If you ask Kushan Azadah, an MA student in Social Justice and Equity Studies (SJES), what drew him to the Racialized and Indigenous Student Experience (RISE) Summit, his answer is simple: \u201cEverything it stood for.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a racialized student, I am surrounded in a sea of whiteness, white students, white professors, white curriculum, white scholarship,\u201d Azadah explains. \u201cWhen I heard of the possibility of attending a summit where I would be surrounded by other students who understood my experiences on a visceral level, I jumped at the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Azadah was one of four graduate students who participated in the RISE Summit, hosted by the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) last month in Toronto. Some 200 students from across Canada were also in attendance.<\/p>\n
The RISE Summit offered panels, workshops and discussion forums on a broad range of issues, such as stereotypes, identities, activism, solidarity and healing, to provide opportunities for participants to seek out the conversations that meant the most to them.<\/p>\n
A panel on environmental racism was especially meaningful to Firoz Alam, another MA SJES student.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy home country, Bangladesh, is a country of 160 million people equal in size to the state of Iowa. The capital city, Dhaka, accommodates 144,000 people in a single square kilometre,\u201d says Alam. \u201cBy 2020, Bangladesh will have 30 million climate refugees. Every single day, 50 children drown due to rising water levels caused by global warming. It wrecks my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shannon Kitchings, also of the MA SJES, was deeply moved by the daily grand entrance of the National Aboriginal Caucus, led by two indigenous elders.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition to being profoundly moving, it reminded me that there have been people facing racism in Canada for centuries. This is not a new phenomenon. In solidarity, we may find peace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ha Min Kim, a student in the MA in Critical Sociology, found that participating in the Black Lives Matter protest in Nathan Phillips Square left a strong impression.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was definitely a memorable event because through the protest, we were able to\u00a0practice what we learned about allieship. I held a sign that\u00a0read ‘coexistence through coresistance,’ one of the key lessons I took from the summit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SJES program committee supported students’ participation at the RISE Summit because it seemed like an important, though small, move in the direction of making student life more racially inclusive and just, says\u00a0Mary-Beth Raddon, the SJES Graduate Program Director.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Summit seemed like a rare opportunity for\u00a0racialized and indigenous students to collectively foster well-being and, at the same time,\u00a0explore ways to challenge the racism and colonialism they encounter\u00a0in the classroom, in the curriculum and generally on campus,\u201d she says<\/p>\n
\u201c I hope we can continue to facilitate this kind of gathering and then listen to students’ agendas for change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graduate programs, faculty members, the CFS and the Graduate Student Association (GSA) all pulled together to ensure that all four students could attend the summit. Carissa Taylor, the SJES representative on the GSA, canvassed at Brock to collect money to cover registration fees, and the CFS funded the difference.<\/p>\n
For the students, the summit tied in with both their academic and personal journeys.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn SJES we explore theoretical potentials for justice. This conference was focussed on practical ways to engage in action for justice. I could easily identify practical applications for the theories we have been studying,\u201d says Kitchings.<\/p>\n
Kim says it was eyeopening.<\/p>\n
\u201cI witnessed and realized the power of solidarity, which I could have not learned to the same extent by merely being in a classroom,\u201d Kim says.<\/p>\n
She adds that she was able to connect a lot of social issues that she’s\u00a0learned about by\u00a0hearing stories and building friendships with people who experience the struggles on a day-to-day basis.<\/p>\n
\u201cCombatting racism, sexism, transphobia, among others is an issue not only for the people who suffer most from it,\u201d Azadah points out. \u201cRacism is not only an issue for racialized peoples. We need to recognize our privileges and complicities, and to embrace our shame instead of running away from it or replacing shame with blame towards the people we harm. Embracing our complicity creates the space where allies can be born and real change can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you ask Kushan Azadah, an MA student in Social Justice and Equity Studies (SJES), what drew him to the Racialized and Indigenous Student Experience (RISE) Summit, his answer is simple: \u201cEverything it stood for.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":38679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[188,55,6833,1,38],"tags":[3505,4046,4047],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38678"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38678"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38681,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38678\/revisions\/38681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}