#oursummitwpg

Dear CBC Manitoba,

Last night, I watched the evening news and felt greatly disappointed by your misrepresentation of Our Summit: LOCAL Racial Inclusion Summit. At no point did any organizers describe our gathering as a protest, and it is frustrating to see media repeatedly pit the two Summits against each other. Leading up to Our Summit, members of the Winnipeg community had offered critique of Mayor Brian Bowman’s ONE: National Summit on Racial Inclusion. It is our role as community members to hold government and community leaders accountable. It is not a merely a protest, but a fulfilling of our responsibility to have expressed our frustration with the lack of representation in the speakers, planners and facilitators from local, grassroots organizations working to end racism; to have pointed out that the Canadian Museum of Human Rights is not a neutral space for many people whom racism most directly impacts in our city; and to have wanted a more accessible and inclusive event. While it is important to hear from experts and to participate in comparative analyses, the discussion is not complete without a balance of representation from local and global, grassroots and institutional leaders. The hope is that this feedback from citizenry will change how the Mayor’s office organizes future events. We share Mayor Brian Bowman’s perspective that both Summits are valuable opportunities for conversation. Our Summit was planned to give people an alternative, one which addressed some of the criticisms made about ONE Summit. It is not an either/or situation; we needed both ONE Summit AND Our Summit to have happened, and hopefully in the future, we will see the participants from these two events coming together. On Thursday, September 17, 2015, participants of Our Summit heard from speakers from Winnipeg’s First Nations, Chinese, Muslim, White, Filipino and Metis communities. After Opening Prayer and Song, we began the evening with a Welcoming Activity where everyone attending could meet and hear the story of a stranger. During the hour-long Open Space discussion that followed, we crowdsourced topics and facilitators in order to share the power inherent in decision-making and speaking with Our Summit participants. 13 groups formed around topics that were most important for the people present, which resulted in solution-focused discussions on  racism in the following areas: nutrition and food security, Indigenous and newcomer youth relations, missing and murdered Indigenous men and women, moving past our racial mistakes, Child and Family Services, jobs and employment, systemic racism, using dialogue to improve relations, water and Shoal Lake 40, kids growing up in a corrupt world, media representation, uniting humanity harmoniously, and Employment Income Assistance. The Open Space discussions ended with each person reflecting and sharing an action that they would take toward ending racism. An example of a solution was the bringing together of church congregations from the north and south ends of Winnipeg. We know that people want to build relationships, but sometimes it’s challenging to figure out how to create opportunities. The great news is that Aboriginal Youth Opportunities and 1justcity have been talking all summer and Meet Me at the Bell Tower and 1justcity will be hosting a Feast with Friends on Friday, October 23, 2015 at 6pm, which will bring together people from congregations in the north and south ends of the city, as well as community members from the North End and all around Winnipeg. As always, Meet Me at the Bell Tower is a free community event that welcomes people from all walks of life. People can find more details about Feast with Friends here: https://www.facebook.com/events/394310904113050/. We ended the evening with a march to the Canadian Museum of Human Rights. Crucially, before we left Oodena Circle, one of the organizers shared that we were marching in a spirit of collaboration with Mayor Brian Bowman’s ONE: National Summit on Racial Inclusion; and that we would best represent the change we hoped to see in our communities by demonstrating it for the people attending both summits, and most importantly, for the children in the crowd. We walked over in high spirits, having enjoyed a beautiful double rainbow, and now walking to moving drum music and a gorgeous sunset. We gathered at the entrance of the Museum, and we invited community members holding 13 Grandfather Rocks to come up and speak. They shared their discussions – their frustrations with racism, but more importantly, the solutions they see. Throughout the evening, we had the support of Manitoba Moon Voices and ACI Manitoba through Prayer, Song, and Drums. Thank you also to Aboriginal Youth Opportunities, Neechi Commons, Spirit Fusion, and many other groups for supporting the coordination of the event. We will be compiling the discussion notes and community's commitments to share publicly, and with the city’s Citizen Equity Committee. We hope that you’ll follow up on this story then.