good evening everyone heavy subject I
hope you’re as ready as I am to talk
about something that’s kind of been
bothering me for I guess six years that
I’ve been at the University of Winnipeg
and for I guess 20 years since I started
going to school so let’s get started
so education is our passport for the
future tomorrow belongs to the people
who prepare for today’s so what if our
education system reflected a genuine
diversity model now in Canada we hype up
the word diversity we hype that up
all the time type it up
specifically with a cultural mosaic
trope and a very very popular Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau we’re also
stereotypically known in Canada for
apologetic attitudes our maple syrup or
hockey icons and the selfie King himself
as I mentioned our Prime Minister so
Canada is built on narratives of
diversity the cultural mosaic trope that
consumes outsider’s perspectives of our
so called welcoming nation to those
fleeing prosecution terror and war
Canadians will welcome you regardless of
your faith diversity is our strength
welcome to Canada this quote from Justin
Trudeau outlines our concept of Canadian
politeness and unity making it quite
difficult to convince the general
mainstream public that Canada could ever
be subject to or producers of
discrimination now these false
narratives are enforced by a political
commentary that appears inclusive on the
surface but remains exclusive and
practice so some people ask and say to
me Alexa how could you say Canada isn’t
a leader of change with a progressive
figure like Justin
you know his cabinet is made of a 50% of
women he’s a feminist he welcomed Syrian
refugees he walked in pride and
appointed people of color in the Liberal
Party hello we’ve made it in Canada but
I’d like to challenge that so some of
these so-called left liberal progressive
sentiments are usually expressed when
I’m challenging the Canadian system now
the work that I do as the founder of
black space Winnipeg and host of rock
colors on seek a UW 95.9 FM and the
former racialized student Commissioner
sometimes can make folks uncomfortable
the conversations that I have are pretty
controversial why because I talk about
race a lot of the subjects that people
are afraid to we heard before a lot
about vulnerability and this is what
makes me feel vulnerable when we talk
about identity identity politics where
we are in the world and how race shapes
all of that so it’s time to have organic
conversations about what makes us
uncomfortable so it’s TED talk and I
thought I’d approach this possibility to
have 15 minutes to share ideas that help
influence the world I thought I would
speak to my experience as an
undergraduate and expressed the vision I
have for diversifying the Academy so in
post-secondary education and primary
education systems we are starting to see
demands for inclusive practices
diversifying the Academy decolonizing
the classroom and creating courses
to educate students on the not so
glorious past and present of Canada one
example being here at the University of
Winnipeg the indigenous course
requirement which hasn’t always received
I guess support collectively from the
student body faculty and staff at the
University of Winnipeg but the efforts
for cultural inclusion and
representation in the Academy are among
us now I’ve said it already but I’m
about to say another word that’s gonna
put you may be in discomfort and I want
you to say it with me okay ready
white supremacy oh thank God we all said
it let’s do another exercise after the
count of three
I want everybody to repeat this okay one
two three okay if there was any doubt
that it didn’t before say this every day
when you wake up and it’ll become habit
and you’ll start to see it okay so this
may come as a shock to you if you’re
hearing this for the first time but for
the people on the receiving end of
systemic injustice and oppression this
is no news to us in order to move
forward to dismantling white supremacy
in our educational structures we have to
first acknowledge that it exists in our
country so after about six years at the
University Winnipeg I am finally
released from my academic sentence with
a major in human rights and a double
minor in business and conflict
resolution studies sometimes I feel I
barely made it out alive but I’m here
now towards the end of my degree I began
to feel I was paying for a very
expensive piece of paper with my name on
it and any undergraduates in the
audience might be able to empathize with
me but it has been a quite interesting
journey it wasn’t just the sleepless
nights stressful assignments and painful
group activities that had me eager to
leave academia as soon as I could but it
was the dismal representation for people
of color I recognized within my
department now the evidence in which I
provide is a history of lived experience
as a woman of color predominantly in a
white institution it’s difficult to
pinpoint every single microaggression
and racist encounter I’ve experienced
within a classroom setting pushing
towards a diverse curriculum faculty
staff and student body will ensure
positive outcomes for the university
