City’s anti-racism efforts panned by community groups
Emotions ran high at City Hall Monday as community leaders criticized Edmonton’s first efforts to develop a plan to counter local racism.
“Let’s start listening to each other rather than undermining each other,” said Ahmed Abdulkadir, with the Ogaden Somali Community of Alberta, worried his community wasn’t included during the planning process.
He cited examples of hate being directed at youth from his community and other members enduring racial slurs. One young woman had her hijab pulled off while getting on a bus, he said. Some young women are now afraid to take public transit alone. “We are hurting,” Abdulkadir told city councillors at the community services committee meeting.
In November, city council asked officials to develop a framework to counter racism in Edmonton.
Six months later, Monday’s report to the community services committee was simply a list of the initiatives Edmonton is already doing, such as existing human resource outreach efforts to ensure diverse communities know about city employment opportunities.
Five community leaders attended the committee meeting to say that’s not good enough. They don’t want another initiative developed by “corporate Edmonton” and forgotten.
Communities affected by racism should own this strategy, with Edmonton as a partner, said Jean Walrond, with the Interracial Alliance of Edmonton and Area.
It’s a “social disease that plagues our beautiful city,” Walrond said.
Any attempt to counter racism needs to involve real people sharing their stories about how racism is affecting them every day, said Abdulkadir.
If it’s a Somali victim, everybody is a victim because that’s an Edmonton child. If it’s an aboriginal victim, everybody is a victim, he said. Right now, he added, “there’s no empathy ... It’s happening to them, it’s isolated.”
Rob Smyth, deputy city manager for citizen services, said community groups haven’t been consulted because staff haven’t actually started the work yet. The city is still in the process of planning how to plan the framework. Communities will then be consulted before administration reports back to council on their progress in early 2018.
In their report to council, city officials also said 11 per cent of city employee say they’ve felt discrimi- nation in the workplace, especially from their own co-workers and supervisors. Officials also said they will repeat a citywide survey on racism and discrimination this month. It was last administered in 2012.