Pink Shirt Day
Today is Pink Shirt Day across the globe to celebrate the notion of anti-bullying in schools. In the background of our kids’ virtual learning, I was immersed in the discussions about the different ways kids can show kindness to their classmates. Fuzzy wuzzy feelings.
How inspiring that all these classrooms in all these schools in all these cities in all these countries involved in this movement of being kind to each other.
It’s revolutionary!
I wish we had this awareness growing up, maybe it could have set some people straight. Yes, kids get bullied all the time. Yes, we need awareness of when it’s happening, and yes, we need to change the narrative. Then I searched to see what other shirt days we can look forward to support.
Orange Shirt Day
September 30, Orange Shirt Day is to honour Indigenous people who were victims of the Canadian Indian Residential School Systems that were meant to strip the youth of their culture to assimilate into Euro-Canadian society run by the Catholic churches.
From the 18th to 19th century, where Indigenous children were sent by government to be stripped of who they were to be more ‘Canadian’. This day is set to remember the mistakes that Canada had made towards these families and their children and to start increasing awareness of this disgusting racial discrimination.
Black Shirt Day
Non-existent except for in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where the Anti-Racism Coalition (ARC) of Vancouver launched the proposal of Black Shirt Day in BC for January 15th, Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday.
Despite the day not being officially declared due to deadline issues, Black Shirt Day was celebrated by students in BC, sporting their shirts so geniously designed with it’s multi-coloured raised fist logo. This day needs to be declared as a time to stand in solidarity for the dream of life without prejudice – especially in schools where young minds are absorbing – priming for real world.
This day could be one of the steps to help dissipate some anger, to start a new narrative, to shift mindsets within generations that no race is better than the other – we are all PEOPLE. The work had been started generations ago but honestly feels so uneventful in a society that’s supposed to be civilly advanced. I want a world where my kids won’t ever have to explain what the word ‘racist’ means to their children unless it’s about history.
Ministry of Education
School boards have proven that they can support students who initiate good will and have shown how one little act can change the world. Use this momentum to change the many disappointing things we have witnessed. Let’s act now! One simple click. One simple way to put forth the right energy where it needs to be! Make this happen so we can see you next year wearing your Black Shirts on January 15th 2022!
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