In the Hold of the Ship: Surviving the Unrelenting anti-Black Racism at Ryerson’s School of Social Work

“Across time and space the languages and apparatus of the hold and its violences multiply”- Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being

Today I walk across the stage as a graduate of Ryerson University’s Master of Social Work program. But what may appear to be an ending to most is actually an inauguration into a new chapter of a different kind of truth telling. The only ending here are certain risks that come when one chooses to actively speak out and organize against institutional anti-Black racism while being inside that very institution. As a Black queer activist and organizer who earned my Bachelor and Master of Social Work from Ryerson, I would argue I know more than what that institution wish me to know and they most definitely do not want anyone to hear what goes on within their walls.

Co-founding the Black Liberation Collective-Ryerson (BLC-Ryerson) in October 2016 with two other Black social work students at that time was a direct result of the anti-Black racism in the School of Social Work that required a campus wide response. Needless to say, the faculty from the School are familiar with being held publicly accountable to Black freedom and the harms caused by their faculty onto Black students, staff, faculty, and community members. However, during the 2018/19 year — my Master of Social Work — the level of anti-Black racism reached such a concert pitch that it would be irresponsible for me to not make known the conduct of the faculty. To stay silent would be to participate in one of the tactics of the institution, which is that students graduate out and the School gets off. To stay silent means Black students, staff, and faculty are put at a continued risk without knowing the full story. To stay silent means to allow the faculty of the School of Social Work to control and rewrite history in their favour. I refuse suppression and to give them this power. For this reason this is a detailed truth telling, so the facts cannot be misconstrued to save face for the faculty.

This may confuse some when the School of Social Work markets themselves as “a leader in critical education, research, and practice with culturally and socially diverse students and communities in the advancement of anti-oppression/anti-racism, anti-Black racism, anti-colonialism/decolonization, Aboriginal reconciliation, feminism, anti-capitalism, queer and trans liberation struggles, issues in disability and Madness, among other social justice struggles. Our vision is to transform social structures into more equitable and inclusive social, economic, political, and cultural processes of society.”

This false marketing is what brought many students, including myself, to the program and institution. But for some of us, we came to realize and had to deal with how far from true this statement was from reality. Sara Ahmed would find the hallways of Eric Pallen Hall and classrooms in Sally Horsfall Eaton a tragic site of study on complaint and performative social justice. The concrete walls and linoleum floors were less an educational pathway of critical thought, decolonization, and liberation and more a practicum in fighting for my/our freedom and humanity.

Before I go on to tell these new truths, to the reader who may attempt to characterize my words as petty, vindictive, and unnecessary: may you keep the work of Audre Lorde, Maya Angelou, Patricia Hill-Collins, Kimberle Crenshaw, Dionne Brand, James Baldwin, Angela Davis — and any other Black scholar, writer, artist, and activist who spoke about speaking truth — out of your mouth. Your fraudulence is ironic and noticeable. To the non-believers and the “shocked and amazed,” remember this is 2019 and there are many ways to verify facts. I have receipts in many forms.

A little background for those new to discussing the School of Social Work’s anti-Black racism. In the fall of 2016 the BLC-Ryerson came together and organized in response to the anti-Black conduct of the then Director of the School of Social Work, Dr. Henry Parada. Our work alongside Indigenous Students Rising set forth a rigorous and sustained radical resistance against the School and University. We made many tangible and transformative demands that were to address the institutional anti-Black racism.

In response, Dr. Henry Parada stepped down — this was an institutional disappearing act — and in his place stepped in Dr. Susan Silver as Interim-Director. Like a video game where the player comes up against a new animation with a different set of difficulties, Dr. Susan Silver depended on platitudes of “we hear you” and “be patient” to cover up her complete stalling of any substantive change. Her junior partner in performative allyship was Dr. Dawn Onishenko as Associate Director. Combined, their special move would be attempted cover ups of their anti-Black racism through subtle eye rolls whenever I and other Black students spoke and side glances to one another conveying dismissal of our feedback and thoughts.

With these two at the helm leading the ship while certain faculty were on deck with them, and us in the hold, they put forward a five year plan to address anti-Black and anti-Native racism as it pertains to curriculum, faculty hiring and training, Black and Indigenous student safety, and funding and scholarships for Black students. This lead to several meetings with a specific focus on curriculum development that centred Black and Indigenous scholarship. In attendance were the duo along with their co-conspirators who did very little if anything to support our struggle to bring a reality to the School’s vision and mission.

We had meeting after meeting where these individuals would be amazed by our ideas but do little to implement them or take them seriously — the well known white shock and amazement with no action. By the middle of the 2017/18 academic year we were exhausted with their stall tactics and pretend (or real) amazement with our ideas. These were the very people with PhDs, who taught us about critical reflexivity, anti-oppression, critical race theory (because they lack the ability to substantively language anti-Black racism), and did research and institutional evaluations for other organizations. So there were two possibilities for us: 1) they were performing amazement and therefore weren’t taking our ideas seriously or 2) they were genuinely amazed and therefore their specialization in the umbrella of anti-oppression was performative.

Either way, for us as students unpaid for our labour and dealing with placement, we could not continue. In January 2018 we stated that the faculty showed a shameful ineptitude that we could no longer waste our time with. We explicitly said “we are no longer picking your cotton,” and told them that if they had ethics and were truly anti-oppressive as they claimed then they will continue doing the work and put to use the PhDs and resumes they built, and Indigenous Students Rising and the BLC-Ryerson left them and carried on with our own work to address anti-Black and anti-Native racism at Ryerson University.

Fast forward to September 2018, and I came to see how unethical and masquerading the faculty meant to implement the five year plan were. The catalyst: Dr. Cyndy Baskin — among many others. For those who don’t know her, Dr. Cyndy Baskin is an Indigenous associate professor who has been at the institution for several years. An important aspect to note is that Dr. Baskin is also white passing/coded. This is not an anti-Native erasure of the history of colonialism and its present day implications, in fact it is an imperative nuance of the complexities of race, racism and the kind of behaviours exhibited by Dr. Baskin. It also isn’t new for even Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island themselves to explain this nuance.

To start off, there is no back story between Dr. Baskin and I. I never had her as an instructor in any of my courses, and she seemed completely uninvolved with the activism coming from Indigenous Students Rising and their solidarity work with BLC-Ryerson. What little I knew about Dr. Baskin came by way of other students. Black students mentioning her having a problematic history when engaging conversations centering Blackness and Black people, and Indigenous students describing her history of silencing Indigenous students and staff who dissent from her approaches, practices and thoughts — often those divisions a conflict between their radical praxis versus what sounded like her neoliberal approach that the School and university largely validated. I would actually only ever see Dr. Baskin once in my entire Bachelor of Social Work in April 2018 at a job talk for an Indigenous applicant where I respectfully gave up my seat for her as the room quickly filled for this presenter and so I sat on a desk.

So little did I know the rumours would have reflection in my very first week of my Master of Social Work. Dr. Baskin was the assigned instructor for our Anti-Oppression Responses to Marginalization, Policy and Practices course — the irony. On September 5, 2018 all us graduate students packed into the class and we did what always happens and went over the course outline. Dr. Baskin did the usual read over of the School’s vision and mission along with an entire section on describing microaggression that was mandatory in all social work syllabi. This change came about because of student advocacy and the ongoing experience of xenophobia many students experienced in the classroom. We then came to the assignments, the first of which was a “self-care report” that was graded — it was not pass or fail.

This assignment launched a conversation on why Dr. Baskin believed this report to be important and what she defined as self-care, citing healthy eating and exercise such as going for a run. She then asked “so what do you think?” A few students, notably the white students, raised their hands saying how they appreciated the idea. Finally I raised my hand saying I was concerned about the idea that someone gets to grade us on our self-care. I mentioned how the logic of getting to evaluate someone else’s self-care is very dangerous as we see the University of Toronto making a policy which can force students on a leave of absence under the guise of mental health, and the College of Social Workers mandating social workers to report on their mental health status. I said if it were a pass or fail assignment I’d be less concerned, but how does one grade someone else’s self-care? Notions of self-care and wellness, as illustrated above, are now used as mechanisms to determine professional suitability.

I also mentioned that in our present moment there’s a neoliberal, individualized notion of self-care that often leads to blaming individuals rather than institutions and systems that make life untenable. I cited Norma Jean Profitt’s article — a required reading in both our third and fourth year practice seminar at Ryerson’s Bachelor of Social Work level that discusses politicized collective notions of self-care. But I made clear this isn’t a particularly new conception within Black, Indigenous, and racialized communities, and that authors like bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and Patricia Hill-Collins provide rigorous examples of this. My issue was are politicized collective notions of self-care validated in this assignment, and does this assignment contextualize that neoliberal, capitalist conceptions of self-care are a privilege often not afforded to low-income, Black, Indigenous, and racialized students who often straddle many different responsibilities.

