Craig Brown: Anti-Racism In Sport

Stuart Murray  0:00  
This podcast was recorded on the ancestral lands on Treaty One territory, the traditional territory of the Anishnawbe, Cree, Oji Cree, Dakota, and the Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis nation.

Amanda Logan (Voiceover)  0:19  
This is humans on rights, a podcast advocating for the education of human rights. Here's your host, Stuart Murray.

Stuart Murray  0:31  
Sports has long been heralded as a powerful force for unity, providing a platform where people from all backgrounds can come together in pursuit of shared goals. The athletic field, in fact, in many ways, represents a microcosm of society, a place where values like teamwork, respect and fair play are celebrated. However, just as sport brings people together, it also reflects the broader social issues that divide us, including racism. Historically, athletes of color have faced the overt and subtle discrimination from biased recruitment practices to differential treatment by coaches, media and fans. The good news is there is a group of people who are championing the whole issue of racism in sport, and we're going to change the whole title on that. We're going to talk about anti racism in sport. And I'm thrilled and delighted to have someone who is an expert in this field. His name is Craig Brown, and Craig is a Jamaican Canadian. He has a clinical and applied interest in the mental health and well being of marginalized populations. His research involvement has included explorations of newcomer varsity athletes adjusting to life in Winnipeg. Coaches working with newcomer athletes in Winnipeg and anti racism in sport in Winnipeg. Craig is currently involved in or planning to pursue further research investigations related to various aspects of trauma. These include PTSD and the experiences of first responders, the impact of racism on sport participation of racialized girls in Canada, and the connection between racial trauma, attachment and resilience in racialized groups in Calgary, Alberta. He has also worked with various sport organizations as a mental performance consultant, and his mantra, I love this is to be the change that he wishes to see in others, one interaction at a time. I am thrilled and delighted. Craig Brown, welcome to humans on rights.

Craig Brown  2:43  
Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.

Stuart Murray  2:45  
So Craig, we talked about this at the top. I know that you currently are in Calgary. We talked about a land acknowledgement. As you know, I have one re recorded off the top of this podcast, but you indicated you would like to do one. And recognizing you're in Calgary, I ask you please, the floor is yours. Thanks

Craig Brown  3:01  
so much, Stuart. Well being in the southern Calgary, I'd just like to acknowledge and pay tribute to the traditional territories of the peoples of treaty seven, particularly the Blackfoot confederacy comprised of the Siksika, the Bucha and the Kanye First Nations, the satina First Nation and the Stoney Nakoda, including chiniki bearspaw and good Stoney First Nations. And The City of Calgary, where I reside, I acknowledge is also home to the Matty nation of Alberta, districts five and six. And the reason why I do the land acknowledgement and being an immigrant to Canada, I came to understand the privilege and the opportunity that I have to be on this land and also recognize the responsibility that I have as an immigrant to take that privilege to not only right the wrongs of the past, but to play my part in reducing the harms faced continually by our indigenous peoples in Canada.

Stuart Murray  4:00  
Craig, thank you for that. It's important when people are you know in different areas as you are, that you take a moment to pay that tribute and respect. And so thank you very much for taking the time to be so eloquent and do that. You know, before we get into talking about all of the incredible work that you and your team are doing in anti racism and sport, let me just kind of do a bit of a check in on Craig Brown. I mean, when I read your bio, I mean, it's impressive. So let's kind of go through a little bit of your journey, if you don't mind, what got you interested in the whole issue around clinical and applied interest in mental health and well being, what sort of got you interested in that and tell us a little about your journey there?

Craig Brown  4:44  
Well, sure, I'd be glad to just give you a quick breakdown. Well, as I mentioned, I'm an immigrant care originally lived in Jamaica. I'm from Kingston, Jamaica, and I spent many years doing or working in business, in the commercial sector, and Part. Of the my motivation for going into things like HR was just the notion that there were so many people that I saw that were just unhappy with their lives at work. So I wanted to know what I could do to make a difference, or make being at work a better place and a better thing for people. But then in terms of when I got the opportunity to come here with my wife. My wife said, Hey, you're starting over. You spend a lot of time in the commercial sector, but if you're starting over, where is it that you would want to direct your efforts? Where do you see yourself? And that's made it a little bit of that soul searching, looking at that notion that I'm a massive sport, not like I grew up just following sports with my parents, with this cricket, basketball, the 90s bulls, with Jordan. I'm just involved in everything, in any way, shape or form, but not just being fat. Why counseling is at my heart, especially with athletes. I recognize that for so long or in so many ways, athletes are expected to be superhuman, and many of the things that they experience or go through that sometimes ignored at the expense of their humanity. So for me, I thought to myself, you know, what? What is it that I could do in the realm of sport, something that I'm so passionate about, to make that experience better for athletes to be a part of that solution for athletes who are being challenged with mental health concerns, or even athletes that just needed to know that somebody was there. And I looked at so many examples in sport, and just thought, I wonder if somebody if they had had a psychologist on the team at that time, or if the athletes had known that there was somebody that they could go to who was impartial, but that was only focused on their well being. Could things have turned out differently? So when deciding what area to pursue and coming to Canada, that that's where my heart landed, that blend of counseling psychology and sports psychology, and since then, that's the journey that I've been on, either working with teams or working with individual athletes or associations. And even with my studies, it's just been focused on just trying to do my best to make make the sport, sport setting a bit safer for athletes, for sure.

Stuart Murray  7:12  
And let me just ask, you know, obviously you're a fan, and at some point, completely offline, I'd love you to explain to me, You know what cricket is all about. I mean, I love sport as well. That is one that just kind of leaves me a little bit out there. But you mentioned a lot of sports, and you're clearly a sports fan. Were you ever an athlete, or were you more of a of just a fan of sport? And I shouldn't say just a fan, that's important, but I just wondered if the difference between being an athlete or a fan, which have you had both experiences?

Craig Brown  7:39  
I'd love to consider myself an athlete, but my ventures into representing any sort of team or organization that ended at like high school. So for my prep school, which probably is the same as elementary elementary school here, right? I think I did swimming for a little bit. I maybe thought about track and field. Did table tennis for a little bit too. Then in high school, I played basketball for my high school, but it stopped at about the ninth grade. So since then, it's just been recreational, sure.

Stuart Murray  8:10  
But, I mean, I love that context, because I know we're going to talk about, you know, professional athletes, but a lot of the research which we're going to, you know, dive into, that you and your team involved in with respect to anti racism and sport is in very much at a grade school level. And so before we get into that, Craig, I would just be curious to see, I mean, you're, you're so immersed in it now, and you're, you're a facilitator, you're an expert, you're teaching, you lead all sorts of workshops. But as as somebody growing up who's a person of color, did you experience, even if it was, you know, in the swimming pool? I mean, did you ever experience a sense of racism in any of the sport you were doing, even though it was at a very, I'll just say, kind of in a school setting.

Craig Brown  8:54  
That's the funny thing. Growing up in Jamaica, you're not that much concerned, or at the time, for me, you're not as much concerned with the color of your skin, or the awareness that there is some sort of hierarchy based on the color of your skin. It's stuff that you encounter maybe in the history texts, and when you start to delve into a little bit of that, but it was never something that I was aware of until maybe a little bit later on in life. So growing up playing sports in Jamaica definitely was not aware of it. But then the more that I or the older that I got is, the more I became aware of many of the different things that persons go through. And then just again, following being a historian per city of sport, as a fan, and seeing some of those things that have happened, let's say, even just some of the activism that took place at the Olympics, even before my time, and many of the discussions that have happened since then, those are some of the things that brought that awareness. But for me, personally, as an athlete at the time, growing up in gym. It's just never something that you really factor or consider,

Stuart Murray  10:03  
yeah. Okay, fair comment. Appreciate that. So Craig Brown, you are a facilitator. You're very active, involved in anti racism and sport, which is the name of the organization. Let's just set the table a little bit and talk about, how did anti racism and sport start as an organization, and then once we get that established, we can talk about some of the great work that you're involved in doing. Sure,

Craig Brown  10:29  
absolutely, I know the other members of the team have so much more of a deeper understanding of the origins, and they've helped me to gather that understanding, because I actually came on to the project after it had started. But basically what was happening is that within the community, the immigrant community, the refugees, etc, they've just been in dialog with many of the immigrant serving organizations or newcomer serving organizations or the local immigrant partnerships in Winnipeg, there was a recognition that racism was indeed a problem within support spaces that a lot of racialized immigrants were facing. So immigration partnership Winnipeg, in conjunction with members of the community, started to explore this idea a little bit, and thought that, you know what, instead of just letting things continue as they were, it would be important to actually apply for a grant that was available at the time to, I believe, was Canadian Heritage, to not only investigate what is happening, but to see what could be done to reduce this racism that many of our immigrants, or racialized immigrants, were facing in sports spaces in Winnipeg, and that's when the campaign sort of took shape, after just the more of that communication, because the actual campaign is guided by an advisory council or A board, per se, that's made up of our community support organizations and other community organizations with much discussion. Basically, what was decided was that, you know what, we can not only just do something that's novel, but let's actually see what we can do to do a research project, find out what's happening, and then take that information and see how we can make change within the network, within the sporting area, and that's where our organization was born. So

