Hi, my name is Kai and I listened to a presentation by an expert on equity and anti-oppression here are some of my thoughts. While inequity and oppression have diminished over the last 50 years, they are still evident today.

I witness inequity and oppression among youth, and I am strongly against it. There are many people that do not experience equity but I’m going to briefly focus on youth and indigenous peoples.

If you are unaware of what equity is, it is different than equality. Equality is giving everyone the same treatment. For example (gesturing to visual depiction), these three people will try to watch the baseball game, and they’re all given the same size box to look over the fence. This person still wouldn’t be able to watch the game.

On the other hand, equity is giving people appropriate treatment based on their personal needs. As you can see here, the shortest person gets the most boxes, and now they all can happily watch the baseball game.

I see people jokingly acting homophobic, racist, and discriminatory and find it disturbing. As a person with indigenous heritage, I believe that we need to continue to strive to help indigenous communities fully recover from the effects of residential schools. In addition, we need to continue to make space for indigenous people in all aspects of society so that we can eventually eliminate the effects of oppression and find equity in all levels of society.

Obviously, there are plenty aspects of society that we need to improve to find equity. Two things that come to mind: I believe that more programs that give indigenous people easier access to well paying jobs and education programs would be a step on the right path. As well as educating youth about how harmful discriminatory comments (even if they are jokes) would be very good.

As youth, we are the future, and we can start to shape the world how we want.I invite you to be part of the change.