Dr. Baskin’s response: “Okay then.” A Black woman who was also a mature student raised her hand and stated that I was actually onto something important and discussed the responsibilities she carried on her shoulders when it came to caring for family and the incongruence of neoliberal conceptions of self-care with her realities. In fact every Black student raised their hand and validated my concerns and thoughts, as well as some Indigenous and racialized students. Some white students even held themselves to account and said how there’s so much they didn’t have to think about and do in life that we did, and so neoliberal notions of self-care would obviously be easy for them to follow and therefore this assignment be easy to write. So clearly I wasn’t the only one who took issue with this concept and idea in the classroom. After everyone spoke Dr. Baskin went on to say that we had to do the assignment anyway. Clearly I had misunderstood her question, and rather she meant “for those who agree with me, what are your thoughts?”

After class, a crowd of us students walked to the TTC and discussed Dr. Baskin’s responses. They all found that Dr. Baskin was particularly dismissive towards me and asked what that was about. Much like I’ve written here, I explained I had no relationship with her but noted the work of BLC-Ryerson and so I wasn’t exactly loved by many of the faculty. Another Black student said how he’d heard that some students had problems with Dr. Baskin, and I responded saying let’s just see how it goes given the next week we’d be discussing self-care — maybe that lecture would be more validating.

Come September 12th, having read the readings, I predicted that I was wrong in the previous week to believe we’d have a different kind of lecture. Two of the readings were quite neoliberal in their definitions of self-care, the first by Salloum et al. — this one being about child welfare and the burnout amongst child protection workers — and the second article by Lee & Miller. The third reading could have saved the class discussion, an article interview of Black Lives Matter Movement co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Black radical activist notions of self-care and protest. The presence of this article as a reading didn’t make me hopeful, it made me cautious.

Class began and we started a discussion on the first two neoliberal readings of self-care. I actively did not participate, and rather listened to my peers answer Dr. Baskin’s questions of what we thought of the articles as she went one by one. As she got to the end of discussing the second article, a Black student raised her hand and said how she felt these two articles didn’t go far enough: “how can my brother do self-care when if he runs in a hoodie he could be shot, detained, or questioned?” Dr. Baskin responded to this student saying how he can find other ways while racism (she did not use the term anti-Black racism) will obviously impact the means to do so. I raised my hand.

I started by saying how I didn’t think this student was asking an actual question but that it was a rhetorical refusal of how the first two readings conceptualized self-care. I agreed with this student and linked it to what I said the week prior, saying that not only did the articles not go far enough but that they were the exact opposite of politicized collective notions of self-care, and how Lee & Miller’s article even used blaming language to describe those who the author considered to not be practicing self-care. I pointed out Salloum et al.’s article indicated the race of the front line workers but then did not name the race of supervisors and one of the causes of tension for these front line workers was the conduct of the supervisors — did race and racism not have a role in this tension? But also does race not speak to the experiences of racialized, in particular Black and Indigenous workers who are often the ones working frontline precarious positions especially in this political climate?

I stated the third reading discussing Black Lives Matter and self care was the remedy to these issues, as we hear Khan-Cullors state that self-care is a community and individual experience, therefore requiring community organizing and not just a bathbomb or some healthy food. Especially in a time when the socio-economic status of many Black community members means we don’t have access to these practices of self-care. I ended with saying that Khan-Cullors’ interview offers us writing open letters, community debriefs, politicized art, and protest as self-care while we do what we can in terms of food, rest, and other aspects that make us whole.

For the reader wondering why I detailed what was said — the point is we were in a graduate program and our role is to critically engage. I did this, verbally citing who and where I was thinking from including some required readings from the School itself. This wasn’t a personal issue, it was an epistemic discussion of knowledge development while also a refusal to allow this other Black student’s point to be dismissed like mine had the week prior. This is not to say the personal is not political, but to make this only about the personal is irresponsible and one of the tactics used to silence thinking Black students in the academic setting. Yet this would be the error made by Dr. Baskin.

