AV俱乐部

Public Panel: "Strategies for Dismantling Racial Fragility within Public Institutions"

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This event took place on Monday January 27th, 2020

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Panelists:

• Ajay Parasram -听Assistant Professor in the Departments of International Development Studies and History at AV俱乐部 and MacEachen Institute Founding Fellow
• Alex Khasnabish -听Associate Professor, Sociology & Anthropology, Mount Saint Vincent University
• Cristina Rojas - Professor in the Department of Political Science and Director of the Institute of Political Economy at Carleton University
• Gaynor Watson-Creed -听Deputy Chief Medical Officer of Health and Assistant Dean of Medicine for 鈥楽erving and Engaging Society鈥�
• Rachel Zellars - Assistant Professor, Department of Social Justice and Community Studies, Saint Mary's University

Conversations about structural and institutional racism have become more sophisticated in the last decade, however, efforts to dismantle structural racism are all too often stymied due to what the educator and scholar Robin DiAngelo has named 鈥渨hite fragility,鈥� or the inability of people understood to be 鈥渨hite鈥� to understand themselves in racial terms. When faced with the reality of racial hierarchies within institutions, racially fragile individuals tend to react defensively, dismissively, and to re-orient the conversation around feelings of equality and meritocracy that often have little to no basis in reality. How do we combat racial fragility? This panel seeks to bring together people working in public institutions in an effort to move beyond attempting to 鈥減rove鈥� that structural racism is a thing (it is鈥�) and engage in the more challenging work of dismantling racial hierarchies within institutions.