As a movement rooted in anti-racism, Divest MTA would like to make a statement in light of recent photos, which have since been removed from social media, depicting a Mount Allison student dressed as the “US Border Patrol” holding a gun up to someone dressed as a “Mexican.” Divest MTA stands with those outraged and disturbed – we echo these sentiments. This racist costume was particularly disturbing in the context of Trump’s recent response to asylum seekers. We must refuse to tolerate racism, whether it’s overt, such as these photos, but also more covert manifestations such as the constant devaluing of opinions, thoughts and ideas of students of colour.

This incident at Mt. A did not occur in a vacuum. The world is on fire. Last week alone, two Black people were murdered while grocery shopping in Kentucky, 11 Jewish people were murdered at their synagogue in Pittsburgh and Brazil elected a fascist, far-right government. Just 100 corporations produce 71 per cent of the world’s fossil fuel emissions. The world has 12 years to go until humans start seeing intensified, worldwide climate catastrophe.

These instances can’t be seen in isolation from each other, as the rising force of fascism and white supremacist violence act in conjunction with the destruction of our planet. Fascism is capitalism in decay. As extraction-based corporations continue to steamroll past every report warning of their dangers, capitalism will continue to erode as its contradictions are exposed, and fascism will continue to rise – unless we take action.

This is why we must continue to organize. Divest MTA will continue to fight for Mt. A to remove its endowment fund from the top 200 largest fossil fuel companies. A fight against fossil fuel corporations is a fight against capitalism and colonialism, which fuel fascism and white supremacy, and which are the context of the recent racist acts on Halloween.

Please email antiracism@mta.ca to express your anger over these photos and demand action is taken.

The work that went into the #WGSTcuts mobilization was really impressive. However, it was heavily focused on the experiences of white women at Mount Allison, and there was a substantial lack of acknowledgement of the privilege and power this whiteness affords us. As a white woman, I have chosen to address this piece in particular to other white women at Mt. A because we occupy the same multifaceted identity of being both oppressed by patriarchy while at the same time being oppressive through our complicity in the perpetuation of white supremacy. There have of course been women of colour involved in the movement, and this piece is not meant to speak for them in any way.

Clearly, we white people need to talk about whiteness; it is a power system, not merely the colour of our skin. But we should not let our whiteness prevent these conversations from occurring, although we need to recognize that any time a white person talks about race and racism, there is always the potential of speaking for or over people of colour. But if white people continue to be silent on issues of race and racism, the responsibility will remain on people of colour to bring it up, which results in the oppressed being forced to educate their oppressors. Additionally, as a product of living in white-supremacist society, people of colour who bring up racism are usually ignored, if not outright attacked.

Try to imagine that you, as a woman, were in classes at Mt. A which consisted almost entirely of men. Now imagine all those men were quick to paternalistically assure that they stood in solidarity with you and that the programs they were taking were ‘anti-sexist,’ yet they seldom or never bothered to ask you if they were actually helping your cause. They don’t show up to your women’s student union events, although they are quick to like your social media shares about issues of institutionalized sexism and ask you to moderate the intersectional panel discussions they are hosting. They stay in male-dominated circles, but of course they say they care about your issues. The fear of tokenization of that one woman in the class is enough for them to refrain from engaging with you regarding issues of sexism, and consequently they ignore your perspectives.

This, however, is not our reality, white women. We are rarely that token minority in a room full of the majority, because at Mt. A, we are the majority. White women, it is not always about us. This movement is not just about us. And although the women’s and gender studies program has been deemed “anti-racist” and “intersectional,” we need to look inside ourselves and at our mobilization to save the program and ask: Are we? What do these labels do if every fight becomes inevitably framed solely around our problems? Yes, the sexism we face is real and it needs to be addressed, but we also need to address the racism we perpetuate.

It is undoubtedly difficult to ask a social movement based out of a predominantly white institution to be less white. It is not, however, impossible – there are tangible steps that can be taken while continuing with this movement. I emphasize “continuing” here; this is not over and will take sustained effort if we want to really change the way the administration controls the university. And it is the administration of this university from which systemic racism is cultivated. It is the administration of our university that has no race-based hiring policies for faculty, no race-based admission process for students, no census process to determine numbers of students of colour, nor academic programs focused on people of colour.

Pushing back on the whiteness of this movement can be done though subtleness, by normalizing checking your whiteness whenever you engage in discourse about feminism. Additionally, talk to your white friends about what I am saying – try to evaluate as to whether perceptions of the movement were narrow.

Yes, these are small, seemingly insignificant actions, but they will have an impact. Racism today is coincidently also largely perpetuated through small, seemingly insignificant actions, and the best way to fight it is with the same weapons. It’s not flashy, and it isn’t exciting, but not all social change is. It will take effort and concerted self-reflection, but it is so worth it—now, more than ever.

The ACDC’s purpose was to respond to the priorities of First Nations communities in the Atlantic Region and operated as a platform for these communities to partner with Mt. A. The ACDC also aimed to increase the amount of First Nations students at Mt. A and improve academic programs to include First Nations community values.

Dr. Wayne MacKay, the president of Mt. A when the ACDC was initially established, said his ultimate hope was “that it might eventually make Mount Allison a more attractive spot for students of Aboriginal origin who might want to come and do research and work with the students as well.”

In its three years of operation, the ACDC was directed by Dr. Ausra Burns, who also acted as the advisor to the president on Aboriginal issues at the time. The Centre also involved various professors from the geography department and Canadian studies department, including Dr. Andrew Nurse , Dr. Mike Fox and MacKay.

“[The ACDC] was more at the professor level at this stage because it was more focused on the research side,”  said MacKay. “There were a number of faculty members from many different departments who had research that at least touched on aspects of issues related to aboriginals, some in areas like sociology.”

