Reflecting on Positionality and Pathways to Racial Solidarity  

By Renata Hall on August 20, 2025

My name is Renata Hall, the new Educational Consultant, Anti-Racist Teaching and Learning at CTLT! I am excited to work on new programming this year that supports anti-racist teaching, learning, and solidarity at UBC. To learn a bit more about me, check out my bio. I wanted to author this blog post to come into conversation with you about positionality and pathways to racial solidarity, two things that I am constantly holding space for in my critical reflections. As an anti-racist educator and practitioner, I am called to question, grapple with, and address my own insider/outsider status to several communities and how this informs my power and privilege to create change in many spaces through mixed methods of racial solidarity. Whether the method is focused on healing relationships and rebuilding trust between groups, freeing people from legal and social bondage and restrictions, or compensating and restituting past wrongs, reflecting on the principles of reconciliation, emancipation, and reparation allows us to think through our positionality in relation to historic and ongoing oppressions and how we can stimulate critical action that can contribute to healing, radical freedom, and ultimately, community care–recognizing that every community’s approach to justice is intimately different.  

I am a Black, Queer, female identifying, Critical Race, Black Feminist, and Hip-Hop Feminist, scholar, educator and social worker, born from Caribbean and African Immigrant parents. As an intersectional person, I have the intimate lived experience of moving through the colonial and inaccessible processes and procedures of broad society and traditional university settings and therefore have experienced unique exclusionary barriers that shape my understanding of racial justice, social justice, and anti-racist work. However, I also occupy several sites of privilege, socially and institutionally, that have provided me ease in navigating social and educational landscapes that are not afforded to others; I benefit from taking up space on stolen land to engage in the work that I do, and I have the power to stimulate change that tangibly effects the lives of racial groups that I am not a part of and whose histories and realities I am still coming to learn.   

I often ask myself, what is my place? Where do I fit in my unique approaches to racial solidarity, and is it appropriate in working with diverse communities? When and with whom should I position myself as learner, listener, and container? I would describe my “thinking through” some of these questions as: a) informed by the positionalities, lived experiences, and interests of the diverse racialized communities where interpersonal truths become sites of knowledge and action, b) responsive to sociopolitical and economic climate of current society that informs the social issues and their disproportionate effects on racial groups, c) that is rooted ongoing discussion and collaboration and, d) heavily invested in the psychological and physical safety and flourishing of many communities.

In my many years doing this work, I have come to realize that one of my biggest contributions can be to shed light on the beauty of different and culturally intimate avenues to anti-racism work while remaining rigorous in critical reflection and action, especially as I occupy the status as an outsider to many racial communities. I often explore these questions, which I would love to offer you as we round out this blog post and to carry into the new academic year as you shape your own teaching and learning goals, communities, conversations, and environments:    

Positionality Reflection Questions:  

  • Who am I? What aspects of my positionality are important to consider as I step into the classroom? 
  • How do my cultural identities impact what I value?  
  • Which of my identities are most salient for me in daily life?  

Reflective Questions on Working with Communities you are not a part of:  

  • What are the histories of struggle that inform these groups’ movements for justice and racial solidarity?  
  • What is the history of this group in relation to myself and the communities that I belong to?  
  • What is the language this group has asked us to use in discussing who they are and what they need? 
  • What names do I use when referring to this community, and where do those names come from? Am I using names and methods that they use to refer to themselves?   
  • What are some of the negative social impacts that this community faces, and what is my relationship to the historical and ongoing oppressions impacting this group? How can I work supportively to make amends and support justice and liberation for this community?   

Action-Oriented Reflection Questions:  

  • Where am I on my journey to living as an “ally”? How do I know I am engaging I critical allyship? (here’s a resource on assessing critical allyship by Alishia McCullough that I love, if you’d like to learn more: 7 Circles of Whiteness by Alishia McCullough ) 
  • How can I use my power to elevate the voices of various communities? 
  • How can I disrupt narratives or norms with knowledge that has been generously shared with me?  

With Care,  

Renata Hall 

A-RTL Program Updates:  

Coffee, Tea, Snack on Us? We have been utilizing this summer to plan how the A-RTL team can best serve the teaching and learning community in mobilizing anti-racist teaching and learning knowledge and resources. We’d love to hear from you through this survey, designed to understand the needs of the teaching and learning community to directly shape this upcoming years programming, events, and resource creation. If you complete the survey, you are automatically entered to win 1 of 3 $20.00 gift cards to LOAFE! Here’s the link: Access the A-RTL Survey Here! . 

What’s Coming Up for A-RTL: