On this day in 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful rally against apartheid law in the township of Sharpeville, South Africa. In 1966, this date was chosen by the UN to represent a call to nations across the world to commit to the fight against racism and discrimination. Alongside marking the 50th anniversary of the creation of this day, today also marks the 15th anniversary of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action. Created in 2001 by the UN to outline an extensive and comprehensive framework of anti-racism action and legislation, the Programme was to be implemented globally to improve the state of affairs for marginalized racial groups.

The most crucial aspects of the Declaration focus on the acknowledgement of slavery as a crime against humanity, the role of the government in preventative and remedial work for racialized groups, a primary focus on the narratives of racialized groups, and the call for the involvement of individuals and groups from all walks of life – non-governmental organizations, political parties, the private sector, the media, civil society, and more – to be engaged in anti-racism efforts. The Declaration also voices concerns about the increasing prevalence of religious discrimination, specifically anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

While the Durban Declaration may present itself as a neat and well-packaged ‘anti-racism 101,’ the truth is that the Declaration has been quite ineffective. UN scholars themselves agree that it has done little to nothing to combat growing hatred and xenophobia that have become apparent across the world today. Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, Mutuma Ruteere; the Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, Mireille Fanon Mendes-France; and the Chairperson of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, José Francisco Cali Tzay stated in a March 17 press release, “Much more needs to be done by governments around the world to protect vulnerable groups and punish the perpetrators. Impunity has become the norm for what are heinous crimes and this is a very alarming situation. We see an alarming increase of hate and xenophobic speech echoing across the globe. Political leaders, public figures and even mass media stigmatize and scapegoat migrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, and foreigners in general, as well as minorities.”

As disheartening as it feels to say this, they’re right. It’s been 15 years since the Durban Declaration was issued and it feels as if race relations across the world have neither progressed nor plateaued, but have rather regressed. Across the world, the state of inter-ethnic and inter-racial relations has gotten worse, with racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and outright apathy toward people of colour becoming more and more prominent every day. However uncomfortable it is for dominant racial groups to hear, and painful for some marginalized groups to acknowledge, the unfortunate truth is that racism and the legacies of colonialism still haunt people of colour and Indigenous people, shaping their lives and experiences and tipping the scales in favour of the white population.

Where the Durban Declaration has failed

It isn’t necessary to look any farther than outside our windows to see how racism has impacted the lives of people of colour and Indigenous people. In Canada, Indigenous women are three times more likely to be victims of violent crime than any other racial demographic, and at least six times more likely to be murdered. Between 1980 and 2012, 1,181 cases of missing or murdered Indigenous women have been recognized by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) as being part of the epidemic of violence against these women. Even this number is considered to be a conservative estimate that does not take into account the hundreds of potentially unacknowledged cases.

This violence is not a result of independent, contemporary circumstances, but is part of a longstanding pattern of violence against Indigenous women that spans the last few centuries. This pattern is rooted in a legacy of colonialism and colonial patriarchy imposed on Indigenous communities, exhibited by institutions such as residential schools and legislation disenfranchising Indigenous women and taking from them their right to partake in Indigenous leadership. Added to this are a number of longstanding racist stereotypes internalized by the government and authority figures across the country, which render law enforcement ineffective in preventing or aiding in the elimination of violence against Indigenous women.

There is significant and obvious evidence of racism even outside the Canadian borders. In the U.S., patterns of racialized violence are enacted against black people constantly. This epidemic of violence is most commonly associated with police brutality, as the most notable offenders have been white police officers who are almost never penalized for their crimes. However, in the climate of hate exacerbated by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, average-Joe white supremacists are also being armed with the arsenal of hateful anti-black rhetoric they need to legitimize their preexisting feelings and violent actions. People of colour who – with an amount of courage I cannot even begin to fathom – protest at Trump rallies are met with malice and physical and verbal abuse that are sometimes reminiscent of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

While, for the first half of his campaign, Trump’s candidacy was treated like a joke, he insidiously built up the vile and racist constituency that has now put him ahead in the polls. Every time a late-night talk show host joked dismissively about Trump, someone watching was given yet another opportunity to internalize Trump’s message to validate their own prejudices. This was never a joke. From the moment it began, Trump’s treatment of people of colour has had tangible consequences – it has been considered the enabling factor in hate crimes in various parts of the country. As the American elections grow closer and the reality of Trump’s popularity becomes clearer, it’s difficult for some to imagine that this is a situation America has to face in 2016.

In the U.S. and Canada as well as in Europe, similar levels of hatred are being directed toward Muslims in reaction to the perceived threat of the Syrian refugee crisis and “terrorism” – which, in reality, is largely a pretense used to justify warfare in western Asia and profit-oriented weapons trade. This was the case immediately after 9/11, and is still the case now. Indeed, there are definitely terrorist attacks that happen and that kill many, and leave families forever altered – but they are certainly not to the scale that the mainstream Canadian and American media like to portray. According to several studies on causes of death in the U.S. and Canada, you are more likely to be killed by falling furniture, lightning strikes, or falling off a ladder than by terrorists. And in regards to rates of terrorism specifically, Americans are more likely to be killed by white extremists than by so called “Islamic” terrorists – the myth of Islam presenting a threat to the West is a gross misrepresentation of the reality of contemporary war, and is a propaganda tool that, in benefiting a select few white elites, has marginalized Muslims across the world.

