TLC Talks "Racialized the Podcast"

Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher and welcome back to the Learning Curve. As always, I want to say Chima Gwich to all those people that are sending me their comments and their feedback. And something else really exciting is happening now. People are starting to step forward and volunteer and say that they would love to be a guest on our show. And I highly encourage that. If you have a message or you're running a program, something that can help build those bridges between the indigenous community and mainstream, I would love to have you on the show. You can go to our Facebook page, the Learning Curve, Thunder Bay, and just send me a message or post on the wall and I will get back to you soon as possible. Now, as always, we have an amazing guest today because we have a very interesting topic to discuss, and that topic is one of perspective. The reality is that we have to remember that just because something isn't a problem for us doesn't mean it isn't a problem. Recently, I was listening to a radio program and the host of the day was doing one of those daily quizzes and they asked people to call in or to leave their opinion on whether Thunder Bay was being represented fairly by the media in light of the talk of racism or the incidents that have been happening in the city. When I heard that question asked, I couldn't help but think, who's going to answer? Like, what is their perspective? Because as we discussed in the last show, we talked about power and privilege. If you've never experienced racism, how would you know if it's an issue in the city? If you're one of the privileged people and that's the group of people you hang out with because they. They're like you? Totally understandable, but how would you understand what the journey is like for someone who doesn't have those privileges? I am so fortunate that I have such a diverse group of friends and colleagues. So when there's an issue and it's not something that I have personal knowledge of, I, 90% of the time have someone I can ask about and get an informed perspective. So that's what I'm hoping to accomplish today. Give you a little bit more perspective, and we're going to introduce a couple more words today, add to that vocabulary of yours, and hopefully add to your future conversations. So once again, grab your coffee, head for your favorite chair, and we'll be back in a few minutes as you and I once again walk through the learning curve. Hello again and welcome back to the Learning Curve. We have an amazing guest for you today. I would like to introduce you to Farah Ahmed. She's a social worker by profession, but people in the community are going to know her as the advocacy coordinator for the Racialized Young Professional Professionals Network. Right. And on top of that, how I know you, she is the creator and the host of Racialize, the podcast. So welcome to the. Welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

I am so excited to have you here. So, as always. Because one of the things the learning curve really stresses is relationships. This is not talking about people like they're a lesson in some textbook. It's actually building and establishing true relationships. So I always like to start every conversation with finding out a little more about you. So where are you from?

I was born and raised in Brampton, Ontario, which is like a suburb of Toronto.

Pretty much.

Yes. It's massive now, but. Yeah. So I grew up just right outside of the city and then moved to Thunder Bay about two years ago. But my parents have been in. In Canada for about 35 years. They immigrated here from Pakistan.

Oh, that's amazing. Awesome. Brampton to Thunder Bay. I've lived in Brampton. Oh, wow. I actually did Thunder Bay to Brampton. So the exact opposite experience. And Brampton's huge.

It's enormous. Yeah. People think it's like a little suburb, but it's. It's an enormous, massive city. There's like 800,000 people that live there.

Huge.

Yeah.

And I forget what. It's sitting right on the edge of Mississauga.

Mississauga and Toronto. Yeah. Where? The gta.

Yeah. Because I remember the only way, you know, you switch cities is the buses change color.

Yeah. And the street signs. The street signs change colors.

And. And coming from the north, this was something for me to try to adjust. What do you mean? I'm in a different city. I crossed a street. What are you talking about?

About.

Right, so it's a little bit different up here driving to Sault Ste. Marie.

It's super different. Yeah.

Awesome. Awesome. So you are. Correct me if I'm wrong, you're an LU student. I'm not.

I'm an LU grad.

Oh.

I came here. Yeah. I came here to study social work and got my social work degree from there. And now I'm just a working social worker.

Okay, awesome. But you're still incredibly involved with lu, aren't you?

I think people think that often because we're such young people with Rationsha's Young Professionals Network. And we do work very closely with lusu, the student union at Lakehead. They sponsor us and are very supportive, often. So we do a lot of. We host a lot of events there, but we're not directly affiliated.

Ah, see, I just learned.

Common mistake.

