MEDIA ADVISORY — Asian-Canadians for Black Lives

Asian-Canadians write to their families stating Black Lives Matter

Canada — Letters For Black Lives: An Open Letter Project on Anti-Blackness Online Press Conference.

WHAT: Launch of Letter for Black Lives Canada — in 14+ languages
WHEN: 11am, Tuesday, July 19, 2016

WHERE: Online on Slack (a team communication platform which is off the record, except for the channel #on-the-record-canada which is on the record, that you may join). Join: http://join.lettersforblacklives.com Please review the Code of Conduct for the Letters for Black Lives Slack group when joining

The recent killings of two Black men Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, by Police in the United States have prompted protests, think pieces, history lessons and lectures across the U.S. and Canada. But for some Asian Americans and Asian Canadians, the strongest urge in recent days has been to utter these four words to their parents: “We need to talk.”

On July 7, a letter began with an Asian American millennial writing to her parents about the impact of Anti-Black racism. Within just a few hours, it had transformed into a crowdsourced open letter, with hundreds of people participating in its creation.

Following the successful U.S. launch of Letters for Black Lives — An Open Project for Anti-Blackness, Canadians of Asian descent came together to interpret the US version of the letter for the Canadian context.

Letters for Black Lives Canada intends to be a set of multilingual and culturally-aware resources for Asian-Canadians who want to talk to their immigrant parents and relatives about anti-Blackness in their own communities. The joint project involves translations of the letter into 14 languages and counting — all made possible through the efforts of volunteer translators — and will be launched on Tuesday, July 19th, 2016. While the first letter is by no means comprehensive, it’s a first step towards what its authors hope will be greater inter-generational dialogue and understanding about race relations and police violence in modern Canada and America.

Copies of the letter will be available in the following languages: Japanese, Korean, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Chinese (traditional & simplified Cantonese), French (Asian focus), Hindi, Farsi, Punjabi, Tamil, Urdu, Spanish (Asian focus), Arabic, Bengali, on the morning of the launch.

You may find a copy of the Canadian version of the letter in English here.

Please email lettersforblacklivescanada@gmail.com to arrange media interviews.