This is the same ‘threat’ that has legitimized the closing of borders to refugees across Europe – refugees who are, in fact, often fleeing from the same threat they are believed to pose. Syrian Muslims are much more likely to be affected by Daesh than most Americans and Europeans currently are. And yet, refugees are being denied the basic human right to shelter because they share a religion with a terrorist group – a statement that is flawed in itself, as most Islamic leaders across the world have denounced the actions of Daesh and insist that the group is not representative of Islam. Despite this, Muslims all over the world have to pay for the crimes of a select few, and are often subject to spiteful rhetoric and hate crimes as a result.

These issues represent only a small selection of the most visible problems facing people of colour and Indigenous people around the world today, but the systems of racism and colonialism that cause them pervade all social structures and institutions, including McGill. If the racially charged dynamics of life on campus are not apparent to you right now, that doesn’t mean they’re nonexistent; and if you do recognize the structures of racism and colonialism that influence the lives of students and staff of colour, then you’ll understand the scale of the problem. To try to fathom the full extent of racism in this institution is daunting, to say the least. Where does one even begin? James McGill owned slaves – that’s a place to start. From the birth of this institution until this very day, race has influenced the lived experiences of all who enter these hallowed halls, by informing levels of privilege and marginalization, and determining the way students are treated by their peers and their institution. There’s no escaping or denying the impact race has on each and every one of us.

The UN may set up a thorough framework to combat racism, and ratify it and celebrate it for years to come – but how legislation looks on paper and how it translates into real life are two very different things. And the truth is, however comprehensive the Durban Declaration may have attempted to be, it has done little to nothing to improve the realities with which people of colour live. The reason for this could be due to the language and logistics of the Declaration itself, or due to the real-world application of these guidelines to lived experiences. The unfathomable scale of this aspect of our lives is perhaps the greatest barrier to overcoming it. To live within a legacy of racism and colonialism is to have your land, culture, and rights stolen, and to have to continuously fight to be free of the weight of that legacy. This is what racism is – it is real, and it is every day.

Minority Report is a column that deconstructs racism through an intersectional lens. Inori Roy-Khan can be reached at minorityreport@mcgilldaily.com.

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The ad’s power lay in the fact that Garner, someone so close to the issue who has had to experience firsthand the devastation of losing a parent to racist police violence, expressed her steadfast conviction that Sanders would be the right candidate for president of the U.S.. So, if someone who stands at the centre of the Black Lives Matter movement has put their faith in Bernie Sanders, the conclusion to draw from the ad would be that the audience should, too.

On February 17, Hillary Clinton was joined at a Chicago rally by Geneva Reed-Veal, mother of Sandra Bland, whose alleged suicide is believed by many to actually have been murder at the hands of racist police officers. Reed-Veal expressed her support for Clinton, saying, “Here’s a woman who has shown time and time again, that she has the skill, experience, and staying power more than twenty years in.”

Clinton’s supporters at the rally expressed confidence that she would address the issue of racist police violence were she to become president. The same confidence that some members of the Black Lives Matter movement extended to Sanders had now been offered to Clinton, by other prominent activists whose voices have been considered equally as valuable. This divide within the Black Lives Matter movement, and to a greater extent within the black American activist and intellectual communities, has brought one difficult question to the forefront of the 2016 Democratic primaries: which candidate has secured the ‘black vote?’

The heavy discussion surrounding the ‘black vote’ is not unique to the 2016 elections – it was at the heart of the 2008 Clinton versus Obama primaries, and was even an issue when Hillary Clinton’s husband Bill Clinton was in office in the 1990s. Rhetoric around the black vote has tested decades-old loyalties, and on occasion has been persuasive enough to make voters shift their allegiance from one candidate to another. At the heart of the discussion of the black vote, and to a lesser extent (although equally important) the Latino vote, lies the issue of identity politics – do people of colour have an obligation to vote for the candidate who is seen as the better candidate for people of colour?

In the past few months, several (white) feminists have pledged their support to Hillary Clinton in a manner so intense that they’ve condemned any woman who doesn’t do so as being inherently anti-feminist. Prominent feminist and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright rather ominously declared that “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!” at a rally in early February. In a similar manner, the politics of the voting tendencies of people of colour threaten to marginalize any people of colour who don’t support the popular candidate, perhaps casting them aside as being ‘bad’ people of colour – as if all people of colour have homogeneous voting practices that are decided en masse at a secret people of colour meeting every election season.

Reverend Al Sharpton, prominent black American civil rights activist and media figure, said recently that “no one can deliver the black vote. No one speaks for everybody in the black community.” And, considering the matter on even the shallowest level, he’s right – no one candidate can claim to have the entirety of the more than thirty million black citizens currently residing in the U.S. on their side.

Despite that, there has been heavy focus on the conversation around both candidates “pandering” to the black vote as the election season goes on. When Bernie Sanders brings up the epidemic of racist police violence in America, it’s “pandering.” When Hillary Clinton talks about ending the school-to-prison pipeline, it’s “pandering.” If that’s the case, then it seems like every American president preceding Barack Obama has been “pandering” to the white vote. But no one talks about it like that – because that’s just ridiculous.

