My hasty notes after attending last night’s presentation on Dalhousie’s historic connections with slavery and anti-Black racism, as well as the preliminary recommendations around reparations the university should engage in.
News release: “Finally, it is important to understand that the over-representation of BIPOC folks in prisons is by design. The prison system in Canada is a part of the settler-colonial project and therefore, entrenched in colonialism and racism and it is up to us to challenge and dismantle these institutions.”
Today’s news release by Divest Dal after the campout and after addressing the Dalhousie board of governors calling on them to revisit fossil fuel divestment.
New contributor and Divest Dal member Laura Cutmore writes on Canada’s longest university campout for fossil fuel divestment, and why Dalhousie can no longer look the other way. Climate, racial, and gender justice are inextricably linked, she writes, and there simply are no more excuses for inaction.
An open letter in support of Masuma Khan on behalf of over 100 women and trans gender non-conforming former students’ union reps. “Since speaking out against the whitewashing of Canada’s history through the Canada 150 campaign, Masuma has been the target of disgusting racist, Islamophobic, xenophobic and misogynist attacks as well as threats of violence, including sexual violence. Instead of defending and protecting this brave racialized, Muslim woman, Dalhousie University chose to initiate disciplinary action against Masuma at the request of a white male student.”
Judy Haiven on Dalhousie’s prosecution of Masuma Khan and the need to start a Dalhousie White Boys Support Centre.
“Should I counsel students at Dalhousie not to critique social institutions or practices, or not to invite academics who may do so, for fear of reprisals on the part of Dalhousie University, lest a student file a complaint that actually affirms the analysis in question?” Saint Mary’s professor Darryl Leroux writes an open letter to Dalhousie University administration pointing out that disciplining Masuma Khan for her FB post on white fragility exemplifies precisely the type of racism that is rampant on university campuses, including at Dalhousie.
Attached to the letter is an abridged version of a keynote address on white fragility in academia that professor Leroux delivered last year to the Dalhousie Arts and Social Sciences Society. This lecture is eerily applicable to what is transpiring at Dalhousie right now.