community much like my early years
university education was consumed with
moments of isolation and vulnerability
at times being the only person of color
in the classroom left a lasting impact
on me that can not be expressed to most
without being able to relate to through
lived experience
so over time I began to feel
disconnected towards my degree I grew
tiresome of hearing perspectives from
philosophers like Immanuel Kant’s and
John Locke and Aristotle what was
declared as an academic inclusive space
to discover achieve and belong in
reality felt empty bland and uninspiring
students of color who consistently
learned from white scholars and
educators for the entirety of their
academic career comes at a cost the
connection between lack of
representation from diverse education
models is linked to and can be linked to
success rates of students ability to
excel in their studies now my department
was notorious for developing and
presenting developing countries as
corrupt and broken nation’s six years of
learning about who’s the most corrupt
African warlord declared by the
International Criminal Court what
country owes money to the International
Monetary Fund and World Bank and pushing
the white saviour Western complex
I grew hopeless for human rights
conflict resolution and International
Development Studies and it comes as a
great shock to be reminded what’s
rendered as mandatory and protocol in
academia derives primarily from European
scholarship I yearned for that academic
therapy I found in classes that centered
course material from voices I can relate
to bell hooks Maya Angelou James Baldwin
are the minds I wanted to learn from I
wanted to find on my page open the decks
the textbook craving those soothing
theories that I know would stay with me
once I left the classroom and my vision
for diversity in the education system is
a simple idea inspire ways to challenge
white supremacy and higher education and
how do we do that through action
resistance and demands for inclusion
inclusive practices that enhance our
education systems for all students
faculty and staff on campus so here are
couple tips
post-secondary institutions can do to
increase visibility and representation
and focus on decentralizing whiteness in
the academy so number one hire people of
color and folks who traditionally come
from the objected pockets of society
number two decentralize whiteness from
course material through different
approaches to education three ensure 50%
or more of the course syllabus is
dedicated to scholars of color and
ensure that you are educated enough
yourself to properly engage with those
scholars of color structure coursework
and campus culture around major events
that help promote education and
awareness of marginalized groups like
Black History Month Asian Heritage Month
indigenous History Month pride trans Day
of Remembrance anything that focuses on
marginalized groups and number five
collaborate with community members and
organizations to encourage a more
diverse student body with access to
scholarship opportunities and better
access to education so back in 2015 I
actually submitted a very similar
recommendations to my faculty at the
global college expressing a my humble
yet radical plea to encourage a more
diverse model and human rights from the
material to the faculty and staff our
classroom should reflect stronger
diversity why say it with me okay so
these suggestions provided were also in
response to a 2016 survey conducted by
the University of Winnipeg called
employment equity census basically the
survey was distributed to all active
core employees compose of faculty and
staff so not just educators active on
payroll so about 846 employees responded
it is within these small percentage of
marginalized groups for my resilient
demand in challenging what appears to be
a non diverse academic environment so we
have about 59% of women well who I was
happy about that statistic which is
great
39% of men and then moving on to this
one though we have in indigenous course
requirement less than 10% of indigenous
people work at the University of
Winnipeg I thought was very interesting
folks who self-identify with a person
with a disability is less than a present
racialized folks is just under seventeen
percent and for sexual orientation folks
who come from or identify as LGBTQ is
less than eight percent and less than
one percent so three out of five hundred
and thirty-seven people identify as
gender nonspecific and non-binary who
likes pie what kind of pie
any kind of pie pumpkins my favorite so
look at this this is this is this is
what less than ten percent looks like on
a plate do you want more pie than that
okay like the holiday season is coming
up and I’m an on eating and that’s not
enough so the numbers do not lie so
taxes are alarming how can we diversify
the Academy with such tokenizing
inadequate representation amongst
faculty staff from marginalized
communities in our institutions these
numbers are also scarce across Canadian
universities another example is at the
University of Toronto where marginalized
groups are about this
so fifty-two percent of women 1 percent