Dr. Baskin said, and her exact words were: “Well it’s easy to just critique, critique, critique. I put these articles in because I like them, and I think it’s my job to ensure that you students get all sides to the topic. That’s why I included the one by Patrisse, so why don’t we just get to that one.” The other Black student and I made eye contact as we both felt the discipline in Dr. Baskin’s words and tone — Black radical thought was not to have space and weight within her class. Further, it should be understood that the Khan-Cullors article was not only an add-on but was then to be engaged as a conciliation and not as important theoretical work to be discussed within the context of the classroom.

As Dr. Baskin started reading a paragraph from the interview where Khan-Cullors discusses the reason why protests look the way they do, with art, dance, and spiritual practices like the burning of sage, Dr. Baskin stopped to ask a question: “now what do we think of this? With Black people so new to spirituality, couldn’t it be appropriation?” The irony of her first response to be critiquing Khan-Cullors was not lost on me. But also the question itself was deeply anti-Black for several reasons. This question is an erasure of Black people’s indigeneity and our spiritual practices that include the use of sage — a plant that grows on the continent of Africa. It ignores the slave trade and slavery, and how our ability to practice spirituality was impacted. The suggestion of newness is fundamentally incorrect, as Black people continued our spiritual practices even when forced to work the land in ways that were in contradiction to our spiritual understandings of all living things. Dr. Baskin’s inaccurate claim of Black people being new to spirituality means to forget how some forms of Black resistance grew within the walls of the church and many other Black spiritual sites .

I said all this in response to a white student raising her hand to agree that it would be appropriative for Khan-Cullors to do this. I also added that article actually identified that one of her parents was Black and the other Indigenous to Turtle Island so it was odd to ask this question. I finished my response by saying that overall this question pretends that Black people are just settlers in the same sense that European colonizers and their lineage are, rather than being what Angela Robertson calls “a stolen people on stolen land.”

Rather than rethink the question in tandem to what I said, Dr. Baskin chose to be wrong and strong asking “but what do you say to Indigenous Peoples who believe that it’s appropriation, because there are some who do.” All the Black students raised their hands and deconstructed this assumption and question and agreed with me while also stipulating how this erased their identity as Black people. However, in response all Dr. Baskin said was “maybe” as if though we were actually answering the question rather than addressing it. I cannot overstate the dismissiveness in this response to Black students. Indeed, there may be Indigenous Peoples who are of this view, however in a graduate level classroom where we’ve been discussing these issues for years this should have been a moot point.

A student who is Indigenous to Turtle Island raised her hand and said “I don’t really understand the point in you asking the question over and over again when so many Black students spoke up about this question…is there a reason why you’re asking this question, do you believe this?” Dr. Baskin very clearly glared at this student for a few seconds and then said “well it’s a question that needs to be answered because how are Black and Indigenous Peoples going to have solidarity with one another if we can’t have these difficult discussions?”

I responded by saying that solidarity between these two communities isn’t new, and that there are many instances of Black and Indigenous Peoples to Turtle Island working together towards a common goal of liberation for both our groups. I indicated Indigenous Students Rising and BLC-Ryerson as a local example of this work, but highlighted that just because Dr. Baskin wasn’t present in these conversations doesn’t mean they’re not happening. I made clear that in this solidarity work our colleagues would never ask such a question and continue to push it in the way Dr. Baskin was. Then I stated: “at this point I’m going to name how violently anti-Black this discussion has been, as you’re essentially saying that all of you should get to benefit off the backs of Black people when we’ve all refused this question — and we all look obviously upset by this continued conversation that erases us.”

Dr. Baskin responded saying “well then I think you and I need to talk” to which I borrowed a line from her: “maybe.” After that she just went on to how she sees her role as bringing contentions in the class no matter who it makes uncomfortable and shortly ended the class from there. Again, the students walked to the subway and debriefed that entire interaction. Everyone agreed that it seemed she had a problem with Black activism and Blackness and tried to hide her anti-Blackness behind a question that was more like a statement.

We didn’t come back to Dr. Baskin’s class for two weeks due to her traveling, and in that time students were discussing the week three readings and raised concerns about these articles. Specifically, Dr. Baskin posted questions to go with the articles and these questions read as having a problem with Black people. One article by Amadahy & Lawrence was problematic and flawed in several ways in its attempt to critically engage with Black settlerhood and its contentions. Some of the associated questions posed by Dr. Baskin asked “How is racism prioritized over colonialism?” and “What do you think about Black people/racialized people owning Indigenous land?” I had not known that there were associated questions with the readings, and so when I looked I also noticed how the questions associated to the self-care lecture never included her question around appropriation. Dr. Baskin made that on the spot.