Students were not extensively involved and, although some did have roles assisting with the research and other work of the centre, their participation and general consciousness of the centre was fairly minimal. 

Outreach to First Nations communities was a key component of the ACDC, although the centre did not work with the wider community of Sackville. It focused on First Nations communities in the surrounding areas more extensively. The ACDC had reached out to and was in the process of working with the regional office of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC), located in Amherst. However, “the funds were fairly limited and [those who worked with the centre] weren’t able to do as much as they would have liked,” said MacKay.

Nurse, who visited a reserve in New Brunswick through his involvement with the ACDC, said “The goal…was not that we do research and tell First Nations what to do. The goal was to build a different type of research project in which First Nations and scholars were equal participants.”

The ACDC worked on multiple different projects and collaborations. The centre collaborated with the Aboriginal Community Resource Centre and Repository (ACRCR) in an online digitization  project that involved members of the Mt. A Community and community members from the Miawpukek First Nation in Conne River, Newfoundland. The project involved conducting interviews with the Conne River community and in Ottawa with federal representatives, which were then contextualized into documents by Mt. A and Miawpukek partners. The online digital repository aimed to make information accessible to a larger community.

None of these endeavours would come to fruition, however, because of the ACDC’s abrupt closure. It remains unclear as to why the centre was officially disbanded, seeing as there is no information currently available on this matter. However, Nurse said “My sense of the matter was that this was not a direction that had strategic support at Mount Allison at that time. I think there was interest, but I don’t think that that interest necessarily translated into active support.”

MacKay echoed similar sentiments, and said “there was a view that dealing with these kinds of issues was not really part of Mount Allison’s core mission.” MacKay also said that he and Fox faced resistence when they attempted to move forward with the work and message of the centre.

In 2010 the New Brunswick government created an initiative called “The New Brunswick Post-Secondary Education (PSE) Advisory Forum” which mandated that the government would be “investing more than $1 million to recruit Aboriginal New Brunswickers to pursue post-secondary education and to provide services for Aboriginal students attending post-secondary education to help ensure their success.”

The PSE advisory forum provided financial support for the recruitment and retention of Aboriginal students at the University of New Brunswick; St. Thomas University; NBCC campuses in Fredericton/Woodstock, Moncton and Miramichi; Université de Moncton; and the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design that hat year. Mount Allison was absent from the list of schools receiving funding. At a senate meeting Vice-president International and Student Affairs at the time, Ron Byrne said  “The university was emphasizing historical strengths such [as] accessibility for students with learning disabilities and challenges, and for students from rural areas.”

In 2016, Mount Allison university has since implemented Doreen Richard as the Indigenous Affairs Officer. Richard sites some of her main goals as indigenizing Mt.A’s curriculum, and providng an increase of support and access for Aboriginal students.

I am, by no means, the most qualified person to be writing this, but my white voice holds an uncomfortable amount of clout when discussing race and racism. Nobody ever discounts my voice as being “overly sensitive” or “angry all the time.” Nobody ever tells me I am “making everything about race.” My only experiences with racism are secondhand, and stem from talking to others who do have firsthand experience. Yet I am the one flooded with compliments whenever I call out racism, not those who have the lived experiences with racism that I do not. This is because I have white privilege. A white-dominated community such as Mount Allison University only amplifies this unfair “get out of jail free card” handed to us at birth.

So what can you do? What do you do with all this privilege?

One of the most powerful ways in which we can work to alleviate the systemic racism  is to first acknowledge it, and then talk about it. There are many ways these conversations can go, but just remember that you will make mistakes. Inadvertently saying offensive things is an inevitable by-product of a lack of exposure and firsthand experience with racism.  This should not deter you from these conversations, as you can learn how not to make the same mistakes next time.

It is easy to freeze up whenever racism is mentioned. People will stutter over using the word “black” as a physical description and wonder if this was the right word to use, or if they were being inadvertently offensive (helpful hint: black is not a racial slur.) Listening is the first key step. If your friend group is lacking in ethnic diversity because this is a small liberal arts school in Eastern Canada, then read up on blog posts, articles and other sources of information written by people of colour. This is the key to gaining at least some perspective.

The members of BSAAT (Black Students for Advocacy, Awareness  and Togetherness) have been working to help the Mt. A community gain some of this perspective. They have done some amazing things over the past few months and deserve recognition. They have created a platform and mechanism for people of all races to talk about issues facing black people today and in the past. They also work to help other ethnic minorities feel more comfortable at Mt. A. BSAAT has pulled together a wide assortment of events for Black History Month and will be hosting film screenings, talks and fundraisers throughout the month. They are always looking for new active members of all races and backgrounds, and it is easy to get involved with the group.

On Feb. 11, BSAAT will be hosting a panel discussion at 6 p.m. in Dunn room 113. The panel will focus on listening to people of colour speak about their lived experiences as people of colour living in white-dominated society. The panel will feature Kim Crosby, a social justice advocate and business consultant based out of Toronto, who will be speaking to her experience as a queer, black woman navigating a white-dominated society. There will also be several Mt. A students of colour, representing varying ethnicities, speaking on the panel about their experiences with racism at Mt. A.

BSAAT has also been working to create larger, systemic change within the university administration and beyond, and were recently interviewed by the CBC to discuss the racist climate at Mt. A.

It is often easier to disengage from conversations about racism because it does not directly impact us. However, staying silent and ignoring the problem do not solve anything. White people need to use their privilege to speak up in support of people colour, without silencing their voices. Go to events, talks and screenings hosted by people of colour. Listen actively and value this learning experience. White people, during black history month, let’s not complain about how there is no white history month. Rather, let’s use it as a springboard to become anti-racism allies. Our privilege should be used in the most productive way possible.