Stuart Murray  12:30  
one of the things that we had a bit of a pre meeting with you and your team, and you've got some great folks that you work with, clearly, one of the comments that was made was that there was very little research at the time on anti racism and sport. Am I correct when I did? I hear that right with your team.

Craig Brown  12:47  
That is correct. Well, especially from the context in Winnipeg and Manitoba, because what was happening when we started that research project, we said, instead of just diving in, collecting information and then going from there, we thought for ourselves, let's try and find out what's in the literature. First, the research team actually was comprised of persons from the Faculty of kinesiology and rec management, as well as the Faculty of Arts at the University of Manitoba. And basically we said, let's look at what's there first. We don't want to reinvent the wheel. Let's find out how much has this been studied within Winnipeg context, and when we looked, there was little to nothing as it relates to the experiences of racialized populations with racism in the sport context in Winnipeg, of course, you could find some material related to racism faced by the indigenous population, but or indigenous peoples, I would say, but not as much that you could say, Okay, let's take this, build this into our literature review, or even just build on this study that has been done before. So we actually had to come up with something from scratch. So

Stuart Murray  13:52  
do you want to share what it is, Craig, that some of the things that you you discovered through this research? I mean, I say you talking about the team that's involved in anti racism and sport. Do you want to share with some of the research brought forward? Absolutely,

Craig Brown  14:06  
the research itself was divided into three components, as I mentioned. First, we did that literature review, just looking at what the literature had to say. So of course, we could find information related to, let's say, racism that had taken place. And we started quite broad. We started internationally. So we could find, for example, the racism that persons of color would face in soccer, for example, in Europe. We could find accounts of racism in sport in Australia, and we were able to even identify how, or some similarities with how the indigenous population was treated there, and also was treated in terms of their relation to support with how the indigenous population is being treated here in Canada. Of course, we got information from the US. We got information from across the world, but then we started to narrow it down. What could the literature show us? That's happening within the Canadian context, we were able to identify a lot of historical connections. So, for example, we could identify the happenings within Africville and how that was a thriving black community, but different policies, procedures and initiatives were intentionally utilized to, I would say, suppress and harm that community. And the connection between that community and the black Hockey League, for example, and again, how the downfall within that community also contributed to the downfall within the black Hockey League, we could actually find the connections, for example, with athletes who were fleeing colored colored athletes, I would say black athletes, depending on the literature and the term that they use, but black athletes that would flee persecution per se in baseball and football that they would be facing in the US, and they would come to Canada to play in the CFL, where the baseball leagues here, or hockey leagues here, if possible, we could actually find connections with the westward expansion within Canada. So with Chinese immigration, in particular, the Chinese population was one of the primary sources of labor for mining and for westward expansion of the railroad. But then you had negative sentiments that started to grow within the society in relation to this population, and that contributed to the passing of things like the head tax, and it contributed to even a lot of stigmas or stigma station that happened with this population as it related to sport. And many Chinese men, for example, were seen as effeminate because of their stats, because of their build. So we saw a lot of these connections, even CFL having quotas on how many black athletes they could have on particular teams. And you saw, for example, there were some teams that were more willing to have black athletes, and we had higher numbers because there are parts of the country that had more sentiments in favor of white athletes. So we started to see a lot of these connections. We started to see, again, as I mentioned, the the things that have happened with the indigenous populations and how they've been excluded in sport, and how sport and recreation had been changed from what they would have been used to. And many of them would have been forced, in some cases, to take on a more westernized idea and approach to sport. Can

Stuart Murray  17:25  
I just interrupt for one sec? Or not? I just got one clarification. You mentioned Africville, which just is a very important part of Canadian history. Africville, of course, being in Halifax, correct? Yeah. So just wanted to sort of for anybody listening, saying where you know if they're not aware of it, I was made aware of that at my time at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. So human rights. So that, that that I just wanted to clarify. And then Craig, just one other thing, when you talk about, you know, the CFL and the Canadian Football League having sort of, you know, kind of conversations about how many, you know, black athletes they could have, what, what years are we talking about here?

