Reflective Perspectives on Systemic Racism

Reflective Perspectives on Systemic Racism in Saskatchewan 2000 & 2016       (assignment title but not the title of your reflection)   Requirements 2-3 double-spaced pages.   Standard margins, 12-point font with concise grammar and syntax.    Provide a cover-page    This is an informal reflection requiring you to reflect on the issues unfolding.    Unlike a formal essay, there is no research, and no formal citations.  Rather it is more of a discussion based on the events as they unfold and your take on what is happening here. As the title of this assignment indicates these videos are about systemic racism in Saskatchewan.     Also, unlike a formal essay, this assignment is asking for your feelings, insights, and understanding about the wide social issues at play here. The assignment does require attention to correct grammar, spelling, sentence structure, flow and clarity.     The use of ‘I’ here is required and appreciated.   These documentaries were made 16 years apart yet similar issues link them.  In this reflectiveassignment your task is to:   a)    Take notes while you are watching, so that you can discuss the issues these events are portraying.  Do notsummarize the videos (In other words do not give a synopsis or a pay by play of what happened).     b)   Compare and contrast similarities and differences in the issues, given that the films were made 16 years apart: Address the following in your discussion:   ·     Provide the definition of systemic racism (cite the source). ·     Who are the people involved?  ·     What issues come to the forefront? ·     Who holds the power and who is at risk? ·     Who has been harmed here and in what ways? ·     What other definitions of  racism  fit each of the documentaries (see attached file Understanding Racism)     c)    In what ways has watching these videos informed your understanding of systemic racism in Saskatchewan and/or Canada in general.   d)   How do these issues reflect what is happening today in terms of anti-Indigenous racism?   Background The following two documentaries were produced/directed by Tasha Hubbard (Cree), an award-winning filmmaker and an Assistant Professor in the University of Saskatchewan’s Department of English. Hubbard won a Gemini Canada Award for her first solo project, Two Worlds Colliding, an exposé of the infamous “starlight tours,” whereby Saskatoon police were abandoning Indigenous men in freezing winter conditions. The second film is about the issues raised with the acquittal of a Saskatchewan farmer, George Stanley, in the shooting death of a young Indigenous man, Colton Boushie. Steeped in racism, the two films are strong indicators of how the justice system has functioned in the past and in the not too distant past in Saskatchewan.   1). Two Worlds Colliding   This documentary is an inquiry into what came to be known as Saskatoon’s infamous “freezing deaths,” and the schism between a fearful, mistrustful Indigenous community and a police force harbouring a harrowing secret.  One frigid night in January 2000 Darrell Night, an Indigenous man was dumped by two police officers in -20° C temperatures in a barren field on the city outskirts. He survives the ordeal but is stunned to hear that the frozen body of another Indigenous man was discovered in the same area. Days later, another victim, also Native, is found. When Night comes forward with his story, he sets into motion a chain of events: a major RCMP investigation into several suspicious deaths, the conviction of the two constables who abandoned him and the reopening of an old case, leading to a judicial inquiry.     https://www.nfb.ca/film/two_worlds_colliding/     2). nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up On August 9, 2016, a young Cree man named Colten Boushie died from a gunshot to the back of his head after entering Gerald Stanley’s rural property with his friends. The jury’s subsequent acquittal of Stanley captured international attention, raising questions about racism embedded within Canada’s legal system and propelling Colten’s family to national and international stages in their pursuit of justice. Sensitively directed by Tasha Hubbard, nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Upweaves a profound narrative encompassing the filmmaker’s own adoption, the stark history of colonialism on the Prairies, and a vision of a future where Indigenous children can live safely on their homelands.      https://gem.cbc.ca/media/cbc-docs-pov/season-3/episode-10/38e815a-0125a33dc27