ThE Mission
The Canadian Anti-Racism Youth Coalition was founded to amplify youth voice in anti-racism affairs and continue youth conversation of anti-racism efforts. Following the George Floyd incident, social media was flooded with efforts to address systemic racism, protests emerged in Canada, and the #BlackLivesMatter movement was created. However, a few months later, the traction of this movement on social media lessened, yet societal racism was still apparent. C.A.R.Y.C. works to continue conversations about anti-racism efforts. It is a youth-founded organization that understands that racism is still rooted in society. Youth must create conversation and actively advocate for change.
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Racism is a prevalent, deep-rooted issue apparent in modern society, yet it's also a topic that is surrounded by stigma. Although at times, it can be difficult to begin conversations, C.A.R.Y.C aims to educate the public and spread awareness of racial issues, from a youth perspective.
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Indeed, youth are the future generation, and we must continue to advocate against racial segregation, oppression, and inequity.
The Issue Surrounding Racism
Racism is a deep-rooted issue in today’s society, and it stems from stereotypes, implicit societal racism, and misinformation — among many other topics. Often, there is a stigma in initiating conversations surrounding racism, microaggressions, and oppression. Hence, C.A.R.Y.C. aims to create a safe atmosphere where stigmatic stories of racism can be shared.
What Can We Do?
1. By holding conversations about anti-racism, we can spread awareness, education, and knowledge, to embrace Canada's multiculturalism.
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2. We can become aware of our subconscious biases and prejudices, and find the courage to speak out against microaggressions.
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3. We can actively engage with cultural groups and provide a platform to spread awareness of their traditions, customs, and beliefs and educate the public.
RACIAL ISSUES IN CANADA
No More Stolen Sisters
Indigenous people face higher rates of disappearance and murder. Indigenous women have a drastically high rate of murder, which is ten times higher than other ethnicities. This is a very serious issue that there is such violence against indigenous women and the whole indigenous community. Their higher rates of violence are racially motivated and biased against them.
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This issue is more of concern as this rate of violence has only increased during the pandemic. The federal government hasn't issued a formal response to this problem. We need to bring this up to end the overwhelming violence to the First Nation Communities.
Quebec Hijab Ban
On March 29, 2019, Quebec banned the wearing of religious symbols which included the hijab along with the niqab and the burka. The Bills 63 and 21 made it so that these people who were following their faith were not able to do so. The legislation mainly targets Muslim women who wear these religious symbols. It is a bill that is not only Islamophobic, it restricts the right of those people to practice their faith.
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Quebec isn't alone in this religious discrimination and targeting. Several other countries have banned women from using these religious symbols. We want to stop this targeting. By making a change in our country first we hope to be able to have other countries follow.
Indigenous Water Crisis
The water system in many indigenous communities isn’t safe. The water often times isn’t clear, instead can be muddy and have strong taste of chlorine and other chemicals. Due to this, a fraction of the community members chooses to instead drink untreated running water. Over a 100 communities don’t have safe drinking water.
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We need to bring more awareness about this critical issue. By bringing attention to this, the indigenous will be able to have access to a more safe water system. We need to pay attention to the issues in our steps towards reconcilation.
Black Lives Matter Protest
The Black Lives Matter Movement is a movement that sparked following the death of George Floyd as well as the murder of Breonna Taylor. They are a social and political movement advocating against the repeated incidents of police brutality and all racially motivated violence against black people. They hope to tell the names of all the people that fell by police brutality due to racial discrimination and bias.
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It's necessary that we bring justice against those people who lost their lives and reform the police system that allows such action. We need to work towards a society where racial bias does not exist.
Anti-Asian Hate Protest
There has been a terrifying spike in Asian violence and hate crimes. Asian discrimination has been on the rise because of the pandemic. This has led many people to direct their frustrations and blame the Asian population. Many Asian communities are living in fear of being targeted by hate crimes due to these spikes of violence.
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It's important for everyone to feel safe. To do so, we need to prevent hate crimes in the future and protect and aid communities victimized by this violence. This is an issue that has a lot of other contributing factors that need to be addressed as well.
