As an organization that works towards fostering a culture of sustainability at Concordia University, it is imperative to mention that racism (overt and systemic) exists in our community and that racially oppressed communities are disproportionately affected by state-sanctioned violence, as well as climate change and environmental degradation.

We encourage our community to educate yourselves and be informed about how racism (systemic and overt) exists and is manifested within sustainability, university, and activist communities.

Learn and practice how to recognize, challenge, and dismantle a culture of White Supremacy that exists within our community.

Here are some resources we have compiled. Feel free to send us more that we may have missed.

1. Seek out Anti Oppression/ Anti Racism training in your workplace, club, or groups (we’ll be doing a training session with our Board of Directors and staff)
   • Head to The Centre for Community Organizations to see what training may be available to you.
   • They also have zines and articles about how White Supremacy manifests itself within organizations
2. Read read read! (or Listen listen listen! – or watch!)
   • “There’s Something in the Water” by Ingrid Waldron on environmental Racism experienced by Black and Indigenous communities in Nova Scotia (also a documentary available on Netflix)
   • “Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present” by Robyn Maynard (available as an audiobook)
   • “Ninth Floor” a film about Concordia University’s racist, anti-Black history, and how in 1969, Black students organized a protest on the ninth floor of the Hall building.
   • The Fine Arts Reading Room has compiled a list of other reading resources, click here to have a look.
3. Donate if and when you can, here are some local options:
   • Hoodstock
   • Head and Hands
   • DESTA Black Youth Network
   • Justice for Regis
4. Sign this Call to Action, by a group of Concordia faculty, staff, students, and alumnus to hold the university accountable to Anti-Racism
5. Sign this Call to Action to defund the SPVM (Service de Police de la ville de Montreal)
6. If you’re a Concordia student in the Sustainability Minor sign up for Professor Dorothy Williams’ class, Black Montreal: LOYC 298-02, and learn about Black History in the city you live in.
   • If you are not enrolled in either of those minors, contact your Academic Advisor to see if you can still enroll.
7. Learn about projects and groups on campus that are by/for Black folks in our Concordia Community and show them support, here are a few we’ve had the pleasure of funding:
   • CURE Concordia– who has compiled a list of mental health professionals of colour in Montreal
   • Rap Battles for Social Justice
   • Ineffable performance and film by Sort of Productions
   • CEED Concordia for their incredible internships in Uganda and their panels that often feature BIPOC panelists such as their postponed panel, “Unheard Perspectives of Climate Change” featuring Black climate activist Vanessa Nakate
   • The UZURI Gala by ASAC Concordia which showcases the artistic talents of the students and alumni who are both from and outside of the African diaspora

Thank you for taking the time to read this through. Please continue to put in the work (alongside us) to dismantle racism in our communities. Please share anything we may have missed with us.