On behalf of your Nova Scotia Lawyers Assistance Program (NSLAP) provider, Homewood HealthTM is pleased to provide the following newsletter “Being Anti-Racist“
“The impacts of racism on Black, Indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC) run deep. Discrimination, racial profiling, abuse at the hand of people in power, socio-economic distress, chronic stress, and poor physical health are the result of systemic racism in our culture. There also exists a racial ethnic hierarchy, or ethnic racism under the larger umbrella of racism. What does this mean exactly? Racial ethnic hierarchy means that you happily consume and perhaps even promote racist ideas about other ethnic groups while actively disputing the racist ideas about your own group.
We’ve been taught that racist ideas create racist policies and that ignorance or unawareness and hate cause racist ideas. This is simply not the case. Looking back at the long history of racism, racist ideas were created to justify the racist policies of the era by powerful intellectuals. Political, economic and cultural self-interest have been behind many racist policies in North America … Without the ability to see your racist thoughts, actions or ideas you will continue to support racist inequalities and inequities that BIPOC must deal with. To defeat systemic racism, you need to work towards equality for all races, or be antiracist. While individual people today aren’t responsible for the racist systems historically created, we all have a responsibility to break those systems down.“
If you have wellness questions, or are looking for wellness information, visit the NSLAP website at www.nslap.ca. For more information and support, along with resources and counselling on being anti-racist, register with Homewood Health™ https://homeweb.ca/. Please note that NSLAP is your “company” name when you register, and your Invitation Code is NSB931
Call in confidence, 24 hours a day: 1 866 299 1299 (within Nova Scotia) | (See the website for details about calling from outside Nova Scotia) | 1 866 398 9505 (en français) | 1 888 384 1152 (TTY).