Centering Black Youth Wellbeing
This virtual community of practice explores ways to center the wellbeing of Black young people and... View more
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Reflections on completing the course as 60+ year old white youth worker
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Reflections on completing the course as 60+ year old white youth worker
I loved this course. It took me a while to get back into listening to lectures but I found them consistently excellent and challenging. I learned a lot about the history of Black people in Canada and the shameful way in many ways they have been treated. I know it continues and needs to be challenged. I realize this is part of our heritage along with the way we mistreated our First Nations people. I have never deeply identified with my own skin colour and I guess I realize I have just taken a lot of the things for granted. I also feel that while a lot of the tools I have learnt and have been given for seeing and examining – they are not perfect or without limitations or risks. I can understand how a poor life and circumstance challenged white man who has been take advantaged all of his life by “the system” would struggle or resist being called “privileged”. I think like every other idea or lens that is brought to reality the tools that are part of ABR have their limitations and I feel they should not be used exclusively. I feel much more attuned to ABR now and equipped to name and resist it. But I also feel that I want to be aware of injustice and inequality and cruelty in all shapes and sizes and forms. For example it is not just White People who have led us the Climate Crisis we are in (although, yes it is primarily White Men of Privilege) but instead it is something intrinsic to all Human Beings – a focus on Self Interest and Resistance to Change and a Grip on Power. So I want to say a Huge Thanks to all the amazing scholars and spoken word artists and activists who create the content for YouthRex and this certificate in particular. The course has challenged me deeply, already stimulated in me ways I will do my work differently and already stimulated some good conversations and discussions with family and friends. We have four children aged 17 to 21 and they are all thoughtful caring people aspiring to make a difference in this world. I will certainly share what I learned with them. I will also aspire to share it with my colleagues. I thank the Folks at YouthRex for this great learning and I commit to doing some more courses.
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3 Replies
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I like the expression “when you know better, do better”. I/We engage in courses such as this (and I agree, it has been a wonderful, thought provoking, self-reflective course) to better understand not just the past, present or future, but our roles in each of these timelines. As an older, white individual, I search to better understand how skewed thinking from childhood (from racialized nursery rhymes to social privilege) continues to play a role in my present. Working with marginalized youth has taught me how to unlearn some of my ingrained thoughts, and to look to the future in a different way; with a different openness on how to accept others around me. Another famous quote is ” a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. I would like to wish both of us continued success on our journey, now that we have taken our first step.
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Regarding the “it’s not just white people” who are complicit in climate change- this is a crisis that cannot be reduced to individual consumers. We are facing an existential crisis because those who control the levers of power are driven by greed. And those systems that are driving climate change are entrenched in white supremacy. The climate crisis won’t be solved by individuals choosing paper straws and starting a compost. There has to be a system wide change so that we are not reliant on fossil fuels because we still need to heat our homes, get to work, and get products to market. And individuals can’t change the way we do that. It has to be a system wide change that does not put costs on the consumer but rather insists that the obscenely wealthy stop profiting off the destruction of the planet.
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Hi Moraig – I agree with you whole heartedly. It is absurd and obscene to note that while fossil fuel consumption continues to be one of the major drivers of the climate crisis the Oil Companies and their shareholders are making obscene amounts of money. Even a bit of Justice would suggest they need to be taxed to pay for this. Also I agree that “White Supremacy” and the current economic system is very much at the root of our current climate crisis. But also believe that the problems we face are fundamentally tied into some of the flaws and the basic nature of humans that is part of our common heritage. Not to say that we are doomed but we as a species are called to rise above our weaknesses.
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