On June 2, CSI joined a community of organizations and individuals across the globe who chose to create space, to reflect, and most importantly to listen to the voices of the black community raised in protest, rage, heartbreak, and loss.
Black lives matter. We stand in solidarity with the Black community, and the changemakers, activists, and advocates fighting for racial justice and an end to anti-Black violence across North America.
We share the outrage over the senseless deaths of Tony McDade, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, D’Andre Campbell, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and countless other victims of systemic anti-Black racism and white supremacy.
We know that many of you face racial injustice and discrimination in your lives and in your work every day, and that this has been true, not just in generations past, but in our very real present.
So what is the next step?
There are choices to be made – by all of us, right now – ones which will determine if the systemic oppression of people of colour will continue unimpeded, or if we will be part of the sea change necessary to overturn centuries of racial inequality, and to ensure that this is not just a moment, but a turning point for a movement.
We are choosing action. We are choosing to share, sign, donate, vote, amplify, unlearn, organize, empower, build and fund. And we are choosing community.
We are choosing to listen, to hear the rising voices in our communities, learn what is being asked of us, unlearn ingrained bias, and to embody allyship. We are taking the time to actively engage in constructive conversation with you, our community, to share ideas and centre diverse voices.
We are committed to use our platform to support and amplify the work of those who are actively working to end systemic discrimination.
We are also committed to tackling the flawed economic system which concentrates wealth and excludes too many. We are committed to shifting capital, shifting power and addressing the systemic barriers that exacerbate wealth inequality, such as shareholder primacy and racialized investment practices. We are committed to building new economic solutions that include everyone.
CSI Community Discussion
We believe in the strength of communities, ours and the communities we all intersect with, and in times of trouble we come together; we hold space, we listen and then we get down to the work of making change. And so we would like to invite you to join together in a community conversation to talk about the systems that support and propagate racism and how we can work together to dismantle them.
We will be holding a moderated conversation the week of June 15th – 19th and invite you to join us to hear from our community and to discuss how our community can be part of the call for change in the world today. We particularly invite the voices of Black and Indigenous folx and people of colour to take space in these conversations. Details to follow shortly.
Resource List
Because we believe that education and action go together, please see a small list of resources below that we have found useful ourselves. We will be continuing to share resources and links like this on our media channels going forward. And please share the resources you have found useful with us.
Petitions & Funds
- Black Lives Matter Toronto
- Black Solidarity Fund
- MakeRoom BLM Resources (a crowdsourced directory of petitions, donations, educational material, and other resources)
- SURJ Collective Care Doc (includes petitions, funds, mutual aid groups, and resources)
Black Businesses
- Black-owned restaurants and businesses in the GTA (mapped out on Google here)
- ByBlacks.ca Business Directory
- Afrobiz.ca Business Directory
Unlearning
- Black Lives Matter Education Resources
- Anti-racism resources for white people
- Justice in June (an anti-racism lesson plan)
- Scaffolded Anti-Racism Resources
Yours in solidarity,
The CSI Team
