Professors from the UOITFA stand with in solidarity with the families of George Floyd (Minneapolis), Regis Korchinski-Paquet (Toronto), Ejaz Choudry (Mississauga), Breonna Taylor (Louisville) and Jacob Blake (Kenosha/Wisconsin) as well as the numerous others that have endured racist and white supremacist violence including Black, Indigenous, and racialized faculty, communities and others are hurting from these inhumane acts of violence.
Violence and brutalities reach across borders, the impact of white supremist violence unavoidably impacts (globally) our Black faculty, Black students, racialized faculty, racialized students, Indigenous Faculty and Indigenous students. So too does historical forms enslavement, colonialism and everyday racism impact us, our students and racialized community members. Anti-Black racism, Anti-Indigenous racism, Anti-Asian racism and the senseless killings of Black people must come to an end. As these families, friends, professors and others grieve this violence, Faculty Associations from across Canada, including the UOITFA, stand in solidarity with those grieving and are taking action to ensure no more Black lives will be lost to anti-Black racism and police violence.
As professors and scholars, we have a special responsibility in the fight to eradicate racism and white supremacy. On September 9th and 10th, Canadian professors and scholars will take collective action to protest racism and white supremist violence. These days of action are a result of our American colleagues calling for scholar’s strike to “make a collective stand against police violence against communities of colour.” This movement across borders reminds us that the fight against racism and white supremacy is a global struggle and in order to end racism, we must unite across borders and form a global movement.
You can show your voluntarily solidarity by organizing teach-ins, panels, poetry, spoken word, book readings, speakers, and socially distanced protest actions to address anti-Black racisms and to end racisms in all their forms in our classrooms and on our campuses. Please consider discussing this difficult topic in your classes, or in other contexts within Academia. As well please consider other avenues of participation that help spread the word including participating on social media on September 9th and 10th – CAUT, OCUFA and other scholars are calling on professors and academics to participate in a twitter storm using the hashtags #scholarstrike #scholarstrikeCanada. The UOITFA will also be tweeting out messages of solidarity and resources. A series of virtual teach-ins have been planned as well and the schedule for these events can be found here.
Further Resources:
OCUFA’s Statement in Support of the Scholar Strike for Racial Justice
CAUT’s Statement on Scholar Strike Canada
What inspired the Scholar’s Strike in the United States and Canada