Being for human rights and against racism does not, an anti-racist make
The journey
I do not know where I am on the road to anti-racism. I know I have embarked on the journey, that the end is not in sight, and that I have not always paid attention to traffic signs along the way. I have taken wrong turns and have certainly stopped for breaks when there was no need. To be anti-racist is my aspiration and certainly my responsibility; but I am not yet there.
For that and more, I am sorry, I apologize, and I am determined to do better and go further.
This is not something theoretical and at a distance. Serious concerns about individual experiences of racism and wider systemic racism within Amnesty International, including in Canada, have been in the public eye recently. In fact, a reckoning with respect to racism and other concerns about staff well-being has been building across Amnesty International’s global movement for several years. That is true more broadly (though by no means consistently) within the human rights community nationally and worldwide; as it should and must be.
And there is undeniably far to go.
For too long it has been easy for most human rights organizations and many human rights activists to skirt any real sense of culpability or responsibility for racism. After all, we campaign against it; how could we possibly perpetuate or embody it? I am sure that is how I have largely seen myself. That is, however, precisely the mindset of denial that we must shed; and the journey of transformation on which we must embark.
That is fundamental. And that is why it is not enough for me to simply say sorry; sorry that I have been slow to hear, slow to learn, and slow to change. What truly matters is whether I understand why. Why have I been slow? What has stood in the way of hearing, learning, and changing? Recently through Black Lives Matter — and for years, decades and centuries before — Black, Indigenous and other racialized activists, scholars, leaders, writers, filmmakers, co-workers and friends have pointed to and exposed the racism that surrounds us all; not just the blatant police racism that human rights activists usually decry, but the embedded and insidious racism that is everywhere and in all of us. And increasingly, across the Amnesty International movement, including in Canada, courageous colleagues (staff, members, supporters and partners) have spoken out about their own personal experiences and systemic manifestations of racism within Amnesty.
I’ve heard that. Surely, therefore, I should have readily learned and changed long ago. As a human rights advocate I nodded, agreed and lamented. And I acted. With conviction and determination, in partnership and solidarity with human rights defenders, families and communities, I took up many instances of racism in my human rights work, and regularly condemned politicians, corporate CEO’s, religious leaders, rebel groups, police, the military and others for their racist laws, policies and attitudes.
But what of learning and changing, myself? Did I honestly reflect on my role and my responsibilities, within my own organization, in my own relationships, and beyond? It is coming, but admittedly far too late. And there is only one explanation for the slowness. I acknowledge that it is racism itself that has stood in the way of addressing my own racism. I encourage others to see that as well.
I feel compelled to write most obviously because I was one of Amnesty International Canada’s senior leaders for close to 21 years, having stepped down nearly eight months ago. That includes during these recent years when the experiences and concerns about racism have come forward. It would be dishonest and disingenuous to pretend this does not involve me, my leadership, or my approach to human rights work. Of course it does.
At the outset, therefore, I fully apologize for racism I failed to see, did not understood and did not address. I apologize to Black, Indigenous and other colleagues of Colour. I apologize to the wider Amnesty International community. I apologize for failing to do my part as a leader, as a colleague, and as a friend. There is no excuse.
And in writing I do not at all seek to excuse, deflect, or even clarify, though some may take it as precisely that. That is not the point and certainly not my intention. There is of course complexity and nuance. There is ample space for misunderstandings. Further explanations might in some instances alleviate or diminish concerns, while in others, deepen or reveal new concerns about racism. Within Amnesty International Canada there have indeed been many determined initiatives underway over the past several years, advanced by colleagues in an effort to address racism and oppression. Some of those efforts have been more visible than others. Against that backdrop there is much to be unpacked about effective strategies, about individual and collective responsibility; and what behaviours and attitudes are specific to Amnesty, reflective of the human rights movement as a whole, and/or engrained in deeply entrenched societal structures and relationships.
Some friends and colleagues may read these reflections and wonder why I do not talk of valuable work we have done together over the years to advance human rights at home and abroad, across a wide array of important and pressing concerns; work that has often decried and opposed racism, work that has been courageously led by rights-holders and communities, work that has often led to real change in the face of enormous challenges. I do very much honour and take pride in that work, appreciate the tremendous collaboration, and have immense gratitude for all that I have learned along the way.
