Anti-Racism and Anti-Hate Project Report
1 Executive Summary
Since the global pandemic began in 2020, we have witnessed: racial inequities being exacerbated; unmarked graves of Indigenous souls sacrificed to Canada’s legacy of residential schools; global protests erupt against anti-Black racism and harrowing police brutality, and the alarming rise in hate speech and crimes. These are only a few of the global and local realities that impact post-secondary institutions (PSIs) in British Columbia (BC), that have existed in different forms and magnitudes prior to 2020, perpetuating a cycle of traumatization.
BCcampus initiated a critical project focused on understanding the post-secondary landscape in BC with respect to anti-racism (AR) and anti-hate (AH) in January 2022. This report presents the methodology, emergent framework and findings of an environmental scan of 25 PSIs and four organizations in BC. The findings were focused on the resources, tools and training that have been developed to address AR and AH. This report highlights the gaps and imperfections in reflecting the comprehensive undertaking of AR and AH at BC PSIs. Due to the compressed timing of this project, a debt of gratitude is owed to the members of the project working group in supporting the scan through multiple consultations where their voices, lived experiences and input supported the success of the project.
Insights gleaned from the environmental scan highlight gaps and opportunities that can drive meaningful and systemic change that underpin AR and AH at PSIs. Anyone reading this report is encouraged to reflect on the gaps in currently available resources to move AR and AH within their own institutions, organizations, departments or roles. It’s in these open spaces where further inroads to creating a more equitable path for British Columbia’s post-secondary context can be built. Finally, key recommendations are made to reflect areas for amplification and scalability as PSIs move commitments to advance AR and AH work with the aim of creating equitable, diverse, and inclusive learning environments that are safe and free of hate.
The consequences of status quo and inaction are significant: diminished connection and community as well as a marked lack of belonging and space for individual and collective celebration of age, beliefs, class, colour, culture, disability, ethnicity, gender, language, nationality, politics, race, religion, sexuality, and socioeconomic status, as well as humanity at large. Everyone has a role to play in an ongoing and sustained, action-oriented commitment to boldly take an anti-approach to historical violent forms of oppression and colonization that continue to remain in many present-day structures, practices and policies across PSIs.
This term derived from the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples encompasses First Nations, Métis and Inuit people, individually or collectively. (2)
Beliefs, attitudes, prejudice, stereotyping and/or discrimination that is directed at people of Black-African descent and is rooted in a history and experience of enslavement and colonization. The overt and covert racism that is both structural and systemic across policies, practices, institutions, ideologies and sectors towards people of Black-African descent requires an ongoing and active process of dismantling such reinforced and perpetuated systems of oppression. (5) (8)
Occurring in many forms, hate speech includes different types of hatred rooted in racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and white supremacy. The Criminal Code of Canada and BC Human Rights Code describe three main components: the expression of speech occurs in a public sphere, it targets a person or group of people with a protected characteristic such as race, religion or sexual orientation, and the language is extreme. (1)
Differences in lived experiences, perspectives or understanding of people that is related to race, ethnicity, colour, culture, ancestry, geographical locations of origin, political beliefs, religion, class, etc. (2)
Refers to behaviours, actions or words that can be offensive and hurtful and leave the targeted group/person feeling traumatized, excluded, unsafe, uncomfortable and sad. (1)
Viewed as a social construct, individuals become divided based on factors such as geography, history, culture, economy, social, politics and physical traits even though none of these can be legitimately used to classify groups of individuals. (3)
Refers to the systemic subjugation one group over another that results in the attainment of power, dominance and privilege and prejudice towards the group being oppressed. (2)
The invasion, dispossession and suppression of a group of individuals by another group that results in an unequal distribution of power and privilege. (2)