Craig Brown  17:58  
Oh, I'd have to double check in my mind, it's going back to the 1970s but I'd have to double check,

Stuart Murray  18:04  
no, no, fair enough. But, you know, at some point people listening saying, What are you talking about, like, the 1830s or, you know, I mean, you talk about 1970s Yeah, that's close history. That's, that's right there. You know, that's not long ago. So just to keep that in context, so I apologize for for interrupting your stream of thought there, but I just those are, I mean, it really sort of sets the tone in my mind about what it is we're talking about today.

Craig Brown  18:26  
Yeah, no. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. That definitely adds more context. But when we got down and we started to narrow down, so this is Canada Wide we're talking and we started to narrow down to Winnipeg and Manitoba. We've looked for a lot of literature, looked for a lot of research. There's really not much that we could find that explored the specific situation or the specific context, sport context in Winnipeg, in Manitoba, what is racism like within that context? And there's not much we could find. And then that moved us on to our second component. We did an environmental scan looking at sport organizations like, what are they doing? What are they saying? What policies do they have? How are they working actively to address racism within their context? And what we found, you had some cases where there's really nothing that addressed racism directly. Some had policies. Some didn't have any at all. In some cases, participants or persons within that sport context didn't even know what the policy said, or didn't know where to find the policy. And then what we recognized was, in some cases, it was really just performative. So there is something that would be said on social media or any sort of media post that would be made, but in general, many organizations weren't actively addressing racism, and that's a more systemic issue that's for a later time, but really, sometimes it's lumped in with discrimination and then or unacceptable behavior might be the term that might be used. But. But there's nothing that says, Okay, this is what racism is. This is how it looks in our space. If you partake in it, we will take this particular action, and this is the way that it's going to be treated. So there was really a gap with the understanding of what racism was, and with support organizations taking that tangible, active step to address it within your spaces. But then with all of this information, we said, how can we capture not just what we thought, what we've witnessed, what we've seen, what we've encountered, but how can we capture the perspectives of those who are in the space, facing it on a regular basis that led us to our research project itself. So instead of doing, for example, quantitative data collection that just pinpointed, we could give you percentages, we could give you numbers, we could give you that kind of a breakdown. We said it might be more powerful for us to capture the perspectives and share what people have had to say. And with that in mind, we conducted focus groups, about 12 focus groups with about 39 persons, and these persons identified as First Nations Inuit, maintee nations, black, racialized or religious minority in sport, and there were quite a few persons who didn't identify as that too. And it was important for us to do that, to actually capture a wider perspective. So we had persons, from what some would say are traditional sports, and what some would say are non traditional sports. We had athletes, we had coaches, we had officials, we had executives, we had organizers, we had just parents. We had a range of persons just sit with us and answer those questions, what have you seen? What have you experienced? Or what have others told you that they have experienced? And after those discussions, some of which were really hard to go through, we came up with about four themes and about three action items going forward. And those four themes, the first of all, first of them, spoke to a lot of that systemic nature of racism that existed in sport in Winnipeg. So there were a lot of policies, a lot of the culture within some organizations and some sports that really focused on marginalizing some populations. So you have persons who they would report racism, but when that report would go to the overarching organization for that sport. In some cases, it was just burden of proof. In some cases it was dismissed. In some cases, persons just shared that you know, they had no confidence in the system, because nothing has ever done about it. Did you

Stuart Murray  22:51  
find that some sport had more racist issues associated with it than others? Or is that a fair question?

