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The @OttawaCitizen 2020 Grads feature starts with “we invited Ottawa students to share their grad fashions, photos, messages and speeches with the city.” I’m curious what this invitation looked like. How much was just sitting back relyiunng on existing networks?
Even a casual glance through the photos makes it clear that certain schools and certain demographics are over represented in the photos and write-ups that the paper chose to publish.
“But we’re not biased,” the refrain goes. “We just took the submissions we received. And anyway, there are a range of students and a variety of racial and cultural backgrounds represented.” That answer’s always been a bit of a cop out, but even more so these days...
A closer look at the feature makes it clear that this apparently passive approach to putting together this celebration of 2020 graduates simply reinforces the inequities that already exist in the ways people see the city’s (public) high schools.
Should it surprise us that there are photos from the schools most people see as the better public options? Nepean, Colonel By, Lisgar, Earl of March, etc all make appearances (sometimes more than once)
But where are the schools with the most diverse student bodies in the city, the schools that many middle class parents routinely find ways to help their children avoid? ESL sites are as good a place as any to start.
There are seven public high schools in Ottawa that have ESL programs: Adult, Brookfield, Bell, Glebe, Gloucester, Ridgemont, and Woodroffe. Of those seven, two are represented in the photo gallery: Adult and Glebe.
Is it a coincidence that the three schools that also run ESL programs for students with limited prior schooling (mostly the refugees that Canadians believe makes us such a caring and giving country) have no photos at all in the gallery?
It might be. But this is the nature of systemic exclusion. If no one is actively working to fix the problems, the problems repeat over and over again. Gloucester, Ridgemont, and Woodroffe are incredibly diverse (in every sense of the word) centres of learning.
Grads from these schools are no less deserving of publicity even if their families are not part of existing networks. Often inclusion means reaching out to individuals who society and its structures have pushed to the margins and making room for their voice, their experiences.
Media has a responsibility to represent fairly and most of the time this has to be an ACTIVE pursuit, not a passive one. Whether we like it or not, when media representation is biased or unfair or racist, it perpetuates the biases, the unfairness, the racism.
When voices, stories, and perspectives from traditionally marginalized groups are ignored, no one is forced to confront the inequality that is built into our system at every turn. Whispers among neighbours about a school get reinforced by biased reporting leading to more whispers
It gets tiring trying to keep pointing out that schools with more BIPOC students, more second language learners, more students confronting poverty are not bad or scary or to be avoided.
These schools should be embraced and the challenges that exist within their walls should be addressed head on by the system, not ignored. Success at these schools is no less worthy of celebration and attention than schools with wealthier and better connected social networks.
If change is going to come, it needs to come from all angles. Media still plays a big role in how people view the world around them. @OttawaCitizen you can do better, but so can the @OCDSB communication department. Recognize the system is rigged and a process in place to fix it!
