Interview by Anh Nguyen with questions drafted by Angela Li
Read the full interview transcript from our interview with Generation Now on our Medium page (linked in the Carrd in our Instagram bio). We had incredibly thought-provoking conversations about Black Lives Matter, intersectionality, and more.
Q: Let’s begin with a little introduction- Sophia Krause & Keneeshah Kwaramba - either of you can get started first.
Keneeshah: My name’s Keneeshah, I’m 16 years old, and I have lived and grown up in southern Ontario for the whole of my life. I’m really interested in political awareness and social justice. I also have a passion for healthcare and STEM, and I’d love to pursue a career there. GenNow is one of my [current] passions, especially getting our team together and doing something for the youth of today and beyond.
Sophia: I’m Sophia, I am also 16, and I’m from southern Ontario. My passions also include politics. I really love political science, that’s what I hope to study, and I hope to pursue a career in the federal government of Canada, in either law or Indigenous reconciliation. I’m also really passionate about our organization. I love writing [and] I love creating works that are inspiring and helpful.
Q: For the readers out there who don’t know about Generation Now, can you briefly talk about your organization’s mission and the three pillars that your organization’s work surrounds?
Keneeshah: Generation Now is an organization for the youth of today, tomorrow, and beyond. I think our organization’s not just based for Generation Z and the generation that we have today, but it’s more of a constant: informing youth [and] bringing them towards the frontlines. Our three pillars are health and human rights, the environment, and the world around us. Those three pillars are sort of like a moral code for us. For us, with social awareness, I think, as a leader, not just in a CEO position or in a company position, just being socially aware is a good mindset to have for any leader in whatever they do.
Sophia: Like Keneeshah said, our three pillars, Human Rights and Health, The Environment, and The World Around Us are kind of our moral standards. It’s what we always want to be educating and informing on. We always want to make sure that what we’re doing aligns with those three pillars.
Q: In June in Review, you touched upon George Floyd, and recently, on the 23rd [of August, Jacob S. Blake became a victim of police brutality]. How would you say that Gen Now wants to go about spreading awareness about Black Lives Matter and addressing what has happened recently?
Keneeshah: Me and Sophia have definitely had so many conversations where we’ve sat down and asked, how do we address another life that has been taken? There are so many people - Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and so many more people that I kind of struggled [with] how do we put out this information without tainting it to another “victim story”. Like, how do we spread it to another point of awareness where we’re talking about what has been done, what systems are the actual problem, [and] what can we do for more action? Instead of, of course mourning and grieving is what we need sometimes, but also in the place that we are right now, I think everyone’s trying to search for some change somewhere. I’ll let Sophia talk because she did write the article, which was well done.
Sophia: Thank you. Like Keneeshah said, we’ve definitely been reflecting recently on how to go about covering these recurring tragedies. We don’t want to release victim story after victim story, so it’s this really delicate balance of honoring these people whose lives were taken from them too soon and also trying not to overwhelm people with tragedy after tragedy. We’ve been speaking recently with our writers as well- like, how do we cover these issues and the response from the media, what this means for this town or this state, province, country, whatever. It’s really been a learning experience on how do we talk about these people, how do we honor their lives, and how do we help people understand that this is a recurring theme, and that there are going to be patterns in how people react, and how you react, how you share information- if you’re sharing videos that you have to put a content warning over- is that helpful? We’ve really been talking about --- learning how to cover these issues with grace and with respect. I think that’s what we’re trying to do moving forward.
Keneeshah: And also not to desensitize people, because I think that’s a lot of what’s happening. I saw an instagram post, where it’s like, Black people dying on camera is not normal. It shouldn’t be normal. I think getting that to people and learning that this shouldn’t be happening and how do we make this not desensitized where we just say, “Oh it’s just another day.”
Anh: I definitely agree with that, and I really admire and value the amount of thought that you put into your approaches to addressing Black Lives Matter and the recent events. I think it’s really important that there are people in our generation and people out there in the world that really do take these matters and really reflect on them a lot before turning those thoughts into actions.
Sophia: Yeah, I think that’s another thing we’ve been struggling with; we’ve had this conversation with our team a lot: how do we stay relevant, how do we post news as it happens while also providing enough respect to the situation? So, it’s been difficult, but I think that it’s a conversation that is important that we keep having.
Q: The Black Lives Matter movement has revealed America’s deeply rooted, institutional racism to the rest of the world. However, systemic racism is not limited to the United States itself. As high school students in Ontario, can you speak more on institutional racism in Canada?
Sophia: Canada has kind of created a name for itself in being this perfect, beautiful mosaic of loving and accepting everyone of every race, religion, creed (look how many refugees we accepted in 2015) and it’s great on the surface that that is the image our government presents, the image that the people represent, but when you really look into it, Canada is built on the very institutionalized racism as America was. We were a British colony before we became an independent country, and in the name of Christianity, there was a mass Indigenous genocide that lasted over 100 years of sending Indigenous people to residential schools, stripping them of their culture, of their religion, of their identity, and trying to assimilate them into Eurocentric culture. Along with racism against Indigenous people, with the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people in Canada, there is institutionalized racism against Black people, in towns like Africville, and just yesterday, in Toronto, there was a protest in Little Jamaica, and one man who was protesting was in distress and there were four or five police officers who assaulted him to the ground, and it doesn’t get media coverage because Canada’s always trying to save face and go, “Look how much better than America we are.”
