Red Deer's BIPOC youth hope community connections will turn harassment into acceptance
'This is my home, it’s where I’ve been living and trying to make a future'
CBC Edmonton and CBC Calgary have teamed up to launch a pop-up Red Deer bureau to help us tell your stories from central Alberta with reporter Heather Marcoux bringing you the news from Red Deer and the surrounding area. Story ideas and tips can be sent to heather.marcoux@cbc.ca.
Shameem Khan is starting her first year at Red Deer Polytechnic this September and has loved the nine years that she lived in the central Alberta community.
But this summer, she hasn't always felt welcome.
"This is my home, it's where I've been living and trying to make a future," said the 21-year-old.
In June — the same month a Muslim family was killed by a driver in London, Ont. — Khan was walking with a cousin when a man in a pickup truck "started shouting swear words and sticking up fingers while slowly threatening to come closer toward us with his truck."
Khan believes the driver was targeting her because of the way she dresses.
"When it happened, we expected it but at the same time we were kind of shocked," she said. "We've experienced racism here, but it's not super-common."
When she was younger and attending high school in Red Deer, Khan says she "used to wear jeans and just the hijab" but these days she more often wears the niqab, which covers part of her face and leaves her eyes exposed.
It's how she feels most comfortable and how she connects with her Muslim faith, she said.
She hopes people in Red Deer will accept her in her preferred clothing, and that other young people can feel secure about doing the same.
Khan chose not to report the incident to the police, saying she didn't think the complaint would lead to anything.
Red Deer RCMP told CBC News that these types of offences are taken very seriously and people are urged to report them. "While all reports may not result in an arrest, the information provided to police is valuable and can help better determine what is happening in our community," RCMP said in a statement.
It's also important to find community within a community, says Angie Cuero of the Ubuntu Youth Council, which celebrated its first anniversary this month. The organization seeks to empower youth in central Alberta, specifically those among the BIPOC community.
"I know from personal experience, that being someone who stands out here in Red Deer, Alberta, that I want to find people who are like me, who think like me, and who have experienced the same things," said Cuero.
"The Ubuntu Youth Council is a place for us to talk, it's a place for us to communicate those needs, and then find solutions to those problems," she said.
Cuero hopes that Red Deer's decision-makers will consider the perspectives of younger residents like herself and Khan when finding ways to make the community as welcoming as possible.
"Conversations about race, gender, religion — all of these conversations are conversations we are a part of, and it starts from a really young age. We are very aware of what's going on."