If there were to be a mass black vote that promised the loyalty of every black voter in America, both Hillary and Bernie would stand a good chance of being the favourite.

The Clintons have been considered favourably by some in the black community since Bill Clinton’s presidency in the 1990s – that’s a twenty-year loyalty that may not likely be broken by the arrival of one new candidate. But on the flipside, Bill Clinton’s policies during his presidency were considered by many to be devastating to the black community, with his ‘tough on crime’ measures disproportionately incarcerating black and Latino men, and bringing the school-to-prison pipeline to new heights.

Hillary Clinton strongly supported and lobbied for these policies during her husband’s reign, even perpetuating the discourse of inherent criminalization of black youth. In her current campaign, she has made an effort to acknowledge and rectify the mistakes of her husband’s term in office, vowing to take action against the disproportionate incarceration of black people and to improve the living standards of poor black youth across the country.

Bernie Sanders, now 74 years old, was a prominent member of the civil rights movement during the time of Martin Luther King Jr. himself. At a recent rally, Sanders asked members of the audience whether any of them had participated in King’s march on Washington in 1963. When no hands went up, he said to the audience, “It makes me feel really old. I was there.” And he was there – he was a supporter of King’s non-violent means of protest, and was an advocate for the desegregation of housing in Chicago as a student.

But while Sanders was very much present at the local, grassroots level, he hasn’t had the chance to build as much of a large-scale alliance with prominent black politicians in America. Hillary Clinton has officially received the support of institutional leaders like the Congressional Black Caucus, while Bernie Sanders has been publicly supported by renowned black activists, union leaders, and intellectuals.

With this divide between Sanders’s and Clinton’s black supporters, is it fair to perpetuate the rhetoric of the black vote? At this point in the election, the truth may be that both Sanders and Clinton have facets of their campaigns that may be appealing and facets that could be considered significant drawbacks to black voters across the country. And of course, this isn’t even taking into consideration the very real fact that there are black Republican voters in America. Ultimately, when examining the complexities of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ identity politics in the 2016 election, it seems that discourse on a homogeneous black vote does nothing but detract from the real conversation about racial justice, reducing the complexities of black life in America to a matter of ballot.

Minority Report is a column that deconstructs racism through an intersectional lens. Inori Roy-Khan can be reached at minorityreport@mcgilldaily.com.

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“White Privilege II” is, essentially, a song about Macklemore. It’s a song about the role that he plays in the struggle for racial equality for black Americans and other people of colour, and it’s a song in which he’s clearly trying to acknowledge the insidious power structures and privileges that lift him up as a white man and condone violence and oppression against black people. Macklemore starts off by admitting that the movement he is supporting is not a movement for him or about him – he is at least self-aware enough to realize that he resembles the oppressor far more than he does the oppressed, and that his presence begs the question, “Should I even be here marching?”

However, in the second verse of the song, “White Privilege II” starts to collapse on itself. The turning point is Macklemore’s calling-out of white artists like Miley Cyrus and Iggy Azalea who have been guilty of cultural appropriation. In perhaps the greatest recent instance of the pot calling the kettle black, white rapper Macklemore thought it was wise to call out other white rapper Iggy Azalea, pointing a finger at her for appropriating the style of music she performs. Don’t get me wrong, Iggy Azalea should be called out a thousand times over for the rampant racism and appropriation present in her music. But Macklemore, too, has profited from the same appropriation of rap, a historically black art form rooted in struggles against oppression and created specifically as a form of expression unique to American blackness. Macklemore has built his empire in the same “fascist and backward” (his words, not mine) manner as Iggy Azalea – but does he acknowledge that his money is just as dirty as hers? No.

Those who face marginalizing experiences as part of their everyday know them better than anyone else.

“White Privilege II” may be Macklemore’s genuine attempt to practice allyship after years of legitimate criticism over his silence on the Black Lives Matter movement, but it meets the same fate as many similar acts of white allyship taking place at the forefront of American media and in everyday life. As sound as Macklemore’s intentions may be, his methods end up reinforcing the dominance of white voices over minority voices on matters of racism. His one song will no doubt garner more page hits and likes than the efforts of many activists of colour who have the same message to spread – if not a better one. Being a white ally in a social justice movement is like being invited to a screaming contest where you’re given a microphone and several loudspeakers, while your competitor has laryngitis.

Leonardo DiCaprio, another popular white man known for sporting this same brand of whitewashed ‘allyship,’ found himself in a similar situation at the Golden Globes in early January. In his acceptance speech after winning Best Actor for The Revenant, DiCaprio spoke about the experiences of Indigenous peoples being exploited for land and capital. “I want to share this award with all the First Nations people represented in this film and all the Indigenous communities around the world. It is time we recognize your history and protect your Indigenous lands from corporate interests and people who are out there to exploit them.”

