Dozens of Calgary students marched out of their school Tuesday to protest the injustices, racism and microaggressions they say their school administration isn’t doing enough to stop.
Muna Bouh and Rahma Abdela are in high school at the Calgary Islamic School Akram Jomaa Campus. The girls, who both identify as Black, staged a walkout to have their voices heard by the school.
“As a Black Muslim in this community, me and a lot of my fellow classmates are hit with injustices every day just because of our skin colour,” Grade 11 student Bouh said.
“We’re out here today to voice our concerns and to show admin and teachers and everybody who is part of the problem that we’re not going to stay silent anymore,” she said.
“We’re here to make a change in the school for all of our classmates, all of our peers who are feeling unsafe in the school, and finally make a change and make a difference in the school.”
The girls said the racism and prejudice comes in the form of bias against Black students, name calling and microaggressions.
“They have these little things that they do, they don’t realize it but it affects us in a big way,” Abdela, also in Grade 11, said.
“We’re trying to voice our concerns to the admin. They haven’t been listening. This protest is so it can open their eyes to what we’re facing every day.”
Both girls said many students of colour at the school are impacted by the discrimination.
“It makes me feel dehumanized, in a way, because I have to feel singled out because of the skin colour that God has given me as a gift and they’re making it seem like it’s a bad thing,” Bouh said.
“We’re not heard enough.”
“It’s the people that are making Islam seem like it’s something it’s not and that’s one thing that we all saw as a collective that we didn’t like,” said Iman, a Grade 12 student at the school didn’t give her last name.
Iman said because she is Arab, she is treated better at school than some of her fellow students, which motivated her to attend the rally as an ally, supporting her friends.
“I get more opportunities for things and that’s not fair. I don’t like that,” she said.
“I don’t like that I have my five minutes of privilege in this school and then when I leave, I’m another person of colour in this world.”
In an emailed statement, the Palliser School Division, which operates the Calgary Islamic School campus, said the board was told about the planned walkout last week, and made sure the students “had the opportunity to voice their concerns and demonstrate their dissatisfaction with their experiences of racism at the school.”
“While the school has implemented many anti-racism programs and processes to deal with the subject of racism and equality, it is evident in today’s action that it is not enough and more needs to be done to combat racism and negative stereotypes in the school,” superintendent Dave Driscoll.
Driscoll said the school will be engaging with community and school leaders, parents and students over the next few weeks to find ways of “addressing the concerns of racism in the school and society as a whole.”
“Administration will also be researching successful practices and programs across Canada with the goal of answering the needs of students to feel safe, secure and valued while at school and out in the community,” he said.
Driscoll said the school and board are willing to work with students as they move forward with the aim of creating a “positive culture for students of today and the future.”