With all this, I went to the Interim Graduate Program Director Dr. Purnima George stating what happened, including that the question had not been one assigned. Dr. Purnima George heard my concerns and said she would address them. Meanwhile, on September 19th Dr. Baskin emailed me requesting a meeting to discuss what happened in class, to which I responded: “Upon further reflection our conversation was not a personal or private conversation because this was a conversation that occurred within the classroom context and were embedded in our understanding of the readings. Therefore any talk we need to have can occur in the class.”

On September 26th, we came to class not knowing this would end up being the last time we see Dr. Baskin. She began class by saying “so I want to address what happened in our last class…none of you asked me what I thought. No one asked me if I believe that it was appropriation, I was simply asking a question. Of course I don’t believe that, I’ve worked on research projects with Black people all over, including from Zimbabwe.” Hopefully her research version of “I have a Black friend” is not lost on you.

In response a racialized student raised her hand, stating that Dr. Baskin had a responsibility as an educator to make her stance clear given the contention of the question, and to end the conversation when so many people had pointed out how problematic it was. This student along with several other students said how it got to a point that it seemed she believed this. Some of them even noted the dismissiveness she showed me since the first week. Finally I spoke up, stating that her saying it’s easy to critique, and saying we’ll have to speak after class are forms of discipline. These signaled her attempts to silence my critical engagement or me naming anti-Black racism as operating in the space. I said this included her responding “maybe” to Black students, which was so blatantly dismissive. I said that it was this kind of violence that pushes Black students out of academia. For the reader, this is also the kind of rhetoric that criminalized and demonizes Black students in the academy.

Rather than apologize Dr. Baskin said “only some thought it was violent.” The racialized student who initially spoke asked the class to raise their hand if they thought Dr. Baskin’s conduct was violent and problematic: 23 of the 28 students present that day raised their hand. This student said “see, and so for you to respond the way that you just did to Josh shows how you’re resisting holding yourself accountable.” After this all the Black students spoke on how they felt erased and dismissed in the previous as well as current class. To these students Dr. Baskin responded: “anybody else.”

One student asked Dr. Baskin’s intentions of focusing so much on solidarity with Black people when there were several communities engaging in colonialism and benefiting from it much differently than Black people do. Dr. Baskin responded by asking “but there are Indigenous Peoples who believe it’s appropriation, so don’t you want to know that they’re going to tear a strip off you?” I responded by saying that Black students don’t need to be violated and have that considered education, we get that for free outside of the classroom. It should be clear to the reader that also the use of tearing a strip in reference to a community who has a history with being whipped is deeply disturbing.

The Indigenous student who spoke up the previous class stated the way Dr. Baskin looked at her when she spoke up in support of the Black students made her feel as though she had somehow betrayed her community. She also said that she had actually requested for Dr. Baskin to clarify her position when she asked why Dr. Baskin was asking/pushing this question. Dr. Baskin apologized, saying how she would never intend for that. Little did this student know how true her feelings were, because in May of 2019 when she would ask Dr. Baskin for guidance with her major research paper Dr. Baskin did not respond to this request. I guess Dr. Baskin is only “known as the Woman Who Passes On Teachings” for those who don’t challenge her problematic behaviour.

Anyway, in response to the first apology said by Dr. Baskin that entire discussion a Black student raised her hand and pointed out that she hadn’t apologized to any Black student who raised concerns, and in fact she was only responding “anybody else” to us. Several students agreed that this occurred and Dr. Baskin responded “okay then…anybody else.” After this a white student raised their hand and requested that we take a break because it was clear Dr. Baskin wasn’t listening and respecting the voices in the space. In response Dr. Baskin asked a question about the point of doing our self-care report, but a racialized student said that she could not understand how the class is to continue if Dr. Baskin’s behaviour wasn’t fully and genuinely addressed, and so we went on break.

After this break we came back and Dr. Baskin began with saying that she hears us but that she clearly did not fully understand how she was being anti-Black and problematic but that she was going to work on it. The racialized student who had done the class polling question responded by saying we didn’t expect perfection but for her to clarify what is her viewpoint is, to listen to critiques, and to validate the voices of students better. The class went silent, and what we thought was Dr. Baskin thinking turned into her crying, collecting her things, and walking out, leaving us in shock. After attending multiple institutions and am currently a law student, I’ve never witnessed a professor with the privilege to get up and walk up out of a classroom with no explanation. Who does this benefit? What was to be learned from that act both for the students and for Dr. Baskin? Ultimately, the university is a learning environment — or so I thought.