While DiCaprio’s words were likely sincere, they garnered mixed reactions from Indigenous people and activists around the world. While some applauded him for taking the time to acknowledge Indigenous struggles, others pointed out that his efforts were minimal at best, and applauding him for expressing basic levels of decency results in the continued elevation of white voices while Indigenous voices continue to be ignored. In the days after his speech, DiCaprio donated $3.2 million to Indigenous groups in Ecuador whose rainforests are currently being exploited by massive petroleum extraction efforts. This act was certainly far more effective than his pretty words on stage had been. That being said, there is still more that he could do to elevate Indigenous voices with the power and sway he holds in Hollywood.

DiCaprio’s efforts have been compared to one noteworthy, but little-known, incident of white allyship in Hollywood’s history. In 1973, Marlon Brando was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of character Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather. However, upon winning the award, Brando was not to be seen – instead, in his place came Native American activist and actress Sacheen Littlefeather, who went on Brando’s behalf to reject the award in protest of Hollywood’s treatment of Native American characters on screen. Littlefeather was met with open hostility, and was not allowed to complete the speech – instead, she was ostracized from Hollywood in the aftermath, and was the target of mockery and hatred for decades after the incident.

Despite the vicious fallout from Littlefeather’s appearance at the Oscars, which was unfortunately to be expected in the climate of racism and prejudice against Native Americans, Brando’s act can be seen as a better model of allyship – he took the opportunity not to speak for Native Americans, but instead to give Native American activists a platform to talk about issues in their communities. Brando also took concrete action in support of the cause – he was an active presence in the Native American civil rights movement, including the Wounded Knee incident of 1973, one of the largest violent civil rights clashes in contemporary Native American history.

Being a white ally in a social justice movement is like being invited to a screaming contest where you’re given a microphone and several loudspeakers, while your opponent has laryngitis.

The priority for white allies should always be to make space for racialized people to speak about their experiences of marginalization, rather than talking over them. However, many activists acknowledge a truth that contributes to what some consider the necessity of white allyship: the fact that many white people are more comfortable listening to other white people. Being confronted about race and racism by racialized people is said to feel, to many white people, like a personal attack or accusation.

The desire to temper the voices of people of colour with white voices is not exclusive to mass media; it can be seen as close to home as McGill residences. During Race Project, a new series of mandatory workshops on race, a white facilitator was required to be present alongside a black, Indigenous, or person of colour (BIPOC) facilitator for all workshops. This was, largely, to lighten the burden of emotional labour on racialized facilitators, but also served to assuage the feelings of white students who may be made uncomfortable by discussions of their privilege and oppressive structures. However, in situations like these, the question then becomes: is white comfort being prioritized over the agency of racialized people? And is it valid to perpetuate systems that silence racialized people to make your message more palatable to white audiences?

For many, the short answer to these questions could be yes and no, respectively. These answers are valid. In conducting the deeper conversation about the nature of white presence in anti-racist movements, the most important factor to keep in mind is that the voices of racialized people should be made the priority – those who face marginalizing experiences as part of their everyday lives know them better than anyone else. It is crucial that white allies listen to the instruction and guidance that racialized people may choose to provide, and that racialized people have the agency to be treated as they want to be treated, not how white allies believe they should be treated.

Minority Report is a column that deconstructs racism through an intersectional lens. Inori Roy-Khan can be reached at minorityreport@mcgilldaily.com.

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The Oscars have again lived up to the expectations of racism and narrow-mindedness they’ve earned from wary audiences, who are growing increasingly tired of the Academy’s neglect of black actors. In 87 years of Academy awards, less than 4 per cent of acting Oscars have been awarded to black actors; of that number, only one black actress has ever won in the Best Actress category, along with six black actors in the Best Actor category. 98 per cent of producers and writers in the Academy are white, along with 94 per cent of the Academy voters (who decide who’s going to win). In the last ten years, no winners of acting Oscars have been of Latino, Asian, or Indigenous heritage. The Oscars continue to be dominated by whiteness, as does the movie industry as a whole. Many black actors have become so frustrated with this process of lather, rinse, repeat racism that they have chosen to boycott the Oscars.

Jada Pinkett Smith was the first to advocate for the initiative. “Is it time that people of colour recognize how much power and influence we have amassed, that we no longer need to ask to be invited anywhere?” she said in a video posted on Facebook. “Begging for acknowledgement, or even asking, diminishes dignity and diminishes power. And we are a dignified people, and we are powerful – let’s not forget it.”

Director Spike Lee voiced his disapproval of the Academy on Instagram, captioning a photo of a young Martin Luther King, Jr. with, “How Is It Possible For The 2nd Consecutive Year All 20 Contenders Under The Actor Category Are White? And Let’s Not Even Get Into The Other Branches. 40 White Actors In 2 Years And No Flava At All. We Can’t Act?! WTF!!”

David Oyelowo who himself is an Academy member and was a prominent figure in the same discussion on race at last year’s awards after his performance in Selma was snubbed said a few days ago, “For twenty opportunities to celebrate actors of colour, actresses of colour, to be missed last year is one thing; for that to happen again this year is unforgivable.”

“The only thing that separates women of colour from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win […] for roles that are simply not there.”

