The importance of affirming spaces: Saede’s story
Back in December, a few of our ThriveSMH students shared at School Mental Health Ontario’s Provincial Leadership Meeting (PLM). The PLM is a bi-annual meeting with school board mental health leadership teams. We asked the students on ThriveSMH to share with the audience what identity-affirming mental health means to them. In answering this question, Saede shared their bravery, excitement, and perseverance in developing an affirming space with and for Black students at their school. Here is their story.
Recording of Saede sharing their story during the meeting.
Hi everyone.
My name is Saede and this is my story.
So, late last year my family made the decision to move cities. I was pretty nervous as I would be starting a new school in my last year of high school.
Everyone knows by the last year most people already have a solid group of friends. What if no one would let me join their?
What if they did, but I’d have to change who I am to fit in? I couldn’t wear pink every Wednesday. I didn’t even own pink at the time. My thoughts were racing.
I had heard the best way to make friends was through clubs, so I joined as many intriguing clubs as possible. One of those being the Indigenous club and the other was Acceptance For All. And while these clubs were safe spaces for parts of my identity, I still felt something was missing.
For context, I had moved from a school where there were four to five Black people in one classroom, but for this new school, I was the only Black person in the class. Anxiety was rearing its head again. And I was thinking, was it because Black people were part of the majority at my old school that our energy_was reflected in its events? What would happen at this school where Black people are part of the minority? I couldn’t stand the thought of February having one assembly on the same Black heroes and the rest of the month completely disregarded… Now I didn’t know what they did for Black History Month (cuz obviously I was new), but I was not about to find out! That same night around 12 a.m. I texted one of the first Black friends I made at the school, and I asked her:
“Hey, do we have any Black teachers at the school?” She gave me a vibe. I should have guessed. My next question was do we have any white teachers that would be able to put their whiteness aside to help foster my club — A safe space for Black people and their allies. A place that doesn’t activate their hypervigilance. I wanted to create a space where ignorance could turn into intelligence that would create genuine change.
Out of the two people that came to mind, I went with the teacher that I felt the best energy from. I went to that teacher that afternoon. I watched a video on how to take rejection, wiped my brain clean and held my breath. I remember asking her so clearly because I didn’t breathe until she responded. She talked about how this school needs a club like that and how she was excited about the idea. After our conversation, I didn’t sense any subtle inclination of racism, so we set a meeting for the club that Friday!
At the meeting, she brought fancy gooey chocolate chip cookies. I almost didn’t make it because my palms were sweaty, knees were weak, and arms felt heavy. My stomach was turning, and I almost couldn’t speak loud enough for everyone to hear me. It was like there was something in my throat. The meetings afterwards were better as I grew more comfortable, but I still get a little anxious before each meeting…or maybe that’s excitement!
These days, this club is my light on dark days and the umbrella protecting me on sunny ones.
So, to answer the question I would say I want people to know that identity affirmation comes in many forms. It’s big things like having culturally diverse counselors of colour that genuinely take time to understand us or it could be everyday things like having a safe space to go where people don’t ask questions or give us looks. Or it could be smaller like trigger warnings in classrooms before teachers talk about certain subjects (personal or educational) or create alternate assignments for students who have a negative history with certain topics. Overall, it’s giving space for every student and having the space yourself to accept and use critical feedback.
I want to give a genuine and expressive thank to the people that helped me out tremendously along my journey. I want to spotlight my friend Kayanna and the librarian who runs my club Ms. McGregor.