views Black people and Black communities in problematic and racist ways, and often deems them as threatening subjects who must be controlled and criminalized (Cooper, 2006; Razack, 2013). Such myths and attitudes have a strong influence on how Black folks in Canada are employed, educated, incarcerated, and policed (Dei, 2006; Khenti, 2013), leading to many difficult social and political outcomes and realities for Black individuals and families (James & Turner, 2017; Walcott, 1997). This paper explores how The African Diaspora Youth Conference ¬– an annual conference at the University of Windsor which is structured to improve the educational trajectories and, well-being and life chances of Black youth ¬¬¬– uses theatre as a lens into the emotional lives and educational aspirations of Black youth from Toronto, Windsor and Detroit.

2. Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
Critical Race Theory: An integral goal of is to (re)present narratives of racial oppression and discrimination as told by people and communities who are not racialized as White, as a strategy of resistance, while also naming race as a social construct, thus shedding some light on the historical, social, and cultural factors that continue to (re)establish these racial constructs and markers of identity (James, 2009; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995).

Rhetoric of Cultural Production: The Rhetoric of Cultural Production redirects the conversation from one that focuses on academic outcomes to one that interrogates the social, political, and cultural conditions that shape individual experiences (Gaztambide-Fernández, 2013). As such, experiences around learning are observed through a non-traditional lens, leading researchers, and educators to shift the focus away from hegemonic, elitist ideologies around the “arts” that stem from colonial roots.

3. Modes of Inquiry
The cultural production of these youth acted as a lens into their socio-emotional lives. A key theme that emerged from this project was the hope that these youth were fostering around their educational aspirations and trajectories. Hope involves acting on collective possibility youth and communities collectively hope and act towards a more equitable and ethical future for themselves and their community (Ginwright, 2016).

4. Data sources & Results
These youth also employed song and rapping to express how their emotional lives connected with their educational aspirations. Data was collected through 1:1 interviews with students and teachers, a textual analysis of their songs, poetry and theatrical improvisations.

5. Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
The discourse around poor Black, Brown, and Indigenous youths (Tuck, 2009) is often problematic, and suggests that “young people create more problems than possibilities” (Ginwright & Cammarota, 2002, p. 82). It remains that the youths and young people who historically have faced discrimination often shift their attention and emotional labor towards social justice initiatives (Sherrod, 2006), using their cultural production to speak of and to their oppression (Noguera & Cannella, 2006).

Author

• Emmanuel Tabi, McGill University
  Presenting Author