Grade 12 student Maya Houle at the stop racism youth leadership workshop. Photo by Chelsea Laskowski.
The Multicultural Council of Saskatchewan’s annual push to “March Out Racism” was well underway this week as they hosted an anti-racism youth workshop in Prince Albert.
About 100 high school students and educators explored the topics of diversity, power, privilege and discrimination.
Grade 12 Prince Albert Collegiate Institute student Maya Houle was among those taking part. She said as a light-skinned Cree teen, she is rarely the direct target for racist comments.
“I do see a lot of it in between the two, of having Caucasian people and Indigenous people, and I see a lot of the clash but I don’t actually get any of it because I’m kind of a ninja – or in disguise, almost. But it’s really disheartening to see all the time,” she said.
For example, Houle said she sees a lot of glares and comments directed towards homeless First Nations people in downtown Prince Albert.
She said homeless people are “obviously very traumatized and injured as people. If you understood what First Nations people and Indigenous people went through and go through, then you probably wouldn’t be behaving that way so much towards them.”
Organizer Rhonda Rosenberg said the workshop starts off by grouping people by shoe colour, hair type, and even skin tone.
“This is uncomfortable right? This puts us on an edge of discomfort which is often where we learn. But it also gives us some surprising information that people that we assume would have the same skin tone as us are not always the ones who do. And so, we start to think a little bit outside of our regular boxes,” she said.
The workshop teaches a lot of lessons on how to take action against racism, which can take the form of interpersonal comments or actions, systemic racism, cultural racism represented in the media, and internalized racism where people turn negative messages against themselves.
“We all have a role to play in actually making our community safe and respectful for everyone,” Rosenberg said.
She said the council has added more focus on Indigenous people in this year’s events, which includes reading an Indigenous creation story that talks about equality.
The goal for the council is for those people to go back to their schools and host anti-racism activities in the future.
Thursday’s activities are part of the council’s “Show Racism the Door” campaign, as well as the lead-up to the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which takes place on March 21.