Oscar nominations are just the tip of the iceberg. As abysmal as representation in front of the camera is, the situation is worse behind the scenes. As of 2013, directors of colour made up only 17 per cent of all Hollywood directors, and writers of colour made up a measly 11 per cent of Hollywood writers – all of this despite people of colour making up about 40 per cent of the U.S. general population. Those numbers, though atrocious to begin with, have been steadily decreasing since then. The problem black actors are up against in Hollywood is twofold: first, it seems that, for the most part, black creators are the only ones willing to create worthwhile opportunities for black actors; and second, the mainstream opportunities for these black creators are quickly drying up. As many incredibly talented and willing performers of colour as there are in Hollywood, there are almost no opportunities provided by mainstream Hollywood for them to pursue worthwhile roles. Viola Davis, in her acceptance speech at the Emmys last September, said, “The only thing that separates women of colour from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win […] for roles that are simply not there.”

Indeed, the roles that are offered to black actors by mainstream white directors are most often characterized by their subjugation: roles of slaves, servants, criminals, and other poor, suffering characters, most often frozen in historical narratives that set up black characters as victims, subservient to dominant white characters. These narratives are by far the most lauded among white Hollywood elites. While these narratives do reflect aspects of American history, they are not the only narratives to which black people can relate or by which they should be represented. Stories of triumph, power, and autonomy of black characters go unrecognized by institutions like the Academy in favour of violent narratives of subjugation. The case of 12 Years a Slave being awarded with an Oscar while Selma was neglected is a perfect example of this perpetuation of marginalizing narratives. Even outside the genre of drama, black actors are often relegated to the role of sidekick. When is the last time mainstream white Hollywood made a romantic comedy or science fiction movie starring black leads?

The root of this refusal to incorporate people of colour into mainstream movies lies in the association of whiteness with the default. When directors and writers come up with movie pitches, their character descriptions do not necessarily call for white actors explicitly – however, during the process of casting, it seems to never register with filmmakers that they could cast an Asian or Latino actor and have the story play out exactly as it would have with a white lead. Because of the socialization of the Western world to view whiteness as the norm, and people of colour as the ‘other,’ diversity continues to be neglected in Hollywood. Further still, when a film does include black actors, it then becomes labeled (and often dismissed) as a ‘black movie’; the same goes for other racial groups. On the flipside, audiences comprising people of colour do not have the luxury of dismissing movies which lack representation, because right now in Hollywood, every movie is a ‘white movie.’

Hollywood’s racism is becoming increasingly stark in the face of changing audience demographics – people of colour are overtaking white audiences as being the largest consumers of Hollywood media, and it only makes sense that what’s on screen should shift to mirror this change.

In the face of this building criticism, Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs, a black woman herself, released an official statement about the issue. “I am both heartbroken and frustrated about the lack of inclusion. This is a difficult but important conversation, and it’s time for big changes.”

In the days after Boone’s statement was released, the Academy underwent some changes in policy in an attempt to increase diversity. Most notably, membership rules have changed to offer more opportunities to younger members of the Hollywood community. The changes made do not guarantee an increase in race and gender diversity – they do not even explicitly address the issue of diversity. That being said, there is the potential for these changes to improve the state of representation in the Academy.

However, as many times as the Academy promises to make amends for its blatant neglect of black actors and other actors of colour, actors and activists alike will only be convinced when the results of diversity measures become visible. It’s about time for filmmakers to realize that even though Hollywood may have started off as a white man’s game, it certainly isn’t anymore.

Minority Report is a column that deconstructs racism through an intersectional lens. Inori Roy-Khan can be reached at minorityreport@mcgilldaily.com.

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Within hours, the terrorist group most commonly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attacks. Within this article and on any future occasion I write about ISIS, I will refer to it by the name Daesh – an acronym of the Arabic words for ISIL, ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah fī ‘l-ʿIrāq wa-sh-Shām. The name “ISIS” grants the group power it does not deserve; referring to the group as an “Islamic” state allows it to function as a representation of all Islam, which it most certainly is not. On the other hand, Daesh closely resembles the Arabic daes, which means “to crush” or “to tread under foot.” The name is meant to be an insult, reducing the group to what it truly is – a destructive, illegitimate force of chaos. The name has sparked such fury in the hearts of these terrorists that they threaten to cut out the tongues of anyone who use it.

With 1.6 billion Muslims currently living on the planet, it seems ridiculous to take the actions of a slim minority of violent extremists to be a representation of the whole religion. And yet, in the aftermath of attacks like the ones that took place in Paris both this month and in January (the Charlie Hebdo attacks), backlash against the Muslim community has been hateful and severe. After news of the Paris attacks spread to the world, many took to Twitter and Facebook to encourage the killing of Muslims and their exile from the Western world. Many blamed Islam as a whole for the attacks, with some advocating for the closing of borders to keep out terrorists “disguised as refugees,” and the banning of mosques.

Why are Muslims who are completely unaffiliated with terrorism required to prove their innocence to the Western world?

Across France, mosques and predominantly Muslim residential areas have been plagued by death threats and racist vandalism. The Deputy Chief Constable of Police in Scotland has warned that Islamophobic violence in the UK has already spiked in the aftermath of the Paris attacks.