of indigenous people 27 percent of
racialized individuals persons with
disabilities is 3% and 5% for the
LGBTQIA community now I hope this
evidence at hand is enough to convince
and light a fire of change and ignite
that fire and make it grow concerned
students faculty and staff have started
to execute initiatives for academic
inclusion but the numbers need to grow
for example earlier this year the
University of Toronto held the first
ever in Canada black graduation creating
safe space for
black undergraduates eager to celebrate
their success of their academic journey
with their peers along the way efforts
like this remind me of what happens when
marginalized communities come together
and impact a system through traditions
and ways to positively infect new
generations to come so we’re in a very
crucial time and have a chance to make
history by applying pressure and
demanding for stronger diversity
policies approaches in the Academy
imagine this as a call to action
personally it is exhausting as a woman
of color to express to people why
there’s a problem when euro Canadian
history is a requirement and black
history is an elective without tools in
place to grow diversity on our campus
we’ll end up with a long battle ahead of
us much like in recent events that took
place in Charlottesville
I fear the stronger the campaign comes
to remove statues of our oppressors and
apply strict diversity frameworks to
maintain a rich student body and campus
culture we will start to see instances
of white and male frigid fragility fight
back a system that will no longer
benefit folks who’ve enjoyed the
benefits from the oppression of
marginalized communities from
generations but as James Baldwin once
said not everything that is faced can be
changed but nothing can be changed until
it’s faced I had a conversation with a
student at a conference earlier this
year that had me having this much faith
in our academic system and he said as an
indigenous man I have to pay to go to
university to gain more access to my
peoples traditions that were taken away
from us by the states what steps will be
systemic Lee implemented to truly revoke
white supremacist ha’s I have little
faith in the education system that
forces students to enter a life into
debt after their education and rejects
the hard-earned degrees from students
who come from
countries abroad recently a friend of
mine had a conversation expressing our
frustrations of white supremacy in the
classroom and she told me that in her
environmental science course they were
learning about the environmentalist
Archibald Bella named Melanie am i
saying this correctly do we know him he
goes by the name grey owl so basically
he took on the aesthetic of what he
thought indigenous people look like
darkened his skin grew out his hair
married an indigenous woman and
culturally appropriate an indigenous
culture to legitimize what I feel was
his twisted logic and she asked why are
we learning from an environmentalist
basically in red face still the
professor tried to justify his studies
and efforts made for the environmental
advocacy so educators who feel the need
to desperately clutch onto academic
figures who we know today were racist
sexist and horrible human beings in the
name of education needs to rethink
primitive texts regulated throughout
their curriculum but it’s not their
fault there were products of their time
usually what people say I wonder if a
hundred years from now people are gonna
look back and say Donald Trump was a
product in his time even though we’re
allegedly in a time of equality and
change okay so what we need is a
revolution and education revolution to
revamp the blueprint of our universities
I came to the University Winnipeg I came
to seek higher education and open my
mind and discover what I wanted to do
with my university career basically to
discover achievable long so what did I
discover that I had a unique voice that
love to challenge for answers in the
classroom what can I say I was raised by
a very conscious independent black woman
that’s some of the benefits and I’ll
never apologize for that and I wanted to
relate to people too in my community
so what did I achieve a way to grow my
passion through grassroots activism
collaborating with a network
that applies models of change through
pressure persistence and promise and
where do I belong to now a community
that recognizes the importance of these
issues that affected marginalized groups
now the first I have for raw actions of
change came from a lack of diversity I
noticed within my academic career if
we’re truly in a cultural mosaic diverse
nation then that should be reflected
across all areas of our society it’s
2015-2017 excuse me and our education
system needs to encompass and represent
communities across our nation not just
the one pocket of our nation’s privilege
majority inclusive the quality education
is a foundation for dynamic and
equitable societies Desmond Tutu I hope
this was enough to encourage folks to
really take action and apply pressure
for a genuine authentic diversity model
and higher education thank you
[Applause]
