Racialized space

I am really interested in one of this week's topics – that of the idea of racialized space. This really resonated with me because it is so characteristic of Edmonton, this city in which I grew up. I live in the southwest part of the city, and growing up I always went to school and worked in the southwest as well. All my friends live there. In fact, I rarely leave “my” part of the city at all in my day-to-day life. Growing up, there was this widespread belief among all my peers that the north side was the “bad” side of town – I really only went there to play sports. To this day, I don't know the north side at all, and to me it almost feels like a different city. So many people only frequent “their” small part of the city, and these spaces are absolutely dictated by class and race. It makes me think of the absolute outrage that residents of Terwillegar displayed in response to the proposed transitional housing project in that area. The housing project would be home to people who are homeless and/or dealing with addiction, and much of the Terwillegar community, an affluent neighbourhood, strongly objects to having this type of project in their community. This just goes to show how much people expect everyone to stay in “their” own space.

I am also thinking about racialized space on the university campus. An Indigenous student at this university once told me she only really feels safe in certain areas of the campus (such as Pembina Hall, or Aboriginal Student Services in SUB). I have often thought about this in terms of my CSL placement as well, which is at the university's Sexual Assault Centre. I have to wonder if the space of the centre is really accessible to everyone, particularly Indigenous students. The Sexual Assault Centre wasn't designed with Indigenous clients in mind. In our 60 hours of training, we spend one hour talking about Indigenous issues, and this is on our very last day of training – what we call our “diversity day” because we also talk about multicultural and LGBTQ concerns, among others. Rather than having these issues at the centre of our training, it is more of an additive at the very end. If sexual assault of Indigenous women is qualitatively different from that of non-Indigenous women, because of the role of colonialism, how can I be a supporter? How can our centre be more accessible? For example, a female client is always given the option of talking to a female supporter at our centre, but an Indigenous person doesn't have the option of talking to an Indigenous supporter. I don't have any answers, but this is something that troubles me about our space and our service.