Posted on March 13: Student forum combats racism

McMaster students will join together tomorrow armed and ready to combat racism.

A Forum on Student Leadership in Anti-Racism is the second of a two-part series, led by McMaster student Shelly-Ann Riley, who planned and organized the forum as part of her fourth-year social work placement.

“This forum aims to address solutions or proposals for addressing racism,” she says. “It is also an opportunity to further educate students on the issue.”

It takes place Friday, March 14, from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the CIBC Banquet Hall in the McMaster University Student Centre.

The first forum, on Nov. 14, 2002, addressed the issue of racism in the academic community. “It was intended to create dialogue among students dealing with ways to deconstruct and then combat racism in our community,” Riley says. “The forum on student leadership on anti-racism was structured on the assumption that students in attendance would identify and/or acknowledge our internalized racist attitudes by creating an open arena to voice our concerns and interested of how we address this issue.”

Two general observations emerged from the first forum, she says. First, most students have only minimal understanding about racism as a structural problem and second, many feel education about racism has been missing from their formal and informal education through their socialization.

Organized under the Strengthening Hamilton's Community Initiative, the forum is organized by a committee, comprised of Shelly-Ann Riley, Patricia Daenzer, Pat MacDonald, Jane Mulkewich, Christine Sager, Gary Dumbrill, Madhavi Reddy, Shelley Dormer, Robert Cosby, Erin Dufresne, Bonnie Freeman and Marilyn McLeod.