Here in Montreal, 24-year-old Jesse Pelletier was arrested on November 18 and charged with inciting hatred and uttering threats after he posted a video of himself wearing a mask of the Joker from Batman, holding a fake gun, and promising to kill “one Arab a week” across Quebec. In Toronto, a woman wearing a hijab was attacked on November 16 outside of her son’s school; her hijab was ripped off and she was physically and verbally assaulted by two men. In Peterborough, Ontario, a mosque was set ablaze on November 14. Authorities are treating both Ontario incidents as hate crimes.

These increasing incidents of Islamophobic and racist violence come at a time when the West is already rife with Islamophobia. An FBI report on the subject revealed that since 9/11, Islamophobic attacks have become five times more frequent. 55 per cent of Americans surveyed reported having “somewhat unfavourable” or “very unfavourable” perceptions of Islam as of March this year – no doubt those numbers will have increased post-Paris. In the UK, a survey of British Muslims indicated that two-thirds of Muslim participants “have been subjected to verbal abuse […] while 82 per cent said they had witnessed Islamophobia being directed at someone else.” These numbers, along with the rates of racially motivated physical assault against Muslims in the U.K., have increased since 2010. Islamophobia has become a normalized, regular occurrence in the West that surges during times of insecurity.

Syrian refugees are as vulnerable to Daesh’s terror agenda as Western citizens are – even more so.

The Western assumption that Daesh’s actions are reflective of the Muslim community puts Muslims in a position where they are forced to prove their own innocence and that of their communities. Social movements like #NotInMyName have been created for Muslim individuals to shout to the world that they neither support Daesh, nor are terrorists themselves. One Muslim man in Paris blindfolded himself and wore a sign that read, “I am Muslim, and I’m told that I’m a terrorist. I trust you, do you trust me? If yes, hug me.” Last week, outside McGill’s Roddick Gates, a Syrian Muslim did the same.

While actions like these do help create solidarity between Muslims and non-Muslims in the aftermath of the devastation in Paris, I cannot comprehend why they should be necessary in the first place. Why are Muslims who are completely unaffiliated with terrorism required to prove their innocence to the Western world, as if their claim to their faith is less valid than the skewed version of a violent few? When KKK members rally in America and carry out vicious attack against people of colour, white Christians are not compelled to prove they are all not in fact KKK members. There is no reason why Muslims should have to make similarly ridiculous declarations.

Western leaders often perpetuate this anti-Islam rhetoric which associates Muslims with inherent suspicion. In the wake of Paris, several state governors and Republican leaders in America encouraged Western nations to close their borders to refugees or risk attracting more terrorists; many U.S. states have already voted to shut down their borders to Syrian refugees for the sake of “national security,” while leaders in other countries, such as Poland, have announced intentions to do the same. What these leaders don’t seem to realize is that part of the problem that has forced Syrians to flee their home country is Daesh itself. Syrian refugees are as vulnerable to Daesh’s terror agenda as Western citizens are – even more so, since Daesh has a larger presence in Syria and has killed more Muslims than non-Muslims to date.

Daesh’s efforts have been concentrated on killing Muslims as well as non-Muslims – the insinuation that all Muslims are somehow complicit in this, that they are not also victims, is a dangerous one. In the words of Muslim academic Reza Aslan, “Islam doesn’t promote violence or peace. Islam is just a religion, and like every religion in the world, it depends on what you bring to it. […] People are violent or peaceful. And that depends on their politics, their social world, the way that they see their communities, the way they see themselves.”

Enough analogies and apologies have been made; it’s time for all Westerners to realize that the actions of violently extremist individuals do not represent Islam as a whole. In the wake of terror attacks that affect them as much as they affect anybody else, Muslims in the West should not have to compound their trauma with fear of retaliatory Islamophobic and racist violence.

Minority Report is a column that deconstructs racism through an intersectional lens. Inori Roy-Khan can be reached at minorityreport@mcgilldaily.com.

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There is no crime that can warrant the treatment of a child with such brute force as Fields exhibited. Despite a federal civil rights investigation into the incident and the firing of Fields, the discourse around what happened at Spring Valley frequently presents the black victim as the cause that provoked Fields’ violence.

So, let me say it again: there is no ‘disruptive behaviour’ that can warrant a young student being body-checked to the ground by a police officer three times her size.

Fields had been nicknamed “Officer Slam” by some students of Spring Valley High because of his previous violent behaviour; he has also been sued twice before, once for use of excessive force. Yet, when Sheriff Leon Lott, Fields’ superior, was asked to comment on the incident, he held the student responsible for how events unfolded. “This incident started with a very disruptive student in a class,” Lott said in a press conference. “This student was not allowing the teacher to teach, was not allowing the students to learn. She was very disruptive, she was very disrespectful, she started this whole incident with her actions.”

The eagerness with which blame is pinned on a young black girl is not incidental – it is the product of an insidious association of blackness with inherent guilt and criminality.

The eyewitness accounts of students present in the room paint an entirely different picture. Tony Robinson Jr., who captured the incident on video, said, “I was [there] and nobody even knew what she did when he grabbed her. That’s how fucked up it was… That’s supposed to be somebody that’s going to protect us, not somebody that we need to be scared of.”

Another student, 18-year-old Niya Kenny, was arrested for speaking out against Fields during the incident. In spite of fearful accounts from students in the classroom, authorities involved in the incident all initially supported Fields’ behaviour, as did some students in the school. The Richland School District in which Spring Valley High is located has a history of racist violence against students by authority figures. Despite this history, the rhetoric surrounding this latest assault has oriented itself toward laying all blame on the young black girl.