But that is not what is on my mind and in my heart today. Rather, I write today only because of my own personal responsibility to hear, learn and change. Some of those reflections are what I share here. Not with any arrogant sense of teaching others from my learnings; for I am far from a teacher in this space. Not with any sense of clarity and completion; as these issues are still emerging, and will continue to do so. Not with confidence that I yet fully understand the revelations; let alone the nature of the change they require. And certainly with full awareness and humility that I will no doubt be clumsy in the words I choose and that some may feel I either underdeliver or overshoot.
I absolutely write not simply to take up time and space, but as a humble offering to others who may be on similar journeys.
Here are reflections on five of my own learnings; more will no doubt continue to emerge and evolve.
First, privilege
While it is easy and increasingly too commonplace to take it up as a hashtag, I know that I still have far to go in acknowledging, understanding, and taking steps to address the impact of my own enormous mountain of white privilege. Easily said, not so easily put into practice. I readily admit that I still often struggle to even see when that privilege dictates my actions and clouds my perception, let alone understand how to counter it.
I am a 58-year-old white, settler, Global North, non-disabled, middle class, healthy, well-educated, straight, cis, married with kids, homeowning, male lawyer. Everything about my identity, my experiences, and thus my societal and world view screams of my privilege.
But have I truly understood how that shapes and how that limits my approach to human rights work? Do I acknowledge just how privileged my educational and career path has been, replete with opportunities that my identity has so readily opened for me? Do I see how my white privilege clouds my ability to see the full architecture of white supremacy that permeates society and skews our institutions, even including those intended to protect human rights? Am I sure that white saviorism does not taint how I take up human rights? Have I challenged myself to see that? Have I truly heard when others have questioned or challenged my privilege?
I certainly have endeavoured to do so, increasingly so over time. But upon honest reflection I realize that I frequently fall short.
I think of the many frontline human rights defenders, literally from every corner of the world, who I have had the amazing honour of meeting, collaborating with and learning from, sometimes when I have been in their community and other times when they have been visiting Canada. How often I have said to them directly or about them in public comments that their courage and resilience inspire me and that I am so fortunate to not have to go about my human rights work with the fears they face, for my life, my child’s safety or the possibility of my office being ransacked and vandalized. That is clearly about my privilege, but without explicitly naming and taking it on as such. Simply recognizing that I am lucky and fortunate is not at all the same thing as recognizing and acting on my privilege.
So where do I go from here? My learning is far from complete, nor should it ever be. What I do know, however, is that my own white privilege, and the white supremacy that is at the core of society and our institutions, is the foundational reality that lies behind all of the further reflections below.
Second, inclusion and space
Have I asked the right questions? Who is with us at this moment, in this meeting, in this campaign? And more importantly, who is not here who needs to be and why is that so? Why is this a room full of white faces? That matters a great deal to me as a matter of first principles, and I hope that I have more often than not modeled that in my human rights work. But no matter how diligently I have sought to share space and cede space, I have little doubt that I have also occupied space I shouldn’t have, and therefore left or crowded others out of important spaces, more frequently than I should have.
I do not remember when I started more actively and deliberately to ask myself, who is in the room, who is at this roundtable and who was not even invited? Should I be on this panel? Should I deliver this keynote? Should I be on the evening news, again? I know that I very often have, and that it was important to me to do so. I also know that there were years when those questions did not readily occur to me, or at best did so unevenly. And they should have. I am sorry for not consistently making more space – for women, for racialized colleagues and others whose perspective, experience and authority was excluded and overlooked – and insisting on it when that space was not being made available.
I also on reflection regret that I did not move on from my role as Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada earlier than I did; not an easy admission to make. I say that not with a sense of guilt or any lack of appreciation for the honour of this incredible role and important work I was able to advance together with so many amazing rightsholders and colleagues, but truly out of clarity and conviction. Mine was one of the most visible and high-profile civil society human rights positions in the country, held for more than two decades by a man who reached that position with heaps of white privilege at his back. There is an oft repeated phrase that strong leadership includes stepping aside to make space for new leadership. The corollary is knowing when to do that; doing so at the right time. I could and should have done so earlier. That mattered.
It is my deepest pledge to be aware of the space I occupy, how I use that space and with whom I share it, with ever greater diligence and intention.
