queen’s coalition against racial and ethnic discrimination
 
 
Dear Tricolour folk,   On January 11th 2008, we accidentally read The Journal.  Like the majority of Queen’s students, this empty jerk circle publication doesn’t even make it into our bathroom reading let alone our minds, HOWEVER we learned something today: A new approach to antiracism offered in The Journal.  We learned that:  Once People of Colour and Aboriginal Peoples change our mentalities people will STOP shoving us off the curb! Yes, it’s our mentalities that make people speed up when they see us on the road, or throw stuff at us in Stauffer library, or call us savages and colonize our countries. Ahh yes, it’s been our fault all along. Because we WANTED people to dress up in Blackface on Halloween, throw Pow Wow keggers, colonize the “underdeveloped” world, and yell the N-word at Ale House during every appropriate song each Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday .   You see, if we just believe that we aren’t oppressed then it will go away!! How could we not have thought of it before?! Oh but wait, I think that’s what internalized racism and multiculturalism are all about. When we believe that we really AREN’T oppressed and that we can be whatever we dream to be and if we all just hold hands and crotches and “love” each other everything will be good. Well, wait, that hasn’t worked… so what should we do??? Because conferences and forums on antiracism haven’t worked. Offering courses on race and racism haven’t worked. What do we do??   Maybe we should start a group dedicated to antiracism and anti-colonialism! We can hold Each One Teach One therapy sessions for People of Colour and Aboriginal Peoples, we’ll have office hours and a safe space for these people to work in solidarity. We can create Peer Mentorship programs and Faculty Mentorship programs so that People of Colour and Aboriginal Peoples can connect and survive. We can actively respond to racism and discrimination on campus. Oh we have that! It’s called QCRED. Hmm …   But no one cares. Because People of Colour and Aboriginal Peoples been talking about racist violence on this campus for years and many of them have self-imposed exile because of that violence. But still no one cares… when the Coloured/Aboriginal Peoples talk. Because they’re crazy right? Yeah, they are just exaggerating their experiences and we don’t need to take them seriously.   Yes, for years People of Colour and Aboriginal Peoples have been taking a stand as we work to survive the racism that props up this Ivory Tower everyday. If you  spent any portion of your $40 000 degree reading a book you’ll already know this.  Surely the “best and brightest” can look that up on their own.   Another conference Another forum Another article Another life wasted Another life that wastes Again? The redundancy kills us like a broken fucking record Because this is our life! This is not something interesting you find in a book, or on the other side of the world, or at a multiculturalism event This is real fucking life. A faculty of Colour has been violently attacked because they have been deemed disposable And we dispose them again with the rhetoric of multiculturalism and internalized racism   This is not the first This is not the last But it is As it is everyday In the life of a Person of Colour and Aboriginal Person Who chooses to see That it is most definitely NOT our fault That slavery, colonialism, systematic racism happens It is not our fault that many of us have been miseducated by this colonial curriculum Which tells us that we are unimportant   And to the People of Colour and Aboriginal peoples who experience this struggle everyday Who survive in silence and in solidarity We tell you that we have been working In the face of the master who wants us dead We have been working Long before what happened yesterday and today and tomorrow And we will not stop Even when the lights, cameras, candles, banners, and sexiness of antiracism ends We don’t. Because we survive. Because we exist.    Love, QCRED What we’ve learned