Tour teaches Sault students about racism and skeletons in Canada's closet

When it comes to racism in Canada’s past - as well as the history of racism in general - there’s much that people aren’t aware of.

But a group of Sault high school students have shown that they’re willing to learn and are interested in making sure the injustices of the past don’t happen again.

The Tour for Humanity bus - representing The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies - visited Korah Collegiate on Monday and Tuesday as part of an educational tour of Sault and area secondary schools being held this week.

Tuesday morning’s presentation at Korah highlighted the Holocaust as well as slavery in Canada under French and British settlers, the Residential School injustices, racism against Chinese settlers and internment of Japanese Canadians in the Second World War.

“I didn’t know how many Jewish people died and how many others died in the Holocaust,” said student Jacob Schikofsky, speaking to SooToday.

“We have to recognize racism and call it out when we see it,” Schikofsky said.

“I think the presentation was very well done. The educator got a lot of information in, in a short amount of time. It was very impressive. It was very thorough. On a local scale I think we should listen to people living here and listen to what they think, their life experiences. In general we should have empathy for other people and always try to get rid of any biases that we have,” said student Melody Shafiee.

“I didn’t know about the internment camps for Japanese people. That was all new to me. I didn’t know about any of that,” Shafiee said.

“I found it interesting that we’re always taught that Jewish people were mainly targeted in the Holocaust, which is true, but they don’t talk about the other people and I thought that was interesting to hear about,” said student Hazel Berlinguette.

Six million Jews and five million non-Jewish victims died in the Holocaust.

“Everything was so well put together and I definitely learned a lot more just in this small amount of time. It was really well done. It was very educational. I think that we should listen to people’s experiences and keep an open mind and be open to learning more about them, respect people and call racism out when you see it. We should do our best to keep everything equal between people,” Berlinguette said.

The three students are in Korah teacher Mary Maurice’s Grade 10 History class.

“I think this tour is a great way for students to see some of the challenges that exist in today’s society and also to see our roots historically because a lot of kids don’t know about some of these skeletons in our closet. I’d like to see them take a role in changing our society. That’s my biggest challenge for them, to say ‘what are you going to do to make it different?’” Maurice said. 

The Korah teacher said her class is learning to know racism when they see it.

“One of the steps is to watch the words you’re using, the jokes, and we tell students to call that out and say ‘that’s not acceptable or appreciated.’ You may have to explain why but that is the first step. That’s my job with these kids, to get them to step out and say ‘that’s not acceptable.’”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center - named in honour of Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor, Nazi hunter and writer - is headquartered in Los Angeles, the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center located in Toronto.

Two FSWC Tour for Humanity buses travel across Canada often, heading to the east coast and west coast later this year.

Kim Quinn, FSWC educator, is delivering workshops for students on the Tour for Humanity’s bus visit to Sault and area high schools this week.

“I was really surprised at some of the things I learned through just teaching, speaking to survivors and listening to their testimony. People don’t focus as much on how the Nazis passed laws and I’ve learned more about those restrictions as warning signs of a dictatorship,” Quinn said.

Quinn said that while there is a lot of information out there on the Holocaust, many young people haven’t been educated about things such as the Nazi salute and how to recognize it - and protest against it - if they see it.

“The more I started to speak to some students, the more I realized what’s happening is that the image of the Nazis has been diluted over the years. Nazis have been turned into a caricature, a cartoon villain and what they did, what they represented, has kind of been lost throughout history. It struck me that most kids can’t name a single Holocaust survivor but everyone knows who Hitler was. I started to realize there is a huge lack in cohesive education on what exactly happened. It wasn’t just one person being evil.”

Though Canadians like to see themselves as citizens of a peaceful, multicultural country, racism is still there, Quinn said.

“It is still around. Often it will come in waves. Over the last three years we’ve seen a huge increase in attacks against Asian Canadians. It’s been absolutely horrifying to watch. It’s actually at an all time high.” 

Quinn said that racism against Asian Canadians has been on the rise in BC, as well as discrimination toward Muslim Canadians.

“We always follow Stats Canada’s numbers and they’re pretty consistent with what we’re seeing in the classrooms. I’ve been noticing a lot of anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism. It’s very, very prominent in the classrooms,” Quinn said.

Fighting racism starts with us, Quinn said.

“The first step is acknowledging our own biases and our own mistakes. Sometimes we might catch ourselves telling a dark joke or sharing an edgy internet meme. The reality is that there’s no such thing as a racist meme. There’s just racism. So we need to start acknowledging when we slip up.”

“The second one is to educate ourselves and that involves listening to people who have been impacted by these events, listening to survivors, listening to people in  communities that have been marginalized.”

“The third step is extending that outwards and asking your friends to hold themselves accountable, reporting online hate when you see it, reporting it to someone in higher authority or just refusing to participate in it,” Quinn said.