Third, priorities
In the often-beleaguered human rights world, too often it is too easy to defend decisions to say no to new proposals for work by relying on arguments such as ‘it isn’t in the plan’, or ‘it isn’t among our priorities’, or ‘we don’t have capacity or resources’. How readily that has thwarted and stymied getting to the work needed to address racism. After all, going back to inclusion and space, who laid out the plan, set the priorities and allocated the resources in the first place, and how? And who failed to prioritize a program of work against racism in the first place?
Concerns were brought to me in 2018 by staff colleagues courageously questioning and challenging why Amnesty International Canada was not engaged in an active program of work confronting anti-Black racism in Canada, particularly with respect to policing. My automatic first caution retreated exactly to those four words: plan, priorities, capacity and resources. But sterilely pointing to a lack of capacity and resources avoids honestly confronting the reality that my own and the organization’s extensive white privilege, nationally and internationally, over many years goes far in explaining why the capacity had not been developed or the resources devoted to working more thoroughly against anti-Black racism long ago.
Not to pretend that any of that it is easy and straightforward, as resources and capacity are indeed limited, and Amnesty has always had to make tough and impossible choices about what issues are prioritized among an overwhelming number of pressing global and national demands, many of which are full-blown crises. Yet, despite a commitment to diversity, we have had very few Black staff colleagues or Board members at Amnesty Canada over the years. No surprise, though certainly not at all an excuse, that the conversation about prioritizing and resourcing work against anti-Black racism was not centred in the organization, and it had not been reflected in the long-range strategic plans adopted by our membership over the years.
To even put it that way is itself the indictment. It was not incumbent upon Black staff, Board colleagues or members to initiate those discussions and set that priority; though that is the case almost everywhere one looks in society. It was incumbent upon me and other leaders to address that failing. And I did not meaningfully do so until prodded.
Always hard conversations, setting the budget when funds are far outstripped by need and deciding on priorities when the concerns are so vast. Always so easy, therefore, to overlook the issues that are not brought to the table because of who is not at that table. White privilege made it ever easier and, frankly, predictable. I acknowledge and apologize for failing, years ago, to do my part in bringing anti-racism to the heart of our human rights priorities.
Fourth, hear it, see it and address it
As human rights advocates one of our most constant refrains is that there can be no impunity for human rights violations. There must be truth, justice and accountability. That does not mean everything belongs in front of a judge. It means though that there must be meaningful acknowledgement, consequences, healing and change.
That absolutely, of course, extends to racism, the unequivocal prohibition of which is central to the very premise of universal human rights. It is in fact the very essence of a human rights concern where the violations are everywhere, the perpetrators are not just the state but our very selves, and the quintessential human rights responsibility to “respect, protect and fulfill” rests with us all.
I know I have fallen short. I know that there have been too many times, in too many settings, where I have let something racist go by. Perhaps grimaced uncomfortably at an inappropriate remark, tinged with racism. Perhaps looked knowingly at a colleague when someone else said or did something that was rooted in a racist stereotype, but did not go further and call it out. Did not push back against a microaggression I had witnessed or heard about after the fact.
But perhaps more fundamentally, how often did I overlook less overt, but often even more harmful, instances of racism. Situations that reflected racist power dynamics, such as whose work was not credited, or who was excluded from a meeting or an event? Yet I did not see it because I did not look for it, and thus did not respond, likely because my white privilege kept it out of my view. But not seeing it does not absolve me of responsibility. To the contrary, it heightens my responsibility to look more closely.
In some instances, my obligation to respond might have been managerial, in other instances my opportunity to do so was as a colleague, participant, observer or friend. And I know that the responsibility that I have carried to address those instances of racism was all the greater because I have had a leadership role, a human rights leadership role, and an Amnesty International leadership role.
I will make no more excuses for inaction or, worse, indifference.
Finally, reimagining human rights advocacy
We too easily tend to fool ourselves. But just because I personally, and Amnesty International and other human rights groups organizationally, have a deep commitment to exposing human rights wrongs and advancing universal respect for human rights, which clearly includes prohibitions against racism, does not mean we do so in ways that most meaningfully work towards that goal and, more directly, along that journey do not, my or our selves, perpetuate or contribute to racism.