hope you’re as ready as I am to talk
about something that’s kind of been
bothering me for I guess six years that
I’ve been at the University of Winnipeg
and for I guess 20 years since I started
going to school so let’s get started
so education is our passport for the
future tomorrow belongs to the people
who prepare for today’s so what if our
education system reflected a genuine
diversity model now in Canada we hype up
the word diversity we hype that up
all the time type it up
specifically with a cultural mosaic
trope and a very very popular Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau we’re also
stereotypically known in Canada for
apologetic attitudes our maple syrup or
hockey icons and the selfie King himself
as I mentioned our Prime Minister so
Canada is built on narratives of
diversity the cultural mosaic trope that
consumes outsider’s perspectives of our
so called welcoming nation to those
fleeing prosecution terror and war
Canadians will welcome you regardless of
your faith diversity is our strength
welcome to Canada this quote from Justin
Trudeau outlines our concept of Canadian
politeness and unity making it quite
difficult to convince the general
mainstream public that Canada could ever
be subject to or producers of
discrimination now these false
narratives are enforced by a political
commentary that appears inclusive on the
surface but remains exclusive and
practice so some people ask and say to
me Alexa how could you say Canada isn’t
a leader of change with a progressive
figure like Justin
you know his cabinet is made of a 50% of
women he’s a feminist he welcomed Syrian
refugees he walked in pride and
appointed people of color in the Liberal
Party hello we’ve made it in Canada but
I’d like to challenge that so some of
these so-called left liberal progressive
sentiments are usually expressed when
I’m challenging the Canadian system now
the work that I do as the founder of
black space Winnipeg and host of rock
colors on seek a UW 95.9 FM and the
former racialized student Commissioner
sometimes can make folks uncomfortable
the conversations that I have are pretty
controversial why because I talk about
race a lot of the subjects that people
are afraid to we heard before a lot
about vulnerability and this is what
makes me feel vulnerable when we talk
about identity identity politics where
we are in the world and how race shapes
all of that so it’s time to have organic
conversations about what makes us
uncomfortable so it’s TED talk and I
thought I’d approach this possibility to
have 15 minutes to share ideas that help
influence the world I thought I would
speak to my experience as an
undergraduate and expressed the vision I
have for diversifying the Academy so in
post-secondary education and primary
education systems we are starting to see
demands for inclusive practices
diversifying the Academy decolonizing
the classroom and creating courses
to educate students on the not so
glorious past and present of Canada one
example being here at the University of
Winnipeg the indigenous course
requirement which hasn’t always received
I guess support collectively from the
student body faculty and staff at the
University of Winnipeg but the efforts
for cultural inclusion and
representation in the Academy are among
us now I’ve said it already but I’m
about to say another word that’s gonna
put you may be in discomfort and I want
you to say it with me okay ready
white supremacy oh thank God we all said
it let’s do another exercise after the
count of three
I want everybody to repeat this okay one
two three okay if there was any doubt
that it didn’t before say this every day
when you wake up and it’ll become habit
and you’ll start to see it okay so this
may come as a shock to you if you’re
hearing this for the first time but for
the people on the receiving end of
systemic injustice and oppression this
is no news to us in order to move
forward to dismantling white supremacy
in our educational structures we have to
first acknowledge that it exists in our
country so after about six years at the
University Winnipeg I am finally
released from my academic sentence with
a major in human rights and a double
minor in business and conflict
resolution studies sometimes I feel I
barely made it out alive but I’m here
now towards the end of my degree I began
to feel I was paying for a very
expensive piece of paper with my name on
it and any undergraduates in the
audience might be able to empathize with
me but it has been a quite interesting
journey it wasn’t just the sleepless
nights stressful assignments and painful
group activities that had me eager to
leave academia as soon as I could but it
was the dismal representation for people
of color I recognized within my
department now the evidence in which I
provide is a history of lived experience
as a woman of color predominantly in a
white institution it’s difficult to
pinpoint every single microaggression
and racist encounter I’ve experienced
within a classroom setting pushing
towards a diverse curriculum faculty
staff and student body will ensure
positive outcomes for the university
community much like my early years