Craig Brown  22:58  
It is a fair question. It's a nuanced question, too, and it's one that I'm always careful to answer, because we, as I mentioned, we spoke with persons from a range of sports to recognize that, yes, it existed in a range of sport, range of sports, but yes, there were some. I'm hesitant to name any particular sports, yeah, but you did recognize that one, and why I say it's nuanced. In some cases, you'd have more reports of it because you have more representation within that sport. And in some cases, you have a lot of incidents because you have less representation. So that minority is actually what happens with them. Is hyper focused. So you we did recognize that you had a lot of incidents like that. You had a lot of incidents where persons were denied access to resources simply because of where they were coming from, or simply because of the organization they were attached to, as a racialized organization or an immigrant organization. We had situations where persons faced that overt racism, so that intentional, the name calling, being physically attacked, and it's something that I've even witnessed within my time while I was in Winnipeg, and in some cases, just nothing being done. And some of these examples that persons gave, again, it wasn't just the other team, sometimes it was their own teammates, their own coaches, opposing teams, opposing coaches, things that the fans would yell or say, things that the officials would would say, experiences within meetings with higher levels of sport. There were a lot of these instances that show that either policies, procedures, or even the second theme of those more overt instances took place. And then the two other things that kind of came up from that research was the whole notion that the we often use the phrase that sport is a microcosm of the wider society. So it doesn't just exist in a vacuum, but a lot of the things that you will see or experience in sport, they reflect what happens or. What's existing within the wider society. And we had many participants who just indicated that it wasn't just in sport, but within Winnipeg, within Manitoba, when they traveled across country to represent Manitoba, they would witness some things or experience some things that really impacted them significantly because of the level of racism or the level of discrimination. And for some persons, it led to that fourth theme of just either dropping out of sport, completely disassociating from the sport that they love, reducing their experience with that sport at the time they spend in that sport, just to preserve their mental health and well being. And for some people, it has less left them with significant trauma that they carry with them. So those are some of the main things that came out.

Stuart Murray  25:45  
So Craig just on the notion of, you know, when your research, you would show that perhaps there are some organizations that have maybe some governance or policies around anti racism, in sport, in their organization. It's great to say that you've got policies, but are they enforced? I mean, is there a fact that what is being talked about is actually being delivered? The

Craig Brown  26:06  
answer is yes and no. From the standpoint of of course, we did find instances where persons are able to point to the policies, point to the procedures. They knew where to go, they knew what article to reference. But you did have since instances or persons, or just like, I really don't know what, what's there in some cases, or persons just said it's really arbitrary, or it's not really specific So, or it's not even effective. So, for example, one person indicated that with this particular sport, there's a if, if you commit something that's deemed racist, it's just deemed as unacceptable behavior, and there's a small fine, you pay that small fine, and you go about your life just the same, so it really doesn't do anything to prevent or address racism or deter it. So the answer is yes, in that you did have instances or persons were had no clue where to find the policy, or didn't even know that a policy existed. And as you said, it's probably just existing somewhere without that dialog throughout the organization. When I say organization, meaning everyone represented, from athletes all the way up to just say, this is our stance, that that communication of where we stand what needs to be done. So

Stuart Murray  27:19  
Craig, this is, you know, not a part of your research. I just would love to just get your personal view, just as a person who has watched what's happened at sport, racism in sport, we've all seen a professional athlete who has perhaps made put a racial slur on their their sports shoe that they wear, or they've said a racial slur that numerous people have heard. It was loud enough so you can't deny that they didn't say it. They did say it. And of course, you know, the media make an issue of it. The professional organization, they are outraged. It's not how they run their organization, and they reprimand the athlete at the time, the athlete then stands in front of the media with a written piece of paper reciting the fact that, you know, apologize. This is not who I am. If I offended anybody, I'm sorry. Blah, blah, blah. My question is, what is your reaction to a professional athlete who is probably coached and have something written down. How do you view that?

Craig Brown  28:24  
My answer is going to be layered, and I'll preface it with two notions. As a campaign, we really believe in restorative justice, so in asking for any sort of Recompense or action that's taken, sometimes organizations will ban a player. Will find a player will take that sort of a strict action, but our focus is, let's see how we can get that person, or encourage that person to get involved with the community that they might have harmed. So sorry the community that they might have harmed, and see how they can learn more about the community and sort of heal those broken wounds and heal those bars. When I see something like that with the athlete, my thought process is the words or the apology are one thing, but let's find ways that we can have that restorative element where they can get involved with the community that they might have armed and see how they can repair those wounds. I also recognize that sport is a business, especially at your professional daily levels, so whenever a statement is prepared, in many cases, not in all, in many cases, it's really just to cover the bases and the image of the organization as well as of the player, because I don't know everyone's stance, whether genuine or not. I guess I choose to go with that concept from Paulo Freire, who wrote pedagogy of the oppressed, to understand the notion of people are just humans, and to see each. Person is human, whether good or bad meaning, we all have flaws, and even the person who might not meant that apology, even the person who was very much aware of what they might have said and what they might have done, and could care less about the particular population or group and hold a particular point of view that might be harmful, that is still a human being that's deserving of the respect and care that even if they don't want to show that to a particular group, we have the responsibility to show it to them. So again, it's that everyone's human. Treat that person with dignity and respect. Let's see how we can have that restorative justice, and even if that person is totally going in a different direction from where we want to go and maybe undermining the efforts that we are putting in place, we're going to try our best to not try to repeat that harm to that person, but see how we can help or and we do that with sport organizations here. We make ourselves available to see what we can do to heal and mend those wounds. You're