After a few moments, the class decided to continue on and draft a collective letter to Dr. Purnima George to be sent through the graduate representatives — myself and three other students. After a 45 minutes discussion about Dr. Baskin’s behaviour and its impact, the possible remedies, and our best interests as students we finished the letter. On September 27th we sent the letter, and in it we outlined her reaction and behaviours, and said the following:

“While we hold space for the need to learn, many described today as the “trial-run” to see if we could move forward and it was quite clear that whenever students express what is violence, and how an educator should respond, Cyndy was shocked and unaware, leaving questions of what then we have to learn around anti-oppression in this space. We as a class feel that there still hasn’t been an adequate address of the harm caused and to sit through another class like this is unproductive and further harmful for many of your students. With all this, we sat with the best way to move forward and this is what we want: 1) That while Cyndy take time to reflect and come with a better response to our harms, next week’s lecture be taught by another instructor. If this cannot be done then; a) We would like the classroom space to ourselves to conduct the class on our own to engage the readings. If this cannot be done then; b) We will just use the student lounge; 2) We would like the Faculty to come up with guidelines/practices on how best to engage in conversations related to Black/Indigenous/Racialized/white solidarity and on complicated notions of settlerhood. This will be used by faculty so as to not have it be that productive discomforting spaces come off the backs of individuals. This will be sent to us to edit. 3) For at least our first assignment, while Cyndy is reflecting, we get a different grader for the class.”

On Friday, September 28th Dr. Purnima George came to our class taught by Dr. Kristin Smith. The two asked us to outline what occurred in Dr. Baskin’s class, which Dr. Smith took detailed notes that the graduate representatives were able to confirm for accuracy later on. We aren’t quite sure where these notes went and if they made it to the appropriate parties such as the Dean, Dr. Lisa Barnoff. It was also in this space that divisions began to be made in our cohort as a few white students and one racialized student voiced feeling bad for Dr. Baskin because she cried. This launched into a class discussion, which included agreement from the faculty in the space, on how tears are often a method to avoid accountability on the part of the person who caused harm. One Black student noted how much of a privilege it is for someone who looks like Dr. Baskin to be able to cause all this harm, cry, walk away, and now have students voicing concern for her meanwhile these students never asked how the Black students were feeling after being violated.

On Tuesday October 2nd, we were informed that Dr. Baskin would no longer be teaching the course and that the School would be looking for a different instructor to teach it. We were given options around when the replacement course would occur, to which the class decided on a two-week intensive format in December. In the meantime the graduate representatives had a meeting with some of the faculty about the demands, while I also made clear that many of these issues were attached to the original demands put forward by Indigenous Students Rising and BLC-Ryerson. This continuity signalled a lack of work done by the faculty and a need for the School to take seriously all that has happened.

In the months of October and November, students began to make other complaints about the program and conduct of faculty. Another development was suddenly there were no faculty to teach our upcoming elective courses for the Winter and Spring/Summer semester, including the intensive replacing the course Dr. Baskin left vacant. While Dr. Purnima George tried to tell us we shouldn’t worry, the job advertisements published by the School looking for faculty to fill the position did nothing to calm us. One student reported to our cohort that in conversation with a faculty member, this faculty member stated people in the School were afraid to teach our cohort now. Specifically due to my presence in the cohort and my apparent history of taking people down — first Dr. Henry Parada and now Dr. Baskin.

It’s important to consider that one of the elective courses, Anti-Racism and Social Work, is usually taught by Dr. June Yee, Dr. Gordon Pon, or a now retired faculty member. Dr. Yee and Dr. Pon write on anti-racism but are apparently afraid of a Black queer student whose focus is to actualize anti-racism? The intensive and our electives were filled, but not without anxieties from the students.

In November I went to the Human Rights Office at Ryerson University to lodge a formal complaint against Dr. Baskin. During this process I explained all that happened, including Dr. Baskin’s responses towards me. On January 10, 2019 the investigator, Robin Fraser, along with her supervisor Toni De Mello, came to the following conclusion:

“There does not appear to be sufficient evidence to support the claim of discrimination against you on the basis of race. The nature of your complaint is primarily course management related. Human Rights Services is not the appropriate forum to address course management related issues. Moreover, you appear to be advancing concerns on behalf of other individuals who have not initiated complaints.”

