Shetin on Entering the Era of the Black Lives Matter Movement

The CDLI team sat down with Shetin Adams, an activist and founder of SibConnect to talk about the importance of the BLM movement. This is the second instalment from our conversation with Shetin, you can read the first instalment here.

Interviewer: What does this work mean to you? And what does the Black Lives Matter movement mean to you?

Shetin: The BLM movement means so much to me. I'm a Black woman and my entire family is Black but a lot of people think that like it doesn't make sense to talk about Black Lives Matter if you're not American. For some reason, people think that only Americans deal with anti-Black racism but that’s not the case. Racism is so prevalent in Canada, especially in Alberta where I was born and raised. It starts young. I remember in the second or third grade, I had this one teacher that would write a note in my agenda every single day. She'd write in my agenda about how I'm talking too much or I'm misbehaving. But she would never write those notes in any of my peers’ agendas even though they were talking just as much. If I talked a lot it's because I was talking to them. It was weird how she would only write in my agenda and I would always get in so much trouble for it. She was targeting me as the only Black kid in the whole school. 

From a young age, I learned don't talk too much, don't laugh too much and don't make yourself heard. I still feel like if I talk too much I’m being annoying. I am taking up space-too much space. How dare I speak my mind. This conditioning starts at a very young age. The first time I was called the N word I was walking home from a water balloon party in my neighbourhood. I was seven years old and I didn't fully understand what that meant. That was the first time I've been called an N word so many times after that. 

One time, I was just talking about how flies wouldn't leave me alone. One guy said “oh, maybe it's because your skin is the colour of shit” and other kids around laughed. The more I started thinking about all the racist stuff that I went through as a kid it's no wonder that it took such a long time for me to unlearn a lot of this conditioning. Until I started University, I didn't think that I was a beautiful girl. I grew up straightening my hair because I thought that my natural hair texture was unmanageable and not beautiful. Only now am I really embracing my natural hair and I love the coloUr of my skin but it took so long. This is so deeply entrenched in us, I don't think we realize just how much of an inferiority complex that we have. There are things that I didn't even feel confident in like entering contests because I knew that I will be the only Black girl and I assumed that would be a disadvantage. So many things have contributed to this inferiority mentality, which helps the oppressor oppress us because we don't think that we're worthy. Take our power away to strip us of any of our dignity. 

Black Lives Matter means so much to me, as a collective Black people are finding their voice and it's becoming more acceptable to call out racism. I started an anti-racism campaign in high school and a teacher called me a terrorist for putting up posters that denounced Islamophobia and racism. He called me a terrorist in front of my whole class and everyone was laughing about it. I had parents calling the school, trying to get me expelled because they said that I was making their kids uncomfortable. It was a really bad time I cried a lot. 

It's crazy because that was five years ago and things have changed so much. It's becoming so much more acceptable to speak up against racism and it's becoming more deplorable if you perpetuate racism or microaggressions. BLM has empowered me to use my voice, even more than I was before. It's taught me a lot in terms of anti-racism theory and the history of anti-racism work. I'm lucky that I got kind of into this work at a young age that I've been able to refine like my beliefs. I think Trayvon Martin's death was the turning point for me. That's when I realized I want to dive headfirst into this kind of work and it's been pretty amazing. 

The Black Lives Matter movement is so much more than just microaggressions, we're talking about systemic racism like medical racism. Another thing that I'm very passionate about as well. I volunteered with Deaf & Hear Alberta, we know that our society marginalizes deaf and hard of hearing individuals. But it is much worse for deaf/hard of hearing People of Colour. People of Colour are already less likely to receive adequate health care in Canada as opposed to their white counterparts. When you combine that with having a disability like being deaf or hard of hearing or cerebral palsy, like my siblings, it's really scary. I always make sure that if my siblings are going to the doctor or the hospital that my mom or I are there to advocate for them. It's deplorable how quick medical professionals are to just like sweep certain things like under the rug and it comes down to racial bias. 

There are so many other things as well. When you combine like racism with misogyny. At any step of your anti-racism journey, you can look something up these days and find resources to educate you. And I think a lot of that has to do with the Black Lives Matter movement as the earliest pioneers. I'm glad that we're entering this era of Black Lives Matter and social justice is being normalized. I feel so much more empowered than I did when I was a teenager. I'm grateful that I am even able to be alive for this time. The Black Lives Matter movement means everything to me.

You can keep up with Shetin on social media: @ShetinAdams @SibConnect