university education was consumed with
moments of isolation and vulnerability
at times being the only person of color
in the classroom left a lasting impact
on me that can not be expressed to most
without being able to relate to through
lived experience
so over time I began to feel
disconnected towards my degree I grew
tiresome of hearing perspectives from
philosophers like Immanuel Kant’s and
John Locke and Aristotle what was
declared as an academic inclusive space
to discover achieve and belong in
reality felt empty bland and uninspiring
students of color who consistently
learned from white scholars and
educators for the entirety of their
academic career comes at a cost the
connection between lack of
representation from diverse education
models is linked to and can be linked to
success rates of students ability to
excel in their studies now my department
was notorious for developing and
presenting developing countries as
corrupt and broken nation’s six years of
learning about who’s the most corrupt
African warlord declared by the
International Criminal Court what
country owes money to the International
Monetary Fund and World Bank and pushing
the white saviour Western complex
I grew hopeless for human rights
conflict resolution and International
Development Studies and it comes as a
great shock to be reminded what’s
rendered as mandatory and protocol in
academia derives primarily from European
scholarship I yearned for that academic
therapy I found in classes that centered
course material from voices I can relate
to bell hooks Maya Angelou James Baldwin
are the minds I wanted to learn from I
wanted to find on my page open the decks
the textbook craving those soothing
theories that I know would stay with me
once I left the classroom and my vision
for diversity in the education system is
a simple idea inspire ways to challenge
white supremacy and higher education and
how do we do that through action
resistance and demands for inclusion
inclusive practices that enhance our
education systems for all students
faculty and staff on campus so here are
couple tips
post-secondary institutions can do to
increase visibility and representation
and focus on decentralizing whiteness in
the academy so number one hire people of
color and folks who traditionally come
from the objected pockets of society
number two decentralize whiteness from
course material through different
approaches to education three ensure 50%
or more of the course syllabus is
dedicated to scholars of color and
ensure that you are educated enough
yourself to properly engage with those
scholars of color structure coursework
and campus culture around major events
that help promote education and
awareness of marginalized groups like
Black History Month Asian Heritage Month
indigenous History Month pride trans Day
of Remembrance anything that focuses on
marginalized groups and number five
collaborate with community members and
organizations to encourage a more
diverse student body with access to
scholarship opportunities and better
access to education so back in 2015 I
actually submitted a very similar
recommendations to my faculty at the
global college expressing a my humble
yet radical plea to encourage a more
diverse model and human rights from the
material to the faculty and staff our
classroom should reflect stronger
diversity why say it with me okay so
these suggestions provided were also in
response to a 2016 survey conducted by
the University of Winnipeg called
employment equity census basically the
survey was distributed to all active
core employees compose of faculty and
staff so not just educators active on
payroll so about 846 employees responded
it is within these small percentage of
marginalized groups for my resilient
demand in challenging what appears to be
a non diverse academic environment so we
have about 59% of women well who I was
happy about that statistic which is
great
39% of men and then moving on to this
one though we have in indigenous course
requirement less than 10% of indigenous
people work at the University of
Winnipeg I thought was very interesting
folks who self-identify with a person
with a disability is less than a present
racialized folks is just under seventeen
percent and for sexual orientation folks
who come from or identify as LGBTQ is
less than eight percent and less than
one percent so three out of five hundred
and thirty-seven people identify as
gender nonspecific and non-binary who
likes pie what kind of pie
any kind of pie pumpkins my favorite so
look at this this is this is this is
what less than ten percent looks like on
a plate do you want more pie than that
okay like the holiday season is coming
up and I’m an on eating and that’s not
enough so the numbers do not lie so
taxes are alarming how can we diversify
the Academy with such tokenizing
inadequate representation amongst
faculty staff from marginalized
communities in our institutions these
numbers are also scarce across Canadian
universities another example is at the
University of Toronto where marginalized
groups are about this
so fifty-two percent of women 1 percent
of indigenous people 27 percent of
