Director of social work requested to step down by Black Liberation Collective

By Sidney Drmay

On Oct. 31, the newly-formed Black Liberation Collective at Ryerson sent an open letter to Henry Parada, director of Ryerson’s school of social work, demanding he step down following an alleged incident of anti-Black racism and misogynoir.

The Collective proceeded to list three more demands, brought forth to be addressed by the School of Social Work and the Faculty of Community Services:

• Remove confronting anti-Black racism from your mandate if you cannot, will not and are not invested in it. Ryerson is seen as a leader in the area of anti-Black racism however being disingenuous only lends to the violence experienced by the Black community by only symbolically confronting rather than practically and meaningfully challenging anti-Black racism.
• If being in a room that centres Blackness, women and anti-Black racism scholarship is too much and there is work that you need to do as an individual and collectively, please do that work outside of those spaces, we do not need that violence but we encourage and support you in doing that work.
• Formally apologize and publicly release how collectively you will genuinely address anti-Black racism within the School of Social Work and the Faculty of Community Services.