Supporting community-led initiatives to dismantle structural and systemic racism

Ameil J. Joseph is an associate professor of social work and the principal investigator on “Defying systemic racism and hate: Building community solidarity for knowledge sharing, mutual aid and action for the future”, an initiative funded by the Future of Canada Project.   

We talked to him about his project and why community-led organizations can play an important role in dismantling structural and systemic racism.  

This project is looking to address racism and hate on a systemic and structural level. Why is it important to look at racism in this big picture way rather than only focusing on individual incidents? 

Too often, racism is responded to at the level of individual experiences of discrimination, prejudice, bias or hate without addressing the larger forces at play.  

If we look at the systemic and structural systems rather than focusing on individual instances of racism, we will see the broader social, historical and political contexts that contribute to racism and hate in our communities. And when we see the systemic and structural systems where racism and hate are embedded, we can develop interventions that have more impact.  

What is meaningful about doing this research in Hamilton? 

Hamilton has one of the highest rates of police-reported hate crimes per capita of any city in Canada.  

Reported incidents include anti-Black, anti-Asian, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic/anti-Muslim, anti-Latinx, and anti-Indigenous acts of racism and hatred, which affect members of these groups in intersecting ways. 

These incidents have been reported across sectors including in education, employment, healthcare, housing, retail, social services and online. In addition to this, people living in Hamilton also report experiencing racism and hate from their neighbours and in the wider public.  

This indicates that not only is racism felt systemically within institutions throughout the city, but also on a structural level within communities.  

While this project focuses on building capacity in Hamilton, our research will be applicable to other municipalities across Canada.  

 What is the role of community-led initiatives in this work? 

Through this project, we are asking how community-led initiatives can be better supported in their work to dismantle structural and systemic racism in Hamilton and throughout Canada too.  

Community-led organizations are already doing such important work on the ground here in Hamilton—we want to work with them and learn from them so that we can develop tools to enhance their ability to dismantle racism.   

We plan on supporting these community initiatives by uniting around and acting on matters of shared concern, and by sharing nuanced analyses that arise from our exploration of grassroots organizing that is informed by lived experience. We also want to explore the confluence of factors that complicate the intersectional realities of individual, systemic and structural forms of racism, including factors like disability, sexuality, gender, class, proximity, status etc. 

Too often, knowledge about community-led approaches to resisting racism have been omitted or erased by those in positions of power. This work aims to resist the practices of putting the words “led”, “driven” or “based” next to community without living up to these promises.  

The nature of your project is quite collaborative—can you tell me who you will be working with over the course of this project? 

The project steering committee combines the academic expertise of three faculty research leads—Amber Dean (English and Cultural Studies) and Rodrigo Narro Pérez (Faculty of Science) and myself (School of Social Work)–with the community-based expertise and experience of the three executive directors from Hamilton organizations who we are partnering with—Kojo Damptey (Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion), Sarah Jama (Disability Justice Network of Ontario) and Lyndon George (Hamilton Anti-Racism Resource Centre).  

These researchers, scholars, and community leaders began working together through their local activism. In partnering with these groups, we want to explore how they have, and continue to, engage in initiatives that address issues of race and racism in Hamilton. Their work is already drawing attention to the ways that social, political and structural issues disproportionately affect racialized groups, and we hope that through collaboration and knowledge sharing, we will be able to support them in continuing to effect social change while having even more impact.  

Some recent work that project steering committee members have engaged in include demanding action on systemic anti-Black policing in Hamilton, launching an online tool for reporting hate incidents in Hamilton, and advocating to remove barriers and increase accessibility among other community engagement and social justice activities. 

What role has the pandemic had on systemic and structural racism? 

The pandemic revealed the widespread inequities and racial disproportionalities within health systems and services in Hamilton and across Canada. While these inequities existed before 2020, they became even more pronounced throughout the pandemic.  

The systemic racism that many racialized folks experienced during this time further eroded their trust in public institutions and private sectors.  

Through this project, we hope to develop trust across communities who have been impacted by the realities of racism both within and outside of the context of the pandemic.  

By building solidarities, organizing and mobilizing around the realities of injustice that people face, trust is experienced in the ways we rally around our common experiences and support one another in how we challenge injustice. 

What impact do you hope this project will have going forward? 

As this project is deeply situated within existing community work that has sought to meaningfully address racism and hate in Hamilton, we strive for our work to be communicated and shared in ways that have material impacts and are widely accessible.  

Namely, our research team aims to contribute to community-led and academic discussions on community-based responses to hate and racism through a national workshop designed specifically for other municipalities. City council members and staff, senior municipal bureaucrats, and leaders of non-profits addressing hate who wish to enhance their approaches to addressing anti-racism will have the opportunity to gain tangible skills, knowledge and information from community leaders who have centred community-led responses to these issues.    

By facilitating a dialogue on solidarity building, knowledge sharing and mutual aid action in response to racism and hate, we hope to enable community members and leaders—both locally and nationally—to affect social and policy change.