My response was a quote from Dr. Rinaldo Walcott’s Queer Returns:

“Indeed, many in the progressive side find it difficult to imagine Black subjecthood too…One of the many things that Black queer and Black Trans people learn very quickly in the academy is that none of the post-1960s offices (human rights, LGBT, disability, etc.) can contain them, can address their issues and concerns, and can adequately account for their presence as students, faculty, and staff.”

Also in November, Dr. Purnima George hosted a townhall for graduate students. I chose not to attend so that way student feedback couldn’t be blamed on me given everything else including the faculty’s fear was blamed on me already. From what I was told, the students voiced several concerns. Many of them cycled back to the lack of accountability from Dr. Baskin and the School regarding her conduct in that first month. Students felt the School was a far cry from its vision and mission, and given these were a selling point for applicants of the program the School should take that down, rephrase it, or to shut the program down due to the ineptitude of the faculty. In December, the graduate representatives met the faculty with me absent. Out of this meeting I received an email from Dr. Purnima George to us suggesting a taskforce to deal with these issues. I responded with concerns about student capacity and compensation, as well as a repeated history of the School creating a taskforce and not following through — the BLC/ISR demands being case and point.

On January 14th, 2019 we met again, this time with me present and we discussed this idea of a task force. I voiced my concern again, inquiring why we should trust the faculty to deal with the issues this time when they didn’t do it when BLC-Ryerson and Indigenous Students Rising were present at the table. One of the graduate representatives pointed out that we had to spend our first class with one of the sessional instructor for our Seminar Course describing what happened the previous semester. This happened because the sessional instructor read the section on microaggressions and the School Mission and Vision, causing a reaction from the class and her asking what happened. This graduate representative stated that the School obviously wasn’t informing the faculty and instructors, which allowed rumours to happen and put students at risk of being lied about, which was already happening to me. I then requested a meeting between all the students and the faculty — not just Dr. Purnima George and the few faculty members present at the graduate council meetings. The reason being that our concerns were relevant to the conduct of all the faculty and therefore they needed to answer to all of us before we made the decision to even think about a task force.

During January and February, divisions in the cohort deepened and this became clear in February when the graduate students met. All the Black students, a good chunk of racialized students, one Indigenous student, and a few of the white students were against the taskforce for many of the reasons stated in the January graduate council meeting. But on the other side were some racialized students who wanted the taskforce, voicing fears of the program being shut down and the impact this might have on their individual reputation and ability to gain employment. The group against the task force asked what kind of solidarity this was, and how is this considered ethical behaviour. I asked that these students use the very readings given to us in our courses, where we should be cautious of task forces and roundtables that are often used to appear like work is getting done.

At one point it became evident that one of the graduate representatives was taking private conversations being had amongst students to figure out what to do next with the faculty and discussing this with administration. When I realized this, I immediately stepped down as a graduate representative given the lack of integrity and trust rooted in this student’s actions, a trespass that meant we couldn’t fully trust that our deliberations were being kept confidential. Collectively we could not come to a cohesive message, leading to the decision that students would speak individually for themselves in the student/faculty meeting in March.

Within the next few days the other graduate representatives stepped down. Before the student/faculty meeting I requested that the School send to all the students the five year plan made in response to the BLC/ISR demands. By the day before the meeting we still hadn’t received anything, but luckily I still had my copy which I forwarded to the School and they finally sent out.

On March 11th we met with the faculty. In attendance was Dr. Silver, Dr. Onishenko, Dr. Pon, Dr. May Friedman, Dr. Purnima George, and Prof. Jennifer Clarke — from what I can remember, it’s possible there were other faculty members. An important thing to consider in terms of Dr. Pon, an Asian man, and Dr. Clarke, a Black woman, is that both of them have written about anti-Black racism. Yet during my entire time at Ryerson University, my Master of Social Work included, I never hear them speaking in support of BLC-Ryerson or speaking up and challenging the anti-Black experience in the School. I never heard them in meetings show the critical thinking they write about, nor show any care towards Black student activists as other Black faculty had. In fact this was the very first time I would see them present in a meeting meant to deal with such issues. Their scholarly work is clearly a veil that once pulled back one can see inaction and incongruence from their very words — at the very least, what a farce yet a reality of the neoliberal social justice academic.