I love this show for that reason. Okay, awesome. Now, one of the things the learning curve does is introduce people to new terms. Because one of the things I came to realize is because of the work we do, we sit on committees or we're at meetings where we're discussing racism, discrimination, whatever. But if that's not your line of work, right. If you're working at Bombardier or one of the other many locations in the city, those conversations may not happen. And you may start to hear these terms and not understand what they mean. So I always love to add to the knowledge of our listeners or viewers. So I wanted to tackle two of them today. Okay. And that's because I. It definitely comes up with your work. So racialized and marginalized. So working definitions here. I don't expect you to quote anything here, but in your work, how would you define those terms?

Yeah, I mean, I think you definitely bring up a really good point. Right. Is that sometimes we feel so nervous and bogged down by these terms, and it can actually put up a barrier for a lot of people. So I think it's awesome that you want to kind of expand people's knowledge. So I'm going to start with the term marginalized. So, you know, when I think about that word and when I kind of picture that word in my head, I literally picture, like, being pushed to the margins, like to the edge of something. Right. And when we're talking about, you know, marginalization, that something that you're being pushed to the edge of is power. So if you think about power structures and decision making, ability, financial wealth, you know, all of that gives you a sense of power. And there are certain groups of people and certain values that are at the center and certain ones that are pushed out. So, you know, when we're talking about marginalized and marginalization, it's very much all about who has power and who doesn't. And we live in a structure that benefits certain values and certain people over others.

Exactly.

Yeah. And so this is where the term racialized comes in. Right. Because how are some of those people being pushed out? It's because of the color of their skin. The way I understand the word racialized, and this is my understanding of it, is I kind of sometimes use it in replacement of the word people of color or POC is another term that you hear a lot these days. So for me, whenever I say racialized, I mean people of Color that experience marginalization or experience exclusion.

And that's excellent, because I always hear racialized, marginalized and indigenous. And I was like, but wait a minute. We are marginalized because we're Indigenous, so why the distinction? Or why is it almost like a third category?

Yeah. And I love that you brought that up, because I found it so interesting. And only the past maybe two years have I heard that differentiation. Right. Racialized and indigenous. And I'm coming to embrace it because of the indigenous friends in my life who have really kind of explained their perspective to me. And I think when I think about it, it's because indigenous people have been kind of lumped into certain mainstream things or totally ignored and erased. And so now is the time for us to kind of understand indigenous folks finally as a distinct group of people, which we have always been. And so I think that's why it's like, we are people of color, but our experience is drastically different than other racialized people.

People. Right. And I can totally understand that. And I love that you said like, a distinct group, because I always go back to the distinct society.

And it's like.

Exactly. And even further, it's not indigenous people that are distinct society, but Ojibwe and Cree and Co Salish. Right. There's. There's this tendency to try to lump us all together, and that's like lumping all the countries in Europe and saying they're all the same and trying to come up with a policy that applies to them all. And it's not going to happen because we're very distinct and different.

I totally agree. And I always think about the metaphor of a meadow with hundreds of different kinds of flowers within it. Why is it so easy for us as a society to see that as beautiful, as natural, as something to be celebrated? And yet we can accept that within our own cultures and within our own society. Society.

So on the same page with you and I even. Because often I'm speaking to someone who has. Who's Christian, which totally cool. I mean, if that's your journey, fine. So I actually even use the reference of the coat of many colors. Right. That is a reference to the beauty of those differences. Right. And again, why can't we embrace that? Right. I don't. When I start hearing that we're all the same, it's like, no, I'm totally cool with the being different. Thanks. But not better or worse, just different. And different is awesome.

Yeah.

Right. And that I truly believe that's what we need to embrace.

I agree.

So you. Our work is so similar. We might have a different vehicle, but we do the same kind of thing. So you have an amazing podcast, and I've had the chance to be a guest on her part podcast. So this is awesome. Yes, but it's racialized the podcast. So where did this come from? What was your hopes? What kind of guests do you have on there? What are you hoping to accomplish?

