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Unlearning & Undoing Project Details

Last updated on August 22, 2023

Guiding Principles

Quilt with colourful triangles on black background. Beside it are a list of guiding principles: Acknowledging that systemic white supremacy is an everyday problem that requires everyday attention to arrest, unlearn, and undo; Truth comes before reconciliation; BIPOC voices and perspectives are privileged; Love and care; Humility; Open heart, open mind; Willingness to own and fix harms that are identified; Erring on the side of Indigenous rights; Sharing lessons learned ; No one should have to do this work alone; Doing our homework

Project Frameworks

Sharing Bioethics by Dene artist and bioethicist Lisa Boivin, PhD(c), a member of the Deninu Kue First Nation in the Northwest Territories

“Sharing Bioethics shows dozens of land-based teachings. At first glance, the viewer can identify two intersecting circles of medicine. A circle surrounds a clinician in a white coat and bioscientific tools of medicine, such as a stethoscope and x-rays. In the Dene circle of medicine, plant medicine and Dene medicine stories are represented by a medicine bundle, strawberries and antlers. In the space where the circles intersect, the two healers also connect in a new space of relationship and possibility. In this new circle of medicine, neither knowledge or perspective is lost.”

Published in CMAJ https://www.cmaj.ca/content/190/36/E1085

Three Tasks shared by Dr. Camara Jones and Puglaas Jody Wilson-Raybould (We Wai Kai Nation)

To the right is a pie chart with three equal portions. First pie says learn (naming racism and white supremacy). Second pie says understand (asking, how are racism and white supremacy operating here). Third pie says act (organizing and strategizing to act). There is a screenshot of a webinar with Dr. Camara Jones' Science and Practice of Anti-racism Framework. There is also photograph of Jody Wilson-Raybould, an adult woman with long dark brown hair wearing a red shirt. Beside it is a book cover. The book is True Reconciliation by Jody Wilson Raybould and has a coast salish mask on the cover.

 
We call on two closely aligned frameworks shared by a BC First Nations leader and a Black Public Health leader to help us respond to white supremacy and Indigenous Specific Racism. Black American physician, epidemiologist, and activist Dr. Camara Jones served as President of the American Public Health Association from 2015-2016, initiating a campaign against racism as a key public health priority. Her ‘Science & Practice of Anti-Racism’ framework outlines three tasks that each public health organization must undertake: (1) naming racism; (2) asking, “how is it operating here?”; and (3) organizing and strategizing to act. True Reconciliation Framework. Puglaas Jody Wilson-Raybould (Kwakwaka’wakw from We Wai Kai Nation) names three similar tasks, asking every Canadian to learn, understand, and act to advance what she calls “true reconciliation”.

Allegories on race and racism | Camara Jones | TEDxEmory

Several metaphors help to anchor our work. You can access them by clicking below: 

CLICK HERE - Sharing Our Metaphors