Social Justice? Yes.
Black woman, long braided hair, left side profile, wearing exercise clothing holding papers
Do I take risks? The very question suggests it could be optional, as though I could take risks or not, go out on a limb or play it safe, be loud/seen/heard or quiet/invisible/silent. I take risks every day in my work, but it doesn’t feel like a choice. I take risks because some groups of people in our society (racialized, mad, disabled, Indigenous, and people in bigger bodies, to name but a few) experience lower life expectancy, onging discrimination, and exclusion from organizations such as sport. I take risks because to me transforming current injustices is not optional. Challenging the status quo through risk taking is obligatory and urgent.
It feels risky to speak up, to name discrimination, to say the words “white supremacy” and to ask “Are We One”? And yet, these are risks I must take. I am the first Critical Race Studies Assistant Professor in a Faculty of Kinesiology in Canada. Every day in my teaching and research, I challenge the existing conditions of colonial education. I work primarily with racialized students, demand accessibility not as a special need but as a human right, and name the ongoing oppression I see in Canadian universities and in elite and recreational sport. I also make a point of celebrating the achievements of racialized athletes and physical educators, because to share our joy is also decolonial resistance.
I am nervous to take risks because speaking up has not always worked in my favour. I have been ignored when I pointed out injustice. I have lost friendships because I named discrimination I witnessed. My photo has been used to celebrate Black History Month, while my very being has been shut out of anti-racism conversations. Yet, again and again, I find myself in situations where I think, should I say something? The answer is yes.
My risk taking extends to my scholarship and teaching. So many of the experiences I have had as a student involved sitting and writing quietly, listening and thinking alone. From kindergarten to the end of my PhD, I was most often the only Black person in my classes and questioned the curriculum and the pedagogy. Could we get some music in here? Could we recruit more racialized students? Could we read scholarship from the Global South? Could we move our bodies as part of the learning, not just move from sedentary lecture to desk-bound tutorial? The answer is yes.
As an instructor, I strive to create the spaces I didn’t have as a student. I’ve created a coterie, Sister Insiders -- inspired by the work of the late Audre Lorde -- as a space for racialized Kinesiology students to gather and talk about their research interests, their personal experiences, and the ways their relationships are foundational to their activism. I’ve founded a movement-leadership program, Learning to Lead, that pairs a wide range of movement practices with discussions about leadership. I’ve also prioritized the hiring, training, and teaching of racialized students who work with me to publish their/our ideas, guaranteeing that more stories from BIPOC communities will appear in academic literature. They/we will challenge and disrupt the truths and norms that create inequitable experiences. They/we will share unique understandings of power relations, economic injustices, and personal embodied knowledges. This is risky because our education system likes to emphasize neutrality and meritocracy. If I hire racialized students, can I be certain I’ve got the “best” candidates? The answer is yes.
To say out loud that I was put on this earth in service of Black excellence, to create cross-racial feminist education pods, or to transform learning with embodied leadership pedagogies is risky business. It is a risk to refuse to be confined by repressive and restrictive traditions of colonial education systems, which are capitalist, sedentary, fast-paced, and productivity-focused. I cannot afford to ‘risk’ not doing social justice work, because to do so would risk losing myself.
To enact decolonial praxis in an historically white Canadian university requires that I think, do, reflect, act, risk, and say yes.
Written by: Janelle Joseph