Yeah, I've been wanting to do a podcast for years. So I've been listening to podcasts for a long time. And, you know, some of the ones I listen to is Red Men laughing by Ryan McMahon or another round, which is two black women based in New York City. And most of what these folks talk about is all about social justice and oppression and racism and empowerment. And so I was thinking for a long time about how there are so many beautiful, necessary stories that I'm in contact with or that surround me that I would like to highlight and amplify and discuss. Right. So that's kind of where this podcast came out of. I think I was just waiting for my own self to find my voice in a good way and also to be in a community that supports me. And so when I joined Racializing Professionals Network and kind of found that good energy in that space there, I felt like, yeah, this is a place and time for me to launch this project and a network that I have behind me that will help support it. Right. So, I mean, we. The kind of vision of the podcast is to very similar to your show, amplify the voices of racialized and indigenous people on pretty much anything that you ever want to talk about. So it could be experiences of racism in the city here in Thunder Bay. It could be a project that you're really proud of that you want to highlight and share with people that you care about. It could be things that we hear and see in the newspaper that you just want to debrief and discuss with somebody who might have a similar or different perspective than you. So we do a lot of different things on the podcast. And I think my vision or my hope for it is that people. People start to take a sense of ownership. You know, I really would love for the community to kind of see this as an alternative place to find their media and an alternative kind of place to understand the city of Thunder Bay. When I first moved here, like, two years ago, like, I didn't know anyone. I just knew my one roommate who I went to university with in Guelph, and she was the only person that I knew. And so as a, you know, young racialized woman trying to make my way in this new place. I felt very isolated, and I felt very unsafe in a lot of ways and unrepresented. And so, you know, my hope is that when people come here or when people, you know, are in their own private communities, that they kind of feel that sense of connectedness through listening to some of the stories on. On the podcast.

That is amazing. How do people find your podcast? Because I've listened to all the episodes, and it's totally worth listening to. So how do you feel?

And please be on it. Please be on the podcast. So Racialize the podcast is available on itunes. So you can go to the itunes store, search under podcast, and search Racialize the podcast. It's also on SoundCloud. I'm also on Facebook, so you can just follow me there@ racializethepodcast as well. So we're out there.

Excellent. Absolutely excellent. So we're gonna take a quick break here. We have so much more to talk about, but time just flies around here. So here's your chance to refill that coffee and take a break, and we'll be back in a few minutes. Talk to you soon. And welcome back to the Learning Curve. And today we're here with Farra Ahmed. And I'm just so enjoying this. I'm. It never fails to amaze me how I bring on guests that I know, yet I learned so much new stuff. Right. It's like we have to do coffee more often.

I agree.

So we haven't known each other long, but I remember back to a conversation, and I. I was probably just listening in on a conversation, come to think of it. But you were talking about your experience with moving to Thunder Bay and how awesome it was at Lakehead University, which warmed my heart to hear about this diverse community and all these different people in these different groups, and. Amazing. But how you. I'm not sure if you had experienced it personally or how you had heard from other people that stepping off the campus was a different scenario and coming into the city that it wasn't replicated in the city. Is that fair to say?

I think it's a little bit more complicated than that. So, you know, like, I. I found some sense of community at, you know, LU when I was there. And I think that's the great thing about these educational institutions. Right? Like, at the college and at the university, they are their own little community, right?

They totally are.

Yeah. And there's so many things that you can get involved with while you're there, and it kind of, you know, helps you feel a little bit more at ease and at home and connected with people. But, you know, I do think that the university itself is definitely like a very. A little community itself, and then it's kind of isolated in relation to the rest of Thunder Bay.

True.

So there are little pockets that you can experience of, you know, feeling represented and feeling connected, especially as a racialized Muslim person at places like Lakehead University, that you won't find in the broader city. And I remember when I first moved to Thunder Bay, like, I literally would just, like, ride the bus just so I could be around people of color, you know, because I was like, where's the space for folks just to hang out and be. And when I would, you know, go to Port Arthur or go to the Fort Williams side of town and walk around or go to shops or go to cafes, I still didn't really, you know, see myself represented in a lot of places. So, you know, you can find little pockets of that, but it's not necessarily, you know, it's just a little bit more complicated because there are issues at Lakehead University itself as well.

So granted. And is there any location where there isn't issues? Right. I don't think so. And you know what's interesting? I felt the exact same way in Brampton. Yeah.

I trust. Oh, I trust.

Right. Like, I. And. And everything for a reason. I totally believe that. But I don't think I ever realized how important my community was until I was completely, totally separated from them. Yeah. And like you said, everywhere I turn, and I mean, it's not hard to find people in Brampton. There's like 5,000 people getting on a bus. Right? Yeah, it's easy, but I didn't feel like there was anyone there that was looking at the world the way I did or understood my journey. It was just. I felt totally isolated.

For sure.