The eagerness with which blame is pinned on a young black girl is not incidental – it is the product of an insidious association of blackness with inherent guilt and criminality. The racist violence that is most commonly described as being directed toward black men also heavily affects black women and girls, who are not only the subject to racial attacks, but also have the added weight of misogyny working against them. Because of this, their experiences go unacknowledged when confronting the reality of anti-blackness in the U.S. and Canada.

Not only do authority figures regularly display violent behaviour against black students in the U.S., but this violence has been systematized to the point that it directly contributes to the ‘school-to-prison pipeline.’ The school-to-prison pipeline is the pattern of educational and social institutions funnelling their most at-risk youth straight to the prison system, prioritizing incarceration over education or rehabilitation. This phenomenon can be observed in disciplinary practices that penalize black students at a greater rate than their white counterparts for the same misdemeanors.

Starting from early childhood, black students represent a disproportionately high amount of suspensions, making up half of all preschool suspensions. By middle school, black students are three times more likely to be suspended than white students for the same infractions. In 2011, black girls in America were six times more likely to be suspended from school than white girls. According to a report from the African American Policy Forum (AAPF), black girls said that they felt uncomfortable with security in their schools; some “were dissuaded from coming to school at all.”

Disproportionate punishments of black youth lead to disproportionate presence in the criminal justice system. Studies have shown that a single suspension can double a student’s likelihood of dropping out; an increased number of suspensions means a higher chance of entering juvenile detention, which decreases educational and financial opportunities for at-risk youth and increases the likelihood of imprisonment in adulthood. Initial incarceration builds up social obstacles and challenges which only increase the odds of continued incarceration, disproportionately filling up penitentiaries with black and Latino people.

Black youth are not more likely to cause trouble than their white peers, but they are more likely to be penalized for it.

This is not solely an American phenomenon. A 2011 report from the Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission highlighted the harsh treatment that black students face in Quebec schools compared to their white peers. This discrimination has frequently been connected to a lack of motivation in school, leading to decreased success in the education system and higher dropout rates. The Toronto Police Service has also been long criticized for its practice of carding, where individuals not suspected of any wrongdoing or connected to any investigation can be stopped and questioned on the street. The profiles compiled from these interrogations are then logged into a police database. This practice has been denounced time and time again as unfairly targeting black people, and racial profiling has been acknowledged by the Ontario Human Rights Commission as being a pervasive issue in the province.

The fact of the matter is, black youth are not more likely to cause trouble than their white peers, but they are more likely to be penalized for it. Similarly, black adults are not more likely to commit crime, but are more likely to be arrested for their offences than white adults. Somewhere within the non-black U.S. and Canadian subconscious is rooted the idea that blackness is inherently associated with guilt, criminality, and violence. A study conducted by the American Psychology Association in 2014 found black boys to be more likely to be mistaken as older and assumed to be guilty than their white peers, who were allowed the assumption of innocence. Similarly, the AAPF notes that “girls and black women are seen as more aggressive, and their emotions aren’t read accurately. Hurt and pain and even excitement are [misunderstood] on black faces.” Black women are often perceived as embodying the “angry black woman” stereotype: even when their anger is legitimate, it is discredited in favour of discriminatory stereotypes.

There is an obvious pattern of victim-blaming and racist stereotyping that without fail accompanies assaults against black women and girls, like the assault of a young black girl by a police officer at a Texas pool party this past summer, or the murder of Sandra Bland while in police custody. Starting from childhood, non-black people are socialized to assume the worst of black people, forcing them into racist stereotypes rooted in historic inequality and oppression, and perpetuated by contemporary anti-blackness.

Young black children, forced to watch their black peers be assaulted by police officers, made to fear for their own lives when faced with those who are supposed to serve as protectors, and funnelled from excessive disciplinary action in school to disproportionate imprisonment in adulthood, are systematically robbed of the presumed innocence of childhood. The Spring Valley High assault would never have been perpetrated against a white student – her rights would have been preserved, as they should be. It’s time we begin extending the same basic right to black children and adults everywhere.

Minority Report is a column that deconstructs racism through an intersectional lens. Inori Roy-Khan can be reached at minorityreport@mcgilldaily.com.

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McGill’s Social Equity and Diversity Education (SEDE) office’s October newsletter notes that cultural appropriation occurs when “somebody adopts aspects of a culture that’s not their own,” and that “cultural appropriation also refers to a particular power dynamic in which members of a dominant culture take elements from a culture of people who have been systematically oppressed by that dominant group.”

Obviously, in an increasingly globalized world, an exchange of culture is unavoidable and can even be beneficial. But the key term here is appropriation: taking something for one’s own use without the consent of the owner. The sharing of cultures with permission is great, but taking from other cultures without their permission, often purely for aesthetic purposes with no understanding of the cultural significance of what’s being appropriated, can be incredibly harmful.