Stuart Murray  31:06  
doing some great work, you and your team on anti racism in sport. I know it's centered here. Out of Winnipeg, you're looking at being a bit broader, but let's, let's bring it back to Winnipeg and maybe share with some of the things that you specifically are doing, whether it's through school programs or other ways, through education that you're dealing with anti racism in sport here in in the City of Winnipeg,

Craig Brown  31:31  
sure. Well, pulling from that, that second part of the research project, in terms of what we can do going forward again, it was important for us to not just take our own perspective and think, Okay, this is what we found. This is what we think is going to work. This is what we think is going to make a difference. Our participants were the ones that said, Okay, we need more education. We need more awareness. We need people standing up and speaking out about it. We need organizations to review their policies and make tangible change and see what they're doing to actually hire more marginalized populations or racialized populations. We're built on the responses of our participants. We started our public awareness campaign. So with that, that's when we, for example, partnered with the city of Winnipeg to have ads within their city of Winnipeg spaces. That's how we've done our social media work, by just trying to get the information out there, not just in terms of what we've done, what other organizations are doing, other organizations that we're partnering with, things that are happening within the community, especially racialized community or marginalized communities, just to get that awareness going, to get that discussion going to not just have it happen under the table or in certain areas, but to just bring that realization to the wider population that racism is a reality in sport in Winnipeg, and that there's a lot that needs to be done. In addition to that, we had or anti racism in Sport Accord to which about 27 organizations within Winnipeg signed on to and I know for a lot of persons, when they hear the word accord, they think it's just another bit of legislation or another policy or just something that's performative. But for us, what was important for us, we came up with an accord that basically had organizations commit to being an anti racist organization within sport in Winnipeg, not that they are at that space, but they're that but that they're committed to doing that work, and that's not us. Just having them sign on to it, signing on to it, meant that we would support those organizations in any way they needed, whether it's helping them to commit an anti racism audit within their spaces, or to help them work on developing policies and procedures or exploring their spaces to see what they can do to increase anti racism within their space. But it's basically us indicating that we are not only committed to it, but these organizations are committed to moving forward and creating discrimination free space. And then in addition to that, we've also had our school or school presentations. We haven't done as much of them recently due to funding, but basically, we went into the middle schools in Winnipeg and some outside of Winnipeg too, to have some of these discussions with the teachers, with students, and we would actually bring in members of the community, as well as professional athletes too, who are known in the community to help with these presentations to middle schoolers. And if I'm not mistaken, we have actually spoken to over 3000 double check the number, but over 3000 students in Winnipeg and white in Manitoba. Wow. And in the final part of it, in terms of the work that we've done within Winnipeg in particular, we've done a lot of our trainings. So we have our anti racism sport. Sport is not an equal playing field training, and that's where we've spoken with board members, we've spoken with executives, we've trained city of Winnipeg staff. We've. Trained recreation staff. We've trained persons within sport organizations. We've done presentations with athletes and a wide range of sports and organizations just to say, Okay, let's get some of that tangible knowledge of what is out there, how to define these things, and look at some of the things that are being done in the community to address them, and ways that these organizations and persons can actually take a stand. We've actually been done trainings where we've just invited general members of the population to sign up and be a part of and those are the four main pillars, whether the public awareness or the school presentations, the Accord, as well as our trainings, that we've actually gone back into the community, brought that awareness, got engaged with persons, to see what's happening within their spaces, and help to empower them to be able to take a stand whenever they see something racist happening within their spaces. So

Stuart Murray  35:55  
that's a lot of heavy lifting, Craig, I mean, you know, with you and the team to be going into schools and having those conversations and which is necessary. I mean, it's clearly what your your research showed you, and how you're using it to create the educational public awareness. You know, it's early stages in regard to what it is that you have been doing. I think you've been doing this since what 2022 roughly. Is that rough? Am I married about that

Craig Brown  36:21  
a little bit before, but yeah, at the end of 2021, 2022

Stuart Murray  36:24  
so, you know, we're three or four years in, and with all that heavy lifting you've done, does your team have the ability to, you know, sort of discern, if, you know, there's a real, genuine desire to sort of wrestle with this issue around anti well, so the support, I should say, of anti racism in sport that is real and genuine versus performative,

