2018: GETTING ORGANIZED CONFERENCE
"Getting Organized: Tools for Resisting Racism and White Supremacy" gathered members of the UW and local community on January 25-27, 2018.
The conference’s two major goals were to:
- Encourage students and community members to become anti-racist organizers by increasing their confidence, knowledge and skills and by connecting them with existing organizers and organizations.
- Sharpen the practice and analysis of existing organizers and organizations committed to challenging white supremacy by creating an opportunity to think about movement work together.
From Idle No More and the broader Indigenous peoples’ struggle for decolonization, to Black Lives Matter and resistance to police brutality and institutionalized racism, to the migrant justice movement’s resistance to the use of borders to control, divide and exploit global labour, social struggles have been in a period of increased resistance to white supremacy in Canada. The backlash, in the form of newly active organized racist groups, the campus and online based alt-right, and a greater opening for opportunistic politicians to pander to racist and other reactionary views in search of electoral bases, has been quick to manifest, if predictable. In turn, anti-racist organizers have re-invigorated strategies such as community self-defence. In this context, this conference provided a space where local organizers could connect and share knowledge with those wanting to get active for the first time, as well as a space where organizers could step back from the everyday work of the movement to think about their work together and sharpen their analysis and practice.
PROGRAM
Intersectional Anti-Oppression: Approaches to Action
Lukayo Faye Estrella
Challenging Racism in Higher Education
Dr. Laura Mae Lindo & University of Waterloo Black Association for Student Expression (UWBASE)
Treyf: A Workshop on Anti-Semitism
Sam and David of TREYF Podcast
Manifestations of Racism in STEM
Fatema Boxwalla, Carla Fehr, Filzah Nasir & Jessica Yamoah
Orientalism Today: A Teach In on Trumpism & Islamophobia
Rowa Mohamed
Staying Safe: Lessons, Stories & Experiences of Security Culture
Trolling Back: A How-To Workshop
Decolonization in a Time of Official Reconciliation
Jaydene Lavallie, Amanda Plain, Ena͞emaehkiw Kesīqnaeh & Craig Fortier
Skills in Counter-Protest and Human Rights Accompaniment
Rachelle Friesen (Christian Peacemaker Teams)
Anti-Zionism as Anti-Racism: on Campus and Beyond (co-hosted by SFPR)
Rabbi Lucia Pizarro & Lina Assi
Education Not Incarceration
Fanis Juma Radstake, Ruth Cameron & Education Not Incarceration (ENI-Toronto)
Keynote and Poetry Performance: Prison Abolition and Prisoner Support
El Jones
