1 🌱 Values to Guide You

Before you begin: A note on approach and readiness

This Pressbook is not an introduction to racism, racism in Canada, Anti-Black Racism (ABR), or anti-oppression.

We strongly encourage you to develop a foundational understanding of these issues before engaging with this Pressbook. Doing so will enhance your learning, deepen your reflection, and help you meaningfully engage with the content.

Here are some suggested starting points:

• Black Lives Matter Canada
• The Canadian Human Rights Commission
• Canadian Race Relation Foundation
• Government of Canada Website
• The Black Health Alliance
• Toronto Academic Health Science Network’s Introduction to Anti-Black Racism eModule
• Reading books or watching recorded lectures and interviews by a variety of Canadian and international authors and social justice advocates including but not limited to:
  • Afua Cooper
  • Angela Davis
  • Audre Lorde
  • Austin Channing Brown
  • Chinua Achebe
  • Christina Sharpe
  • Charmaine Nelson
  • Desmond Cole
  • Ibram X. Kendi
  • James Baldwin
  • Lawrence Hill
  • Lynae Vanee
  • Patrisse Cullors
  • Reni Eddo-Lodge
  • Ta-Nahisi Coastes
  • Whitney French
• You can also find articles in academic journals including the Journal of Critical Dietetics

As you navigate this Pressbook we invite you to:

1. Approach the content with genuine curiosity and an open-mind.
2. Reflect on your own privilege and position in society: How have you have benefited from systems of oppression?
3. Listen without judgment and seek to understand alternative viewpoints (even if you disagree), not to defend your stance.
4. Recognize that racism is a systemic issue that no one person created, but for us to be liberated as a society, we all need to partake in anti-racist work.
5. De-centre yourself from the conversation to allow equity-deserving voices to speak their truth and learn from them.
6. Acknowledge and explore personal feelings of discomfort as they arise. Use these questions like these to guide you:
   • What emotions am I feeling?
   • What caused them to occur?
   • Why do I think this happened?
   • How will I overcome them?

After completing this Pressbook:

It is importance that you know and embrace that this topic and issue is not a competency to check-off of your professional development offerings or achievements.  Although this Pressbook will expose you to a broad view of the state of ABR in Canadian dietetics and, offer tools to help you to reflect on the issue, it will leave you with many more questions, concerns, responsibilities and discomfort. It is not a replacement for developing a healthy commitment to addressing ABR.

We highly encourage you and your organization to invest time and resources to facilitate in-person post education and conversations about this topic, facilitated by a professional having expertise in ABR education and training. This is vital in supporting Black and non-Black students, practitioners, educators and faculty in having generative, safer and supportive conversations about questions, emotions and ideas sparked from engaging with the contents of this Pressbook while also demonstrating your commitment to confronting ABR.