‘Our existence is our resistance’
Young women of colour are leading social activism in Nova Scotia
HALIFAX — They are young. They are women. And they are racialized.
Young women of colour are at the vanguard of Halifax’s social justice movement, part of a new generation of social activists.
Kati George-Jim, Masuma Khan and Rebecca Thomas are unapologetically standing up for social justice and refusing to back down in the face of controversy. They are harnessing an ethos of social unrest emanating across the country and beyond, impatiently working to dismantle white privilege, patriarchy and heterosexism.
“Racialized women have always been at the forefront of civil rights movements,” said Margaret Robinson, Dalhousie University assistant professor of sociology and social anthropology. “What’s changed is the broader society’s ability to recognize them for their leadership and work.”
Social media and growing up with a black president in the United States has also shifted the social justice movement, she said.
Thomas, Halifax’s Aboriginal poet laureate, said young women are being empowered by higher education.
“The more you start to understand and learn, the more you want to do something,” she said. “Education is very empowering. We’re being told that our voices matter, and we’re standing up to be heard.”
Last spring, she appeared before Halifax council with a poem chiding councillors for shutting down debate last year over how the city commemorates its controversial founder.
Edward Cornwallis issued a bounty on the scalps of Thomas’s Mi’kmaq ancestors but is still honoured with a park, statue, and a street near the city’s Mi’kmaq friendship centre.
Moved by her poem, a councillor decided council needed to revisit the issue, and the city has since created a panel to examine how Halifax should pay tribute to Cornwallis.
Khan, a Dalhousie Student Union executive, stood firmly in solidarity with Indigenous protests against Canada 150 celebrations. She refused to back down, even under threat of sanctions as the university investigated her for a profane Facebook post that criticized “white fragility.”
Dalhousie dropped the complaint against Khan last week, in part due to mounting concerns about violent and hateful messages she was receiving.
“There are times I get frustrated. But I don’t have a choice,” the fourth-year international development studies student said. “People shoving supremacist ideologies in my face make me want to dismantle those structures even more.”
Khan added: “Our existence is our resistance. I’m going to exist, I’m going to keep going. It doesn’t stop here.”
That sense of urgency is shared by Kati George-Jim of the T’Sou-ke First Nation in British Columbia.
“Racialized women are taking control of the conversation,” the fourth-year political science student said. “With my identity comes responsibility. As an Indigenous woman, I have a responsibility to speak up and use my voice.”