Keneeshah: During the period where we were just about to start with the Black Lives Matter movement and our organization, I think I wanted to delve deep into what’s happening and how has it affected us as Canadians, which I think, as a Canadian, it’s kind of a hard balance to have where you are kind of separate as a Canadian, but you’re so connected to American culture, where everything that happens there is kind of like a reflection of what’s happening here sometimes. Sometimes we forget that we are a separate nation, and we have our own problems here and separate situations that have happened. I created a post just for my personal instagram just to share with people that I know, but I realized that the education has been so tainted to think that we were the “white saviours,” we helped them escape from slavery to Canada, but there was slavery in Canada, there was segregation in Canada, there were places where we couldn’t go or, you know, there’s so many things that were just not detailed in history books that I never was able to see from my education where - there was not an acknowledgement of the tragedies that have happened and the people that have had to pick up the pieces and start a whole new life. I think that the research that I have done in those parts is - it’s important to know that Canada has their separate issues from America.
Anh: I think that people forget that, and then they absentmindedly say, “Let’s just go to Canada!”
[We all burst into laughter at this thought.]
Keneeshah: I know that no country or nation is ever perfect, but I think that as a country to acknowledge these things and to want to make a better change and start somewhere is where things need to begin.
Anh: I think that’s really important. The language, sometimes, that people who are critical of the Black Lives Matter movement and everything else is like, “Why don’t you just leave the country?” I’ve had this argument with people before, and the thing is, if I leave, there’s going to be more problems in a different country. Especially with my background, personally, I have Vietnamese refugees as parents, so whether it’s our parents or our ancestors or others, they moved to either America or Canada for a reason, so we can’t just up and leave. We can’t just leave the problems. You can’t run away from those. I think that’s what, again, Gen Z is all about. We’re all about tackling those and making sure that we make lasting change.
Keneeshah: Definitely. As a child who has immigrant parents and my brother who came from another country, it’s kind of hard to hear people say, “Why don’t you just go back?” when they colonized our country, they changed it for the worse and there’s nothing left to go back to. I think people just take slavery as, “Okay, it was taken and put to America or Canada,” but they don’t realize that we had slavery in our countries where we were used against each other, and we were segregated in our own country, and there were so many effects of slavery that haven’t been talked about enough, where our resources and so much other stuff was taken. I feel like when people say just to go back, I couldn’t do that personally as I would be giving them all that they wanted - that I would not be able to thrive in this place.
Q: Are there any topics that GenNow would like to focus on? Are there any future projects that you are willing to share just a little bit about? What aspects of advocacy would you like to focus on now and in the future?
Keneeshah: We have so many good topics and points that our writers have brought up to us that we’d love to publish. One that we’re talking about recently is about ICE detainments and how that has effects, Oregon, where one of our writers is from, and the rest of the U.S. We also were talking about how community service has affected the school system and why they encourage it, how the school system was built, and all those sorts of things. For projects, we would love to expand more on mentorship and empowerment, we’ve set up some takeovers on our account from inspiring youth who are doing great things from loss to success to building their own selves and personal growth, I think that that’s amazing to see. Just putting that on our platform and showing other youth that you don’t have to do this essentially, but this is how growth is, and this is how you can project yourself in this world, or just empower them to do better, want to have more for their life. I know many times I’ve seen many people on other takeovers, and I’ve kind of had to look back and reflect on and be like, “Wow, these people are doing so much great stuff” where it hasn’t put me to the point where I want to do the same as them, but I’ve been empowered and it’s put something in me to do something.
Sophia: Just going off of what Keneeshah said, we also really want to strive to have more connection between our team and all of our platforms, so we’ve been brainstorming ideas for webinars or presentations on going beyond social media in your advocacy, like making tangible change where we can. Everything is very abstract right now. Our team is still young, we’re getting a lot of ideas out on the table, but I think we’re going to stay the course and see what happens
Keneeshah: I think we strive for an emphasis on personal leadership in addition to leadership in the world that’s around you. Being aware of the issues that we put out has been a great asset to leadership in your own life and growth. Being aware of so many things in the past six months has helped me grow in so many ways that I couldn’t even imagine. And, you can’t be a leader for others if you’re not a leader in your own life that you want to take charge in.
Anh: I really look forward to seeing your work, and I’m so glad that I got to meet such lovely people, thanks to my [amazing] outreach coordinator [Han Mai] who reached out to y'all to schedule this interview. This was a really great conversation. I really enjoy talking to new people, especially people who have -- I mean, you guys founded this yourselves, and so I think it’s really admirable. I can’t wait to see what you guys do in the future. Our organization will definitely be keeping up with y’all. Thank you so much for doing this interview with me!
Keneeshah: Thank you for talking to us! It’s been great having a conversation and putting our thoughts and ideas and having someone else to bounce those thoughts back at.
Sophia: Yeah, it’s been a really great conversation. It was so nice to meet you!
Thank you so much to Sophia Krause and Keneeshah Kwaramba for agreeing to this interview. If you would like to check out their work, go to https://www.wearegenerationnow.org.
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