Your absence here is a mistake that we aim to address. #JOIN TOGETHER STRONG PROFESSIONAL#To the African Canadian - we recognize you are not represented in many professional disciplines and sectors, despite your strength and ingenuity in social innovation. And we must demand that our partners and governments come along with us in this work. We must examine and concretely change our own leadership, our teams, internal policies and practices, discovering where we reinforce the old systems we’re aiming to uproot. We must uplift the leadership and innovation of Black, Indigenous, People of Colour (BIPOC), and listen carefully to the narratives and wisdom being shared. We will not succeed in these efforts if we don’t start from the inside out. They work to disrupt old patterns so people can build new organizations, new ways of working, new structures and policies, together. Social innovation, community economic development, and the social economy purport to tackle these challenges by putting control and leadership in the hands of communities themselves. These dynamics are complex.They are not just about the current moment of uprising, but they are historical, insidious, and deeply woven into society in Canada. In this land, Indigenous people have survived devastating injustice, also resulting in the disproportionately negative interactions with social services, justice systems, and healthcare. This moment of pandemic where some communities face greater health care challenges due to broken systems has intertwined with Black communities yet again, rising up to demand justice in the face of police brutality and institutional racism. Unfortunately, many of us also find commonality in our shortcomings when it comes to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access. We find commonality in visions focused on systemic change across a variety of domains including, but not limited to: innovations towards new and better ways of organizing communities democratizing and distributing social, political, and economic activity fairly and living in a way that respects the limits of the planet. What is also clear to us is that African Canadian and Indigenous communities have a rich and textured array of organizations, social enterprises and businesses that require equitable access to meaningful opportunities. It is clear to us that across Canada, we have deep divides between the rich, poor, and everyday families. Understanding that the wealth and health of communities are inextricably linked, we call for community leadership and determination of resource allocation, assets, decision-making, and policy development. We are committed to equity in access to capital, sharing power and addressing the systemic barriers that exacerbate wealth disparity. We are also committed to confronting economic arrangements that are unsound, and which concentrate capital and exclude many people living in Canada. In our work towards sustainable and inclusive communities we denounce anti-Black racism in every malicious form it takes in our communities, our organizations, and in Canada’s systems and institutions. Joint StatementĪs a collective, we recognize the only sensible position to take in the face of racism is anti-racism. We also acknowledge generations of African Nova Scotians who have resisted oppression in isolation in the Maritimes. While issues of systemic racism are present for many people living in Canada, we acknowledge the recent and disproportionately fatal incidents within Indigenous and Black communities. We, the undersigned, collectively acknowledge that colonialism has deep roots in Canada and its legacy persists in society’s intolerable treatment of people of African descent. We provide this joint statement to deepen our commitment to rooting out racism, colonization, and exclusion in our work and sector. We, the undersigned, are a collaborative partnership of network leaders in social innovation, social finance, the social economy, and community economic development across Canada.
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