by Erica Scoville, Senior Reporter
This past October, Laurentian University was one of the many institutions affected by a national racist postering campaign, the posters simply stating ‘It’s OK to be white’. This campaign originated from a forum called ‘4chan’, where anonymous discussions suggest the posters were merely a ploy to highlight the “political correctness gone insane” on university campuses.
However, Dr. Jennifer Johnson, Acting Chair and Associate Professor in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies explains why the message communicated through these posters is more than just a “harmless message” to cause media backlash as the group of individuals on ‘4chan’ suggest and the importance of challenging these messages and ideologies.
“It’s important for the content of the poster, ‘It’s OK to be white’, to be addressed publicly because the message is bigger than those few words. That phrase has a history in white supremacy [and even] if it was created as a joke or a test, it’s one that targets a vulnerable population of people who folks assume aren’t going to talk back, [which is why] it has to be addressed publicly. Because even if it was just one person who put up those posters, it affects people in depth” Johnson said.
While this incident should have sparked larger conversations about existing issues surrounding racism on our campus, these posters were taken down quickly and were not addressed until January of this year, leaving many students, faculty, and staff unaware Laurentian was subjected to these racist propaganda, including Dr. Johnson.
“The only reason I know [this happened] is because a member of the administration approached me to speak with students who had complained about it. I wasn’t aware of it, and I feel somewhat betrayed by the administration for not having it made known publicly that this happened on our campus.”
“I appreciate why they took the posters down, that they didn’t want to cause further harm to people who saw them, but it also makes me worried because there are faculty in our program and students who have been targeted by racism and I think they have a right to know.”
“It’s the same way that you would [make it known that] there is someone committing sexual assault on campus… Well, there’s this group on campus putting up this hateful white supremacist garbage and I have a right to know and to protect myself in my classroom or wherever. I’m maybe not the personal target of these people but I felt quite betrayed that we didn’t know. I understand they were put up [around] Halloween as they were across North America, but I didn’t know that Laurentian had been subjected to these posters” Johnson explained.
These posters were not the first time Laurentian and its community was subjected to hate speech or vandalism.
“A faculty [member] in our department’s work space was targeted twice in the space of a year with defacing material on their doors and the defacing was anti-feminist and racist. These folks know where you work…and they’ve made their attitudes clear” Johnson said.
“That makes an unsafe environment and for every student who walked by that workspace, who saw how it was defaced, the student realizes ‘Oh, faculty of colour are a target, feminist faculty are a target”… it’s wrong. It’s not the first time this has happened and it’s not the last time either unfortunately, but we need to speak publicly on it.”
Johnson offers advice to any students who were affected by the posters or any of the other incidents who were left feeling unsafe.
“It’s important for students to speak to one another. It’s important for students to raise their voices to the administration, to let them know that they noticed the posters and to tell the administration how they feel about it. It’s important for students to speak with the Equity, Diversity and Human Rights office. It’s also important even if people don’t want to follow the formal channel of making complaints to speak with faculty, to raise [their voices] in their classrooms.”
“On this campus we have a very low level of literacy right now on anti-racism, so for those who want to challenge racist ideas, we need to able to talk to one another” Johnson said
Earlier in January, after several students directly contacting the administration and making complaints, Interim President and Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Pierre Zundel, denounced the posters as well as their messages in a memorandum sent via Laurentian email.
“Let’s be clear: racism has no place on our campus. Laurentian University unequivocally condemns all forms of discrimination and racism. This is a campus where we believe respect, inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility are fundamental to who we are, and there is no place for discrimination, harassment or sexual violence” Zundel stated in the memorandum.
Johnson explains how this memorandum is simply just a start in the work that needs to be done on our campus.
“It’s just a start. There are so many ways in which racism happens on our campus and these posters were just a sad reminder that we haven’t dealt with it and we’re [still] not dealing with it very well. We have so many people with resources too, there are so many faculty who do anti-racism in their classes, faculty who have experience in public policy and the wider education system and politics who could be helping resource this.”
“When it comes down to it, it’s our responsibility as a community, if I’m talking and a group won’t listen, I’m going to find another group of people who can help have a good conversation about this” Johnson explained.
Johnson shares some of these resources, including the Race, Racism, and Equity Reading Group.
“[In the Race, Racism, and Equity Reading Group] we’ve been reading specifically about the implication of Indigenous and racialized faculty in Canadian universities and what that looks like on the ground. We’re hoping that if staff, students, and faculty come, that people will go back to their different parts of the university and think ‘How does this affect my part of the university?’”
“Racism can happen anywhere, and it can affect almost anyone. So that’s one piece, and for those of us who are teachers, we are going to run a session called ‘Where’s black history in your syllabus?’ just as a tiny little part in the puzzle. There are people around doing work, we have to access it and use it so that we can make our classrooms a lot better” Johnson said.
The Race Racism and Equity Reading Group are hosting their next meeting Wednesday February 13th, in room P106A, located within the Indigenous Sharing and Learning Centre.