Hundreds of people gathered peacefully in Innisfail this weekend to take part in a community conversation that shared the experiences of people of colour in the area and beyond. 

Speakers for Innisfail’s event included members of the Central Alberta Against Racism group, Teresa Cardinal, Dieulita Datus and Sadia Khan. Additionally, Adora Nwofor, an activist from Calgary was invited by CAAR to address the crowd. 

The speakers each presented different ways that racism affects them, which allowed those in the crowd who have never personally experienced racism to learn a small piece of how that looks. 

From there, each of those speakers asked for change on different levels and said it is upon the shoulders of individuals to find that change through their own hard work - it is not the responsibility of People of Colour to educate you. 

“What I can say, is that if you want to learn, you will put your back into it. Go and do your research. It’s not one day. Anti-racism is an all-the-time situation, so it’s going to be a lot of work, it’s going to be a lot of energy, but imagine: black people do that all the time, just to stay safe,” Nwofor said, just before the presentations began.

“You wanna have the conversations? Do your due diligence. Go listen and when you do want to speak, do it with humility. If you want to have those conversations, you cannot centre your feelings because it’s not about you. This is about getting the honest truth, and the honest truth is really ugly.”

Khan and Datus are the founding members of Ubuntu - Mobilizing Central Alberta, a non-profit group that is dedicated to creating space for Black, Indigenous, and other People of Colour to have the opportunity to be heard in communities throughout the area. 

As Khan said, “If you’re going to do this, you’re going to do it right.  That means involving Black, Indigenous and other People of Colour. We cannot have community members hijacking the message. We need to really keep focused on the message and what this [movement] is about.”

Throughout the speaking, a few hecklers tried to take away attention from those presenting, but crowd members stayed focused on the main subjects. 

After nearly two hours of enlightening, sometimes heartbreaking but mostly encouraging conversation, the event was closed with a couple of statements from the Town of Innisfail. Mayor Jim Romane acknowledged that this event was the first step to understanding issues of racialization in his community and said he was thankful to have been given the opportunity for the day’s education. 

Roger Tewson is a resident of Innisfail and a member of Central Alberta Against Racism. He said, “I think it’s really important that we start the discussion [here]. It might be a little bit awkward for people to talk about People of Colour or about racism - things that people may not even think exist in these communities. But they absolutely do.”

Tewson said he is thankful to have had this community conversation remain peacefully-focused and said it’s an important piece of understanding the experiences of those around him. 

He believes having uncomfortable conversations around issues like Residential Schools and other instances of systemic racism is necessary because it forces people to examine why that topic makes them uncomfortable and to see if they can learn how to change that. 

A handful of counter-protestors did attempt to derail the day’s focus, but they were met with dozens more people standing up for the Black Lives Matter movement, either ignoring the counter-protestors or moving to block their signs and chants from the main crowd.