Don’t Call Me Resilient

As we approach Canada Day — and the prospect of the return of "freedom" protests in Ottawa — let's consider the meaning and symbolism of the Canadian flag.

After weeks of the so-called "freedom convoy" last winter, many of us took a hard look at the symbolism of the Canadian flag and its recent association with white supremacy. Some felt a new fear or anger at what they feel the flag represents.

But other communities have always felt this way about the Canadian flag.

After unmarked graves were found at the sites of former residential schools, the Canadian flag was flown at half-mast in many places to show shame for our collective history and solidarity with Indigenous communities. And last year on Canada Day, many people called for people to wear orange instead of red and white.
Both of our guests on this episode of Don't Call Me Resilient have studied multiculturalism, citizenship and belonging. Daniel McNeil looks at history and culture and the complexities of global Black communities. He is a professor and national scholar chair in Black studies at Queen's University. Lucy El-Sherif is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto in ethnic and pluralism studies.
The Conversation Canada: Full Show Notes for episode 20
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At Don’t Call Me Resilient, we’ve been busy planning season 4 of the podcast, which starts to roll out in November. We’re even starting to think about season 5. But we decided to stop production to talk about something we felt we couldn’t ignore.

We’ve watched this incredible spectacle around the Queen’s death and public outpouring of support and love for the British monarchy.

Here in Canada, Queen Elizabeth was the official head of state and her funeral this week was made a federal holiday. In Ontario, the Minister of Education directed schools to conduct a moment of silence “to recognize the profound impact of Queen Elizabeth II’s lifelong and unwavering devotion to public service.”

And yet next week, those same children will be exploring the history of Indian Residential Schools and the immense ongoing damage of that system — started and long supported by the Crown.

In the middle of this outpouring of love and grief for the Queen — and the monarchy she represented — not everyone is feeling it. Not everyone wants to mourn or honour her or what she represents.

And there are a lot of reasons why.

For example, the head of the Assembly of First Nations, RoseAnne Archibald told CTV News that the Royal Family should apologize for the failures of the Crown ...“particularly for the destructiveness of colonization on First Nations people.”
Another example came from Uju Anya, professor at Carnegie Mellon University, who posted a tweet in which she identified the Queen as overseeing a “thieving raping genocidal empire.”

To explore these ideas further, we reached out to two scholars who are regular contributors to Don’t Call Me Resilient. Both say that the Queen’s death could be a uniting moment of dissent for people from current and former colonies.

Veldon Coburn is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Indigenous Research and Studies at the University of Ottawa where he teaches a class called Colonialism, Territory & Treaties. He is Anishinaabe, Algonquin from Pikwàkanagàn First Nation and the co-editor of Capitalism and Dispossession.

Cheryl Thompson is Assistant Professor of media and culture at the School of Performance and the Director of the Laboratory for Black Creativity at Toronto Metropolitan University. She is the author of Uncle: Race, Nostalgia, and the Politics of Loyalty.

In this episode, author and CUNY professor Ava Chin, a 5th generation Chinese New Yorker, discusses her new book, Mott Street: A Chinese American Family’s Story of Exclusion and Homecoming.

The book artfully explores themes of exclusion as it relates to all Chinese Americans, plus personally for Chin with her father, a "crown prince" of Chinatown that she didn't meet until adulthood. Chin reveals personal family stories against the backdrop of the U.S. eugenics movement and draws a connecting line between the current rise in violence against Asians in North America and anti-immigration laws more than 100 years old.

Chin also showcases the resilience, love lives and dreams of Chinese immigrants as well as their resistance to the attitudes and laws of the era.

In our conversation, Chin said:

> This story goes back to a period in time, in the era of reconstruction, when the country, when the young country was asking itself, who is an American and who is not, who is one of us? And the decisions that they made back then in the 19th century set us on a course as a nation towards viewing all Asians as being foreign and suspicious. And so the great aim of this book is to shed light on Asian American stories and place Asian Americans into our proper space into the larger American story.

Don’t Call Me Resilient takes on systemic racism and the ways it permeates our everyday lives. In our second season, as we live through what feels like the world falling apart, we’re focusing on imagining a better future together. We’ll tackle everything from how redefining pollution could show us a new way forward in the climate crisis ... to why we need to think harder about the impact of data collection on marginalized communities ... to the power of storytelling in helping us survive our current world and building a better one.

Hosted by Vinita Srivastava, Director of Innovation & Senior Editor: Culture + Society, The Conversation Canada (https://theconversation.com/ca)

Show notes: https://theconversation.com/listen-to-our-podcast-dont-call-me-resilient-season-2-168640

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