Disturb the Establishment (DTE), a social platform that educates and engages with students on social justice and human rights issues, launched its first event of an eight-part series entitled DTETalks: Summer Series on June 2.
The virtual educational discussions are open to the public, featuring social justice topics such as Indigenous resistance, climate justice, international human rights and racial equity, among others.
The platform was initially launched as a passion project in December 2020 by Avery McQuirter, a fourth-year global and international studies student at Carleton. Now, the platform has nearly 1,500 Instagram followers, as well as a DTE blog and website.
McQuirter was inspired to start DTE after attending the climate change webinar Paris to Glasgow: From Knowledge to Action, which featured environmental activists David Suzuki, Margaret Atwood and Sheila Watt-Cloutier.
“I had eco-anxiety and was anxious about climate change, plus I was anxious about COVID-19,” McQuirter said. “I wanted to do something to make me feel better with my anxiety.”
“The name ‘Disturb the Establishment’ comes from fighting the system and reflected how I was angry at the government for not doing stuff about COVID-19 or climate action,” she said.
McQuirter is specializing in global inequalities and social change at Carleton and credits her university courses for the creation of DTE.
“My sociology classes made me more aware of the systems that are created to oppress people, so that played a huge part in starting DTE,” she said.
The DTE website has a resources page that includes links to academic articles, donation drives and action tasks to help students further their understanding of social justice issues.
Anne Biason, a third-year global and international studies student at Carleton, follows DTE on Instagram.
“DTE is really good at posting what their sources are. They tend to give a good overview in their informational posts so you can get a general idea about the issue and then move on to doing your own research about it,” Biason said.
The series aims to increase engagement by generating conversation on social justice issues outside the comment sections of their Instagram posts.
Brandi Hale, DTE’s co-lead and content creator, is a third-year women and gender studies and human rights and social justice student at Carleton. She said these talks are focused on encouraging two-way conversations.
“As much as we love creating our informational posts, ideally social justice discourse is more of a conversation in which everyone is both a teacher and a student because everyone has an opinion to share,” Hale said.
Most of the topics for these bi-weekly events have been covered briefly on DTE’s Instagram. In an effort to incentivize larger conversations, DTETalks will have guest speakers with a special interest or expertise on each social justice issue.
Celine Debassige, the guest speaker for the June 16 talk on Indigenous resistance, is an Ojibwe and Dene Indigenous activist who spoke at a panel discussion on Indigenous activism for Women’s March Ottawa.
Debassige said for her DTETalk, she wants to discuss the hardships faced by Indigenous peoples in the past and present.
“The main takeaway I want people to have is that we all have a role to play in this revolution. It’s about being on the right side of history because at this point in our timeline, there is no fine line between right and wrong,” Debassige said.
“Just being able to understand that we can truly attain and achieve peace and awareness is something my ancestors really deserved and wished for us to have,” she said.
Representatives from Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP Carleton), a social justice initiative at Carleton that aims to promote awareness of Palestinian issues, will speak at the July 28 talk about international human rights.
Karim Hasan, a fourth-year political science student and director of affairs at SJP Carleton, said a lack of knowledge and awareness about social justice issues is a problem within the Carleton community. He said he believes Carleton’s social justice groups can work together to solve this problem.
“What’s beautiful about DTE is that it’s a network that focuses on a lot of social issues. Having that network is important because they can connect with other social justice movements, like SJP Carleton, which will bring attention to them,” Hasan said.
As for DTE’s long-term goals, McQuirter said she hopes to ensure followers are continuously exposed to a variety of social justice issues.
“We want to continue focusing on the educational aspect because while people can be experts in one field, I think being a well-rounded activist in many social issues is also a great way to help your cause,” she said.
Featured image by Tory Whitworth.