racialized individuals persons with
disabilities is 3% and 5% for the
LGBTQIA community now I hope this
evidence at hand is enough to convince
and light a fire of change and ignite
that fire and make it grow concerned
students faculty and staff have started
to execute initiatives for academic
inclusion but the numbers need to grow
for example earlier this year the
University of Toronto held the first
ever in Canada black graduation creating
safe space for
black undergraduates eager to celebrate
their success of their academic journey
with their peers along the way efforts
like this remind me of what happens when
marginalized communities come together
and impact a system through traditions
and ways to positively infect new
generations to come so we’re in a very
crucial time and have a chance to make
history by applying pressure and
demanding for stronger diversity
policies approaches in the Academy
imagine this as a call to action
personally it is exhausting as a woman
of color to express to people why
there’s a problem when euro Canadian
history is a requirement and black
history is an elective without tools in
place to grow diversity on our campus
we’ll end up with a long battle ahead of
us much like in recent events that took
place in Charlottesville
I fear the stronger the campaign comes
to remove statues of our oppressors and
apply strict diversity frameworks to
maintain a rich student body and campus
culture we will start to see instances
of white and male frigid fragility fight
back a system that will no longer
benefit folks who’ve enjoyed the
benefits from the oppression of
marginalized communities from
generations but as James Baldwin once
said not everything that is faced can be
changed but nothing can be changed until
it’s faced I had a conversation with a
student at a conference earlier this
year that had me having this much faith
in our academic system and he said as an
indigenous man I have to pay to go to
university to gain more access to my
peoples traditions that were taken away
from us by the states what steps will be
systemic Lee implemented to truly revoke
white supremacist ha’s I have little
faith in the education system that
forces students to enter a life into
debt after their education and rejects
the hard-earned degrees from students
who come from
countries abroad recently a friend of
mine had a conversation expressing our
frustrations of white supremacy in the
classroom and she told me that in her
environmental science course they were
learning about the environmentalist
Archibald Bella named Melanie am i
saying this correctly do we know him he
goes by the name grey owl so basically
he took on the aesthetic of what he
thought indigenous people look like
darkened his skin grew out his hair
married an indigenous woman and
culturally appropriate an indigenous
culture to legitimize what I feel was
his twisted logic and she asked why are
we learning from an environmentalist
basically in red face still the
professor tried to justify his studies
and efforts made for the environmental
advocacy so educators who feel the need
to desperately clutch onto academic
figures who we know today were racist
sexist and horrible human beings in the
name of education needs to rethink
primitive texts regulated throughout
their curriculum but it’s not their
fault there were products of their time
usually what people say I wonder if a
hundred years from now people are gonna
look back and say Donald Trump was a
product in his time even though we’re
allegedly in a time of equality and
change okay so what we need is a
revolution and education revolution to
revamp the blueprint of our universities
I came to the University Winnipeg I came
to seek higher education and open my
mind and discover what I wanted to do
with my university career basically to
discover achievable long so what did I
discover that I had a unique voice that
love to challenge for answers in the
classroom what can I say I was raised by
a very conscious independent black woman
that’s some of the benefits and I’ll
never apologize for that and I wanted to
relate to people too in my community
so what did I achieve a way to grow my
passion through grassroots activism
collaborating with a network
that applies models of change through
pressure persistence and promise and
where do I belong to now a community
that recognizes the importance of these
issues that affected marginalized groups
now the first I have for raw actions of
change came from a lack of diversity I
noticed within my academic career if
we’re truly in a cultural mosaic diverse
nation then that should be reflected
across all areas of our society it’s
2015-2017 excuse me and our education
system needs to encompass and represent
communities across our nation not just
the one pocket of our nation’s privilege
majority inclusive the quality education
is a foundation for dynamic and
equitable societies Desmond Tutu I hope
this was enough to encourage folks to
really take action and apply pressure
for a genuine authentic diversity model
and higher education thank you
[Applause]
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