Let's admit it.

We're all scared.

We are scared of the unknown.

What isn't familiar.

What doesn't look right.

But who decides what right looks like?

Racism. I'm sure you've heard of it. Maybe some words similar to it? Discrimination, prejudice. Maybe even heard it enough to get tired of it. Over and over again. Maybe you even think that the whole racism thing is over. That something like that couldn't possibly happen anymore. You should be right.

But you're wrong.

I'm not here to give a big speech or bring up long-winded stories of the past. You've heard that enough. But one thing people need to understand about racism is that it can happen. 

Anywhere.

Anyone.

At any point.

 

You can be a teenager.

According to a Statistics Canada survey of May 13-17 2024 51% of people of color aged 15 years and older reported experiencing discrimination or unfair treatment

You can be in a welcoming country.

According to the same Statistics Canada survey. Discrimination based on race or skin colour was the leading perceived reason for discrimination against people of color (66%). According to the last general census in 2021, 26.5% of Canada was a visible minority. That's 9,639,205 people and that number would only have grown in the last 4 years. 

You don't have to be black.

In Canada's Anti-Racism Strategy plan, discrimination was more common among Indigenous populations than among populations who are both non-Indigenous and non-visible minorities (33% versus 16%). More specifically, 44% of First Nations people had experienced discrimination in the 5 years preceding the survey, as had 29% of Inuit and 24% of Métis.

You don't even have to be the minority. 

Apartheid was the segregation or separation of any person of color in South Africa including and very heavily directed at black people. It was made to put the black person under the white person in South Africa. To make them less than human. From 1948-1994 people whose skin color was any darker than a sheet of paper had the basic human right that each person should have removed from them. In a place where in 1946, two years before the start of apartheid, black people made up 68.6% of the population and white people made up 20% of it. 

The reason we talk about racism so much is because it's something that affects people in their everyday lives. For some, it's the difference between

Life and Death. 

 

But you CAN make a difference.

Right here. Right now.

Signing this petition spreads the word, you help more people know about a major injustice that happens every day, everywhere. 

To adults, teens, and kids.

Signing this isn't enough. It isn't the most important part.

Change starts with the small things.

 

We don't need anything big. Nothing major.

What can you do right now? Talk to people. 

Just because they look different doesn't mean that each and every person on this planet isn't a human just like you and me. At the end of the day,

We all bleed red.

So strike up a conversation. Without prejudice, without anger, without blame.

If you can, 

You might find you have more in common than you think.