Yeah, exactly. I'm going to go back to marginalized for a second and. And I think I'm on the right path, but feel free to clarify this. So, as an indigenous person who works primarily with indigenous people, if there's one thing I hear over and over, and I'm saying, said it over and over, is we have this constant nagging feeling that we're not heard, that it is so much more than someone just not talking and letting us talk that actually hear us actually hear what we're saying and be open to possibly making a change or adjusting something because of it. So when you were talking about marginalized, the vision that came, came to my mind is all of those Meetings that we attend where a decision is made and even if we share, there's that we're not heard somehow. It's. It's a comment that gets logged into the minutes, is shared, but that's it. So does that fit your definition of marginalized 100.

Right. Because what's on going being pushed out? My perspective, what I'm saying is important. What I feel needs to be changed in the space that we share together. Right. And that is definitely something that I would agree as fitting the definition of marginalized. And that's the thing, is that when power structures don't take into account the needs of diverse groups, somebody's going to get left behind or many people are going to get left behind. And there are patterns to the way it works, unfortunately.

And I can see in my mainstream counterparts, for some unknown reason, they've taken on this responsibility that they're going to come up with a policy that's going to include everyone. And it was like, how would you even know if it does? Because that's not right.

I mean, a policy that you make on your own can't possibly include everyone because you made it without everyone.

Exactly.

You know, and we have to start with, you know, how are you actually putting the policies together? How are you actually collaborating with folks to start a process? Not the end goal. Right. It should be through the whole process that people are heard and represented. Right. Representation needs to be meaningful and authentic and genuine. It can't be shallow. And the way that it's shallow is if you say, hey, we want to know what you think. And it's logged in the meeting minutes and then.

We consulted them and. Yeah, exactly. And Kathleen was on a few shows ago, and she works in HR as an indigenous woman and helping agencies to truly come up with HR policies that allow for the differences in culture. And that was so exciting because it's just not possible to see the other perspective. It's not because you're not good at your job or don't have enough experience or education. It's just not possible.

And I think the other thing is that, you know, you can be very understanding and empathetic even if you aren't from that group. Right, exactly. That's fine. That exists. That happens all the time. And that's a gift. But, you know, when we're talking about representation, when we're talking about structural power, you know, it's so much more meaningful giving that space to a person from that marginalized group. Like that's real change. Right. And so, you know, let's let's make sure that it is the person from that group that's creating that change in the organization or spearheading that campaign. Because you're doing more than just, you know, adding in that perspective. You're employing that person and empowering them. Right. So it should be a fuller experience than that.

Exactly. And it's funny, I just did a seminar this week and I was sharing with the group Mainstream Agency, and I was sharing with the group that we're past the time that indigenous people want to hear about the great idea you came up with that you think we're going to like. No, we want to hear right in the beginning, come to the table and let's develop an idea together. Yeah.

Or indigenous folks developing their own ideas, which they always are supported and going with it.

Yeah, exactly. I want to know that magic number. How many of us have to be in a room before we're heard?

Oh, yeah, right. I would love to know.

I'm not sure. But I come up against it and I look around the room and there's never enough of us in the room to actually be heard. And I'm being a smarty pants here, but that's. Then it's true and it's frustrating. But you chose to stay in Thunder Bay.

I did, yeah. I did choose to stay in Thunder Bay. I've been really blessed in the experiences that I've had here. And there's so much that the north has to offer that the suburbs and the city that I come from can't. And there's a sense of, like, connectedness to the land and to people building genuine relationships that is hard to come by, especially if you're a newcomer to a big city. City like that. Right. As was your experience. So, yeah. Thunder Bay is a really. It's a beautiful place. It's a troubled place. Like, there's no doubt about that. But this is the kind of place where, you know, we can actually make change. We can actually do something constructive and good for our city here. Whereas if you're in a bigger place, sometimes you feel like you might get drowned out a little bit, but. Oh, absolutely.

Honestly, before I moved to southern Ontario, if someone had told me that you could be alone in the middle of 2 million people, I would have told them they were nuts. But it is so easy. Yeah. For that to happen. And it became so obvious for me how people get lost and how we lose so many to the streets or just to that. That vast void.

Yeah.

Right. Thank you so much for coming out today. That was Absolutely awesome. If you have any questions. Questions. I mean, we came up with some new terms today and we've had some very important and heavy discussions at times. So please email me. You can go to the Facebook page, the Learning Curve, Thunder Bay, or you can send me an email directly at Sandy Boucher, ca. And of course, again, if you're interested in being a guest on the show, I would absolutely love to have you. And anything that will help us bring down those walls and build bridges, we love it here. We can be the change, as you were saying. And I think that's something we really need to work on. Have a great day and thank you for joining. Bye. Bye.