What happens after…?
If you live in Toronto, June is a month filled with activities, events and celebrations for Pride. Rainbows are everywhere.
Did you know that June was also National Aboriginal History Month in Canada?
Depending on your identities, your points of reference, the people in your life, and your geographical location (to name a few), either of these could have been on your radar. Or both. Or neither.
If you are LGBTQ or Indigenous, or if celebrating Pride or Indigenous history/identity are important to you, you may wonder how anyone could have missed the meanings and events of this past month.
But even in the age of social media, it can be easy to miss things that aren’t on our radar to begin with. Remember, we have a filter through which we see and experience the world based on who we are. It can therefore also be easy to miss the significance of these types of celebrations or spotlights, even if we know about them, if we aren’t impacted.
But they occur. And for those who are aware, and join in, they can be amazing times of learning, sharing, community, growth - and also fun.
The dark side of these kinds of months is that there is the tendency to cram everything related to that identity into that time period, and then forget about it for the rest of the year, because we “did that already”.
Being LGBTQ is not something that only matters, impacts our lives, etc. in June (or whatever time of the year Pride happens in your city). Similarly, Indigenous people are Indigenous all year. Same with Black people (Black History Month is in February), Asian people (Asian Heritage Month is in May), etc.
While it’s great (and still necessary) to raise awareness and highlight an identity that is marginalized in order to increase equity & inclusion, and fight oppression, this awareness needs to be cultivated all year – not just in a 28-31 day period.
We can use these months to learn, share, celebrate, and fill our buckets for the rest of the year - so that we can be allies on an ongoing basis.
More on allies later.
For now, your Inclusion Challenge for the week is to think about the evidence you noticed about Pride or National Aboriginal History Month in June – and to take a look around and see what (if any) evidence remains of LGBTQ or Indigenous identity in your workplace, community or in community publications, now that June has ended.
See more.
Annemarie
http://www.annemarieshrouder.com/
Diversity. Awareness. Inclusion.
|
