This is a student blog dedicated to highlighting lesser told racialized contributions and experiences in the world of sports. The posts have been written by students in KNPE 397: Race, Sports, and Physical Cultures at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Comments have been disabled to provide a friendlier learning environment. Please keep in mind that there may be some inaccuracies or incorrectly referenced material.
Questions or comments can be directed to Dr. Courtney Szto, Assistant Professor, c.szto@queensu.ca.
Land Acknowledgement
This acknowledgement was written by the students in KNPE 397 during the fall of 2020:
As students of Queen’s University residing on the ancestral lands of the Algonquin, Anishinaabe, Attiwonderonk/Neutral, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Katarokwi, Mississauga, Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, and Shishalh peoples, we acknowledge that Indigenous culture has and continues to be addressed in the past tense, instead of as living contributions to a collective society. We have the responsibility to use the land around us to learn about and actively confront the historic and ongoing injustices against Indigenous Peoples. We take this opportunity to stand against the systems of oppression that have denied Indigenous Peoples their land, rights, and self-determination. We work to honor the truth and move towards greater public consciousness. We understand that we are not invited guests on this land and that our ability to inhabit these spaces came at direct costs to Indigenous communities. This acknowledgement is only a first step and a small gesture in a continuous process of responsibility and relationship building. Our learning at Queen’s University would not be possible without the stewardship provided to this land by its Indigenous Peoples. If, as Paula Gunn Allen (Native American poet, activist, professor, and novelist) writes, “The root of oppression is loss of memory,” then acknowledging the land is one way of retaining memory and fighting oppression.
Miigwetch (Algonquin), Niá:wen ki’wáhi (Mohawk), Huy ch q’u (Shishalh).
KNPE 397 