Halloween is often used as an excuse to dress up as an offensive caricature or stereotype of a particular culture, ethnicity, or marginalized group. Spirit Halloween, one of the most popular costume stores in the U.S. and Canada, offers a wide selection of racist gems this year, such as the “Wild Spirit,” “Sexy Dreamcatcher,” “Reservation Royalty,” “Tribal Temptation,” and of course, the “Pocahottie” – and those are only the costumes featured in the “Cowboys and Indians” section.

These oversexualized, cartoonish costumes attempting to depict some inaccurate, homogenized image of traditional Indigenous clothing are very popular. At a “Wild, Wild West”-themed Halloween event earlier this month, Montreal Alouettes linebacker Kyries Hebert sported one such costume – facepaint, a loincloth, and a feathered headdress. His costume partner wore a matching dress and headpiece.

As a public figure whose team plays on Kanien’kehá:ka territory, Hebert should have known better than to participate in what is obviously racist stereotyping. In response to Hebert’s costume debacle, Jessica Deer of the Kahnawake newspaper the Eastern Door wrote, “Indigenous people constantly have to defend their own identities from being mocked, used as a trend and a form of entertainment. […] Since they are highly inaccurate and dehumanizing portrayals that are rooted in colonial ideology, all they accomplish is creating more layers of misinformation about [who] we really are.”

Not only was Hebert’s costume racially insensitive, to say the least, but the similar costume worn by the woman he attended the party with was also particularly distasteful. Consider that Pocahontas, a historical figure now depicted as a seductive, oversexualized vixen in most costumes, is understood to be a survivor of rape herself; such a hypersexualized depiction of her likeness does an incredible dishonour to her memory and the memories of Indigenous women who have faced sexual violence.

When Indigenous women in Canada face extreme levels of sexual and physical violence – with Indigenous women three times more likely than non-Indigenous women to be victims of violent crime, and conservative estimates stating that more than 1,000 Indigenous women having been murdered in Canada between 1980 and 2012 – the dehumanizing hypersexualization of Indigenous women that these types of costumes promote is actively harmful. It trivializes this disproportionate violence that is so often ignored and delegitimized.

Despite the manifold offences the duo’s costumes presented, Hebert’s apology was half-hearted to say the least. “We’re not really talking about that so much,” he told the CBC. “There’s an understanding. There’s an apology, and now I’m focused on what’s coming up in the future.”

Hebert’s flippant reaction serves to illustrate the fact that cultural appropriation is not often acknowledged as a legitimate and serious offence, on Halloween or any other day of the year. In fact, cultural appropriation as a practice exists commonly outside of Halloween, occurring regularly in fashion and entertainment, whether being exhibited on the Victoria’s Secret runway or making annual appearances at music festivals like Coachella. The repercussions of cultural appropriation – dehumanization, misrepresentation, stereotyping – have gone largely unrecognized outside of social justice groups. Appropriators can choose to don entire cultures as costumes, or merely pick and choose what they like best. Regardless, someone’s culture is being degraded and exploited.

Cultural appropriation isn’t limited to headdresses. The appropriation of religious symbols has become a prevalent part of contemporary fashion and ‘boho’ chic. People with no connection to religious symbols like the Om used in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, or the Hamsa used by Jewish and Muslim people in North Africa and the Middle East, continue to wear them as tattoos and in jewelry, despite explicit disapproval from many members of the religious and cultural groups to which those symbols belong.

When these symbols are decontextualized and applied solely for their aesthetic value, they are reduced to their image, losing the rich history, complexity, and meaning behind them. For those who practice the religions these symbols are associated with, this cheapening of significant symbols can be a mark of disregard for tradition, culture, and history. The same can be said for languages and characters that are appropriated for their aesthetic value, often as tattoos.

In most cases, cultural appropriation embodies and perpetuates racial inequity. In the West, Black women are pressured to alter their natural hair to suit Eurocentric beauty standards, and are subject to racist prejudices that associate natural hair with dirtiness, criminality, or unprofessionalism. The many different ways Black women style their hair, including locs, cornrows, braids, and twists, have been discriminated against, particularly in the workplace – until recently, the U.S. army did not allow braids, twists, or locs for Black women who were officers.

In February of this year, when Black actress Zendaya walked down the Oscars red carpet wearing locs, one prominent entertainment journalist immediately “joked” that she must smell of patchouli and weed. Yet, when Kylie Jenner showed off her cornrows on Instagram and Miley Cyrus wore fake locs to the Video Music Awards, it became edgy, ‘cosmopolitan,’ and cool. White women continue to be applauded for making stylistic choices that aren’t theirs to make in the first place, based in cultures they don’t belong to, while women of colour continue to be subjected to racist double standards.

There are countless other instances of cultural appropriation I could mention; no doubt as Halloween passes the number will grow. The debate around cultural appropriation is one that uniquely combines historical oppression with popular culture – it is polarizing, contentious, and not likely to go away anytime soon. Cultural appropriation may provide a short-lived aesthetic satisfaction to its perpetrators, but it encourages the continued marginalization of racialized groups and perpetuates harmful stereotypes, encouraging us to further dehumanize people who are already oppressed. That’s a frightening reality, even for Halloween.

Minority Report is a bi-weekly column that deconstructs racism through an intersectional lens. Inori Roy-Khan can be reached at minorityreport@mcgilldaily.com.

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