Craig Brown  36:48  
that's always a an interesting one to think through in terms of the capacity. What I will say is we have seen organizations a lot more organizations reach out. A lot more organizations get involved. A lot more organizations, not only, for example, just say, I want to do a training and then leave it there, but a lot more organizations try to partner with us and try to get deeply involved in the work that we're doing. So I would say, since, since the start of our campaign, until now, we've definitely seen an increase in the efforts of organizations to raise that awareness, the organizations to have that discussion, the organizations to address their policies and to review how they do things to reduce the impact of racism within their spaces. It's a

Stuart Murray  37:36  
program that's going to be a lifetime. You would look at it and see you would hope that pick a timeline in five years that you know this issue of we don't need anti racism and sport, it doesn't exist. I mean, you said very early on at the beginning of your of this, of this podcast, we're human beings, and human beings are, you know, we have our own challenges as we as we get through our day and through our life. One of the things I just wondered is, what is the mental health and the personal impact on athletes of some of the elements that they would face with respect to racism, that the anti racism and sport program is doing as

Craig Brown  38:13  
it relates to mental health right now, I wouldn't say that we have focused on any particular initiatives to address that. That is something that we'd have to make sure we have the capacity to do, to do so that is actually a good question to ask, and it's something I think that we could look into. I think right now, stemming from the research, until now the research, there are persons that shared that it was just good to actually have an avenue to speak about these things, and discussions with persons afterwards, they've said it's been helpful for them because they've seen the change within their own sport areas. So I think right now, just the work that we're doing and the impact it's having in, I wouldn't say, removing, but just reducing the impact of racism within sport, or actually bringing that awareness to a person's feel that as if they're heard or they're understood, and that their issues are no longer being ignored. I think persons have shared that that impact has been good for them, it's been helpful for them, and it's been encouraging for them. In terms of a specific mental health focus, that's something that we could look into going forward,

Stuart Murray  39:17  
and you will I mean, as I keep want to just remind anybody who's listening, and remind myself that you're a young organization. You've done a lot of heavy lifting, but you're a very young organization with with a defined roadmap, which I think is really, really important. Craig, one of the things that you know, for example, when you go to a school and you want to talk about anti racism in sport, I suspect that from time to time, you bring an athlete along with you to talk about it. Are all the athletes, athletes of color, or do you sometimes get white athletes that would also participate in these conversations, athletes

Craig Brown  39:54  
that I can remember, that we have partnered with, have normally been athletes of color. It, because they've been able to share from their own experience and speak to the students from that perspective. I'm

Stuart Murray  40:05  
not surprised by that. I just you know, as you grow a lot of times, if there's white people in the audience and they see somebody who is a white person in front of them, somebody that looks like them, talking about why this is an important issue and why they feel it's important to support it. I mean, those elements, you know, are all part of the bigger conversation, which I know that, I know that you're, you're all involved in. But it does make sense at the outset to to bring in athletes who have faced this in their time and talk about, you know, how unpleasant it is, and what they're doing about it, and what the impact is on on them. And so I think that's really important. I've thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I knew when we kind of had our pre meeting, I knew I would, because what your team has done, it's so in depth. You're basically working with facts and recommendations that have come out of very, very deep research which didn't exist. And so I think congratulations to the entire team at anti racism and sport. Always love to talk about success when people are working into some of these challenging areas. Are you aware of organizations that they could be in Winnipeg, they could be in Manitoba, they could be somewhere in Canada or abroad? It doesn't matter. But are you through your research and studies? Are you aware of any organizations you can say you know this organization has been dealing with this issue and has been very proactive, has had great success. They have been able to successfully address sort of racism and move forward. Are there organizations that you can reference that have done that. There

Craig Brown  41:42  
are quite a few, because especially over the last few years, and it's become more centralized, so it's, it's a lot of organizations are talking about things like this more, but I know definitely within Winnipeg, the Winnipeg newcomer sport Academy in particular, they've been at the forefront of just trying to get newcomers involved in various levels of sport, especially sports that are unfamiliar to them, sports that are very foreign to them, as it relates to not being available in their own country. So the Winnipeg newcomer sport Academy, air com, immigration refugee community of man organization of Manitoba, yeah, I know support for life has also partnered with us, and of course, they exist across Canada. I know Canadian Heritage, Canadian race relations Foundation, who have funded a lot of the work that we've done and a lot of the work that's being done within the community. There are quite a few. I know that, as I mentioned, the City of Winnipeg has partnered with us to ensure that all of their recreation staff is trained in anti racist policy and understanding. But there are quite a few. There are quite a few. I know. I'll be going to the conference this week, and we'll actually be meeting up with a few other organizations and just talking about some of the work that they're doing, Manitoba, Aboriginals, Sport and Recreation Council, for example, masrc in Winnipeg to or in Manitoba. So there are quite a few that are doing bits of the work that we've partnered with. What I'm