In this meeting not much new was said. All the students present were the ones against the task force, and repeated ourselves in our concerns. Now that students could see what I was talking about with respect to the five year plan, the students felt the School was trying to play us and waste our time. I also voiced that Dr. Purnima George was being positioned in a way that she was dealing with an issue that should have been Dr. Silver’s work that she was meant to be fulfilling over the years. Therefore we requested Dr. Silver state the progress of the five year plan. While some work was done in response to anti-Native racism, Dr. Silver told us that nothing was done in response to anti-Black racism. She said “it’s been challenging.” When I asked how they could consider this acceptable, Dr. Silver responded “well I’m sorry this isn’t good enough for you Josh.” I reminded Dr. Silver that this was a plan made by her and her faculty, and that BLC-Ryerson and Indigenous Students Rising had merely put forward demands. The only item that had any progress was the hiring of a tenure track position with a focus on anti-Black racism, and the members of BLC-Ryerson never received an email inviting us to the very job talk that Dr. Silver claims being a part of the five year plan.

The students brought the meeting to a close, stating our ongoing distrust and the need for the faculty to fully reevaluate themselves — one racialized student suggested that some faculty members need to quit and make space for those willing to do the work. The rest of our year carried on and we heard nothing from the faculty about what work they’re doing. Spring turned to summer, summer to fall and I am now crossing this stage and telling these truths. Still nothing from the faculty. The only news being that Dr. Lynn Lavallee stepped in as Interim-Director for the School — a beacon of hope in a hopeless place. However, I’m still cautious. Not because of Dr. Lynn Lavallee, but because of the faculty whom I’m sure will make her role difficult and continue to stall substantive change.

That is why I tell these truths, and how anti-Black racism is not unusual to the School. Instead, it is the very fabric of that department, woven by the hands of people holding the program hostage with their egos, white fragility, neoliberalism and respectability.

“In what I am calling the weather, anti-blackness is pervasive as climate. The weather necessitates changeability and improvisation; it is the atmospheric condition of time and place; it produces new ecologies”-Christina Sharpe.

The weather was continuous and soaked to the marrow in the School of Social Work. It was exhausting being the memory and ethical compass for an institution and department. It came with risk of reprisal, requiring me to arrange directed studies — one on one elective instruction — with faculty I could trust, including going as far as Dalhousie University for a long-distance course that I had to pay tuition for.

But in this weather were raincoat and umbrella — the Black students who could not be divided by respectability and lies, and those who stayed firm in standing beside us in these overcast conditions. Sanctuary was those close to me who provided reprieve — joy, laughter, and love.

The weather continues because even this truth telling still comes with risks as the graduate students wait to hear from the faculty deliberations about whose research wins the award. This is not to say I doubt the capacities of my peers, but more so I doubt the ethics of the faculty — the white riot loves anonymity. This includes attempted re-narrations and defamation at my expense behind closed-doors.

However, I don’t doubt myself and my abilities as a Black queer scholar, activist, and writer. As I cross the stage today, I do so despite people like Dr. Henry Parada, Dr. Susan Silver, Dr. Dawn Onishenko, Dr. Cyndy Baskin, Dr. Gordon Pon, Dr. June Yee, and Dr. Jennifer Clarke — writers on anti-oppression, anti-racism, and social justice but practitioners of whiteness, white fragility, and unfreedom — with doctorates in the logics of the hold and the ship.

Instead, this is for me and every other Black person told to be quiet, respectable, silent, and less than ourselves and the power we have. This is for every person who followed Audre Lorde’s instruction on the uses of the erotic, finding such power in it that only chaos could ensue every time we put teeth to tongue, pen to paper, foot to pavement, and protest to practice in these anti-Black, white supremacist, colonial, and neoliberal conditions. This is for every Black person at Ryerson and the School who may not fully understand what’s happening but knows something is up — may my words provide some coordinates in the map to the door of no return as Dionne Brand may suggest. You are in the wake of a lineage of Black radical tradition that is now your responsibility to take up, one I trust the new organizers of BLC-Ryerson to carry on. Remember Assata Shakur’s words: “we have nothing to lose but our chains.” Finally, this is for those who taught me to have substance and spine — who taught me that breathing is somewhat possible in the hold of the ship.