TIMMINS - It's time to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, says a racial equity consultant.
Camille Dundas was the keynote speaker for the International Day to End Racial Discrimination (IDERD) at the Best Western Premier Timmins. She told the room that it’s time to deal with discrimination out loud in the workplace.
“Most of the time my hope is that people will drop the expectation they have of themselves of being able to always know the right thing to say,” she said. “This is the biggest fear most people have when they’re approaching anything to do with diversity. They are petrified of offending someone or saying the right thing.”
She said the goal should be growing into the lessons learned from those moments.
“Allyship is a practice, which means you’re going to get it wrong at some point,” she said. “Most people when they say something wrong, they’ll never say anything again but understand that this is a work in progress, so I can continue.”
Hosted by Timmins Together and the Timmins Local Immigration Partnership (TLIP), the luncheon event brought together people from multiple organizations, including the City of Timmins, YMCA, the Timmins and District Hospital and more.
TLIP co-ordinator Chinelo Nnoli hopes people walked away with a sense that inclusivity and tolerance are ongoing projects.
“It’s not just enough to fight against it. We need to start, it needs to be a value that we cultivate,” said Nnoli. “And we want to encourage people to speak on what they see because discrimination tries to silence.”
Dundas worked as a TV journalist and noticed the discrepancy in how different communities were covered. She and her husband started ByBlacks.com 13 years ago to share stories about Black Canadians doing great things.
“I had a front-row seat to the biases that exist, that are baked in,” she said. “We are able to cover the stories that were important to us, that were amazing stories not because the people were black, but because they were doing awesome things.”
A large part of learning is about letting go of one’s ego, she said.
“It’s knowing that on the other side of the fear, there is a huge growth opportunity and there’s an opportunity to enlighten other people,” she said. “What it takes to change the world is to change your street, to change your home, to change the room.”
Timmins Economic Development Corporation (TEDC) community development consultant Madison Mizzau said there are multiple ways to combat workplace discrimination, and support exists, such as the Workplace Inclusion Charter, for companies that are committed to that goal.
“We do hope that it will act as a jumping-off point for employers and that they’ll take it and run with it in their workplaces,” she said. “If they are seeing things that are missing from them, they are empowered to make those changes.”
She said it’s vital that the voices of people who face discrimination are heard.
“We have a large Indigenous population, we have a growing newcomer population, and I know we hear that people are still experiencing barriers in the workplace,” said Mizzau. “We’re hopeful that participants today can take these lessons and bring those back tot heir workplaces and share that with their colleagues.”
The Workplace Inclusion Charter is available on the TEDC website. Mizzau said around 20 companies have signed on.
The United Nations first recognized IDERD on March 21, 1966. It memorializes the day 69 peaceful protesters were shot by police in Sharpeville, South Africa, while protesting apartheid-era policies.