We have described for you a mountain; we have shown you the path to the top. We call upon you to do the climbing.
-Justice Murray Sinclair
Learn along with me and the BCIT Unlearning Club as we engage with materials each month and start on a journey to unlearn racism.
Created and developed during the COVID-19 pandemic the BC Office of the Provincial Health Officer put together a curriculum and process for reflecting on racism and its links to health. The resources and documentation for the Unlearning and Undoing Project can be found here. In the BCIT Unlearning Club, Tami and Andrea have modified this established curriculum to reflect an educational context, while also integrating the lenses of health and wellness.
The first iteration of the Unlearning Club at BCIT, which includes faculty and staff, will meet 6 times between January and June 2025, in-person at the BCIT Burnaby campus. Together we will engage with the materials, tell stories, listen, learn challenge ourselves to unlearn the biases normalized in society and make meaningful connections with each other in a safe space.
Each month there is an opportunity to prepare with a shallow or deep dive version of the course materials. The homework for the first meeting was to watch a TedTalk by Dr. Carmara Jones, Former president of the American Public Health Association, who launched a national campaign against racism, Allegories on race and racism and read an accompanying article Toward the Science and Practice of Anti-Racism: Launching a National Campaign Against Racism .
OR
Watch 13th (2016) on Netflix, a thought-provoking documentary, where scholars, activists and politicians analyze the criminalization of African Americans and the U.S. prison boom.
I chose the TedTalk. I would recommend it to anyone. Especially people who, like me, sometime finds it difficult to explain to people the systematic racism baked into government that prevents people from minority groups from succeeding in our society. The allegory of the gardener providing nutrient-rich soil in one garden box and poor rocky soil in another was very strong, well thought-out and not threatening to some who might feel a need to erect barriers before the conversation even got started.
At our first gathering we learned about what brought each of us to the Unlearning Club and we shared a little about ourselves and our family history. There was a fulsome and engaging discussion about the sort of space where each of us feels we can be our authentic selves.
I look forward to sharing more with you very soon.