Stuart Murray  43:16  
super encouraged about Craig is that, you know, when you start to say, I can't remember all the organizations who are really tackling this and started seeing positive outcome. To me, that's just good news. It shows that the research that you've done and the work that you're putting into it as the, you know, anti racism and sport team is not only necessary, but it's starting to prove out that there's some success happening here, a lot of success. And I think that's something to build on. I mean, you build on success. So congratulations on that. When I went onto your website, when I say your website, anti racism and sport website, I was interested in that there's a lot of facts that are on that website. In particular, one of the of the visual graphics that you have, I'm only going to reference to Craig, because I think it really does bring home some of the points that you're talking about, and they are, and I'm again, just to be candid, I these are facts that came from the anti racism and sport website, but they said that there are only 11 athletes who identify as First Nation or Inuit, out of the 665 total athletes featured in Canada Sports Hall of Fame, 11 out of 665 and the other one that I thought was interesting was out of 56 Canadian universities, only one has a non white athletic director. And so we mentioned this at one time in the conversation about systemic challenges within racism, within organizations, there's a little bit of an of an indication that is fact, based on on why some of the challenges and the research that you've done through your anti racism and sport are trying to address and are addressing which is, which is the great news. So I just thought, I. I'd share those and just or anybody's listening, because to me, they kind of jumped out. There's many, many more before we just sign off. I guess. I just want to leave it to you to answer a question that maybe I didn't ask you. This is your time to shine. You know, please share something that you think is important for anybody listening to this podcast that we have yet to speak about.

Craig Brown  45:22  
Well, first, I want to thank you so much for the opportunity just to talk about the work that we're doing with those stats that you you throughout. Those are something that I probably have to double check. If those have changed since we put those up, but it's still representative of the fact that within the last couple of years, that was our reality. At least, I think the only thing we probably have touched on it, but whenever we have these discussions, it just brings me back to when I was brought on as part of the research team. To now, persons may share that this is their reality, but it's sometimes easily overlooked. And that notion that you mentioned that everything is okay and racism doesn't exist, that notion actually still exists within quite a few spaces, whether sport or otherwise. And I think for us, one of the things that we try to encourage persons to do, no matter what, whether it's in our trainings and anything that we do, and we have some of these discussions, it's really sometimes just to stop and listen, just to stop and listen to the lived realities of persons that are around you. And yes, some persons may be sharing things that don't exist, but some persons are. The reality is not for us to judge or to be the arbiter, but to just step back and just to listen to what people have had to say, step back and listen and observe the settings that you're a part of. What policies are there? How are persons being marginalized or impacted by these policies. Look at the composition of your boards, your executives, your groups, look at your leadership. And just take a look at who is there and whenever, again, a policy or some sort of culture guideline is being passed or encouraged, look at who is being excluded, and look at who's being included. And at the end of the day, if you recognize that somebody is being marginalized, somebody's being harmed in any way, that's reason enough to take a moment to stop, listen, review, and make a change. So again, going back to that notion we are all human, we will always have differences in one way, shape or another, but the fact that we're all human means that we all deserve that dignity and that respect and that recollection that or sorry recognition that we matter. We're important. What we have to say and what we've had to live through or experience is valid enough for someone to listen to.

Stuart Murray  48:08  
I don't know a better way to end this particular podcast on humans on rights, talking about anti racism and sport. Craig Brown, thank you for taking time continued success in what you do. And again, I'm delighted to have spent some time with you to to learn more about what anti racism and sport the team is doing and and to get to know you a little bit personally. So thanks so very much.

Craig Brown  48:31  
Well, thank you so much for the opportunity and for the work

Matt Cundill  48:34  
that you're doing too. Thanks for listening to humans on rights. A transcript of this episode is available by clicking the link in the show notes of this episode, humans on rights is recorded and hosted by Stuart Murray, social media marketing by Buffy Davie, music by Doug Edmond. For more, go to Human Rights hub.ca. Produced and distributed by the sound off media company you.