Keeping Palestine out of anti-racism: A critique of institutional equity, diversity and inclusion mandate

Drawing from examples across Canadian postsecondary institutions and school boards since October 2023 Hamas military action against Israel, we discuss how institutional Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) mandates not only failed to address anti-Palestinian racism (APR) but were effectively mobilized against Palestine solidarity actions. We focus on, first, the casting of Palestine solidarity actions as “unrelated” and “far-off” from the grounded realities of racism and settler colonialism in Canada, and secondly, the silencing of such actions through affective claims of “safety”, “wellbeing” and “harm reduction” etc. as interconnected “mechanisms of erasure”. We argue these examples of Palestine exception to anti-racism are buttressed by Canada’s long-standing “settler colonial contract” with Israel, and the state’s multicultural variety of anti-racism which normalize racism as local and specific, and remediable through liberal institutional actions. Race and racism, thus, are abstracted from their foundations and investments in global imperialism, raising concerns about the prospects of transnational solidarity, and generally about anti-racist futures.