The genesis of the international human rights system is of a time and of a place. That includes being born out of the unspeakable and racist horrors of the Holocaust. It also includes being born amidst the unimaginable and racist horrors of colonialism. Yet at the outset, while firmly rejecting and committing to eradicate the horror of genocide, international human rights norms and institutions implicitly accepted the horror of colonialism and its ugly tentacles of racism as being the acceptable boundaries of its playing field. And in so doing, has never truly interrogated the ways in which colonialism’s racist legacy and continuing racist reality still permeate the international human rights framework.
While I do believe we have largely long ago moved to embrace the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as just that, universal, it is always important to remember, as racialized scholars have long pointed out, who was at the table (and who was very deliberately not) at the beginning of this journey in 1948. And what that still means today.
I recently went back to review that roll call in preparing for an international human rights law class. There were 58 members of the United Nations at the time (compared to 193 today). The scale of exclusion was staggering, reflecting the fact that the racist yoke of colonialism denied freedom and representation to all but 3 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (one of whom was apartheid-era South Africa, who abstained in the vote for the Declaration, and the other two, Ethiopia and Liberia, both of whom voted in favour), 7 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, and 7 in all of Asia. And there certainly was no representation at that table reflecting the place and perspective of Indigenous peoples. In fact, a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples would not be adopted by the UN for another 59 years, in 2007.
Universality has flourished in many important ways over the 73 years since the UDHR was adopted, well evidenced in the truly global explosion of human rights concepts, bodies, instruments, leaders and activists that has followed. But are there not fundamental questions around power, freedom and equality bound up in the strictures of where things began and how rights were first framed that have never been entirely shaken? Racialized scholars and activists have certainly posed those very questions for decades; questions that have largely been ignored, pushed to the sidelines or given patronizing attention at best. The international human rights system has largely failed, collectively, to hear and respond to the critique; again racism standing in the way of addressing racism.
And what is true of the international human rights system is certainly true as well for human rights organizations and experts. Amnesty International for instance, founded in 1961, initially focused only on campaigning for freedom for prisoners of conscience, with a membership base almost entirely in the Global North, a mandate limited to a handful of very important civil and political rights (and no economic, social or cultural rights) for the first 40 years and, until 20 years ago, restrictions in place that for the most part kept national sections from working on issues in their own countries. While those limitations are now largely relegated to the past, and Amnesty’s global reach and presence continues to expand and deepen, do their vestiges still have a lingering impact today; an impact that may even perpetuate elements of systemic racism?
As Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada, I led the Branch’s substantive human rights program for over two decades, participating in many active debates across the Amnesty movement about the organization’s human rights policies, formulating and speaking to the positions Amnesty took globally on particular cases and situations, and crafting proposals for law reform to advance stronger human rights protections in a wide array of contexts. And now I teach, I advise, I research, I write, and I continue to speak out on international human rights concerns.
So here is precisely where I need to work harder to confront my white privilege. And I will. I am committed to more genuinely learning about how to go about undoing the limitations and misconceptions that keep international human rights advocacy from getting to the true heart of realities that perpetuate racism. And most importantly, to learning from and following racialized scholars, experts, activists and mobilizers, whose leadership must be central here.
Some of those limitations that occur to me, among many others I am certain, include the following.
Equality, surely is the cornerstone to human rights. But is it actually genuinely treated as such? We go to such lengths in human rights work to insist that no one right is more important than any other. Does equality get lost and undervalued along the way? I can hear myself saying it so many times over the years: indivisible, interdependent, interrelated. That is a vitally important approach to human rights work, but it also misses a very key point. Before getting into any of those specific and indivisible rights, after all, the Universal Declaration launches, in article one, by declaring that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Free and equal is where it begins; all else follows.
If we do not secure that foundational promise of freedom and equality, nothing else will follow. Gender equality. Racial equality. Social equality. Equality, of all abilities. Full, intersectional equality. Without equality, free expression is meaningless, education an illusion, healthcare broken, and life, liberty and security of the person fragile and tenuous at best. Every time we sit down to respond to human rights violations, assess a human rights challenge or advance a human rights campaign; equality surely must be our starting point and our guiding star.
Self-determination, the first right enshrined in common in our two foundational international covenants, dealing with civil and political, and economic, social and cultural rights, separately, appears at the top of the international human rights world but is given very little consideration or enforcement beyond that. Yet it is so central to so many of the deepest struggles and realities of racism and other inequality in our world, realities from which so many other violations stem. Embracing and advancing the right to self-determination is inextricably bound up in decolonization. I write these words today, with my heart and mind with the Palestinian people, once again bearing the violent brunt of a refusal to give proper regard to this fundamental right.
And here at home, self determination takes us to the heart of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in Canada, again one of those terms that has been easily and widely embraced, in ways that risk stripping it of its true meaning and certainly without the transformation needed to back it up.
It may often be politically sensitive and even contentious, but we simply cannot continue to duck this right any longer.
Assertions of the importance of internationalism and global cooperation appear throughout human rights treaties, primarily though in aspirational references in preambles rather than in the binding provisions of the text. Global divides of wealth and equity, however, are in many respects deeper than ever, so glaringly evidenced at this time by who does and does not have ready access to vaccines as the entire world confronts the COVID-19 pandemic. And how vital to shift the narrative from one of charity, aid and assistance, to responsibility, redress and reparations. A high mountain to climb, but do international human rights organizations, advocates and experts vigorously take this on? Not centrally, which is where it must be.
Criminalization, is such a loaded human rights concept. We easily condemn it when criminal laws are used to suppress and penalize free expression, political activity, and religious freedom. But we have been reticent to go underneath other labels of criminality, and critique the ways in which it is used – both covertly and blatantly – to reinforce racism, subvert equality and perpetuate injustices.
Hard questions need to be asked about what is or is not legitimate to criminalize from a human rights perspective. Hard questions need to be asked about the role and approach of police in enforcing those “criminal” laws. Important community-led mobilization and campaigns around abolishing police, ending immigration detention, and decriminalizing sex work and drug use begin to get us there. But there is often such resistance to the notion that this is actually human rights work, which it absolutely is. I know that I have sometimes dragged my feet. But it is key, especially in confronting racism.
Leadership and solidarity need to align, but rarely do. Despite considerable advances, human rights campaigning is still so often led from the Global North, in solidarity with the Global South. Questions, concerns and accusations about white saviourism within human rights organizations are increasingly common. And white staff and activists often feel defensive, I know that has too readily often been my own reaction. Somehow we assume it means we are being equated with 19th century missionaries showing up to thump our bibles while building schools. That is certainly an apt description in many instances. But it misses the larger point.
The question really is whether we too often primarily point fingers from north to south in our human rights work, or do we re-center the conversation, empower those individuals and communities pushed to the margins, look in the mirror, and acknowledge our own role in and responsibility for the injustices at stake, no matter the discomfort in doing so? Of course we do, very often. But there is a far distance still to travel.
And finally, power, which is surely at the heart of it all. Nothing has more direct impact on human rights than who has power, how power is used, misused, and abused, and how power is denied to those who most painfully feel its bite. But we dance around that in human rights work. Limit ourselves to what is in the treaties. Stay away from anything “political”, as if there is any clear agreement as to what that even means and entails. Do not take positions on ideologies, elections, militarization, national borders, economic models, trade arrangements or obscene wealth accumulation. We assure ourselves that our effectiveness rests on keeping out of those debates; that our impartiality depends on it. Do human rights, not politics.
It is a mantra I have very much taken seriously, including ever since I attended my first Amnesty International meeting some 36 years ago and began to pursue my human rights legal studies. And I absolutely see the incredible worth and necessity of defending human rights impartially. I appreciate the many strengths that brings to human rights work. I do not suggest relinquishing that commitment. But if we do not at the same time find our way in to tackling power, and refraining from using impartiality as a smokescreen to justify that reticence, will we only ever dally around the edges of injustice and, worse, play an unwitting role in propping up systems that are inherently racist and abusive at their core? The international human rights system needs to more directly, from a place of first principles such as equality, self-determination, internationalism and solidarity, grapple with power.
And now?
My journey to anti-racism.
Failings, no doubt. Harms, unfortunately yes. Missed opportunities, certainly. Regret and apology, absolutely but not enough. Imperfect, yes. Clear road ahead, if only.
Ready to learn, eagerly and nervously. Determination, fully and also nervously. Humility and growing self-awareness, to that I do commit.
