Windows of Empathy: Creating Mediated Spaces for Education and Dialogue

Abstract

In this article, I address the inadequacies in how we currently conceptualize spaces for dialogue and debate around issues involving race and religion. Even in a climate where many organizations now acknowledge equity, diversity, and inclusion requirements, there are still numerous challenges, particularly for racialized individuals, including those who may experience overlapping forms of oppression. Drawing on concepts such as intersectionality, muted group theory, and the public sphere, I suggest that many existing channels and approaches are especially inadequate for academics and activists who are racialized or belong to religions that are marginalized in Western societies, such as Islam. These avenues do not allow for an articulation of the complex, sometimes contradictory realities lived by these individuals, where choosing a seemingly progressive side consistently and publicly may mean disowning or disadvantaging one’s own family or community members. Ultimately, I argue both that we must reconsider the potential for education and dialogue enabled by seemingly one-way platforms, such as film and television, and that the platform is less important than the approach we bring to using it, since increasingly we must prioritize windows for empathy within any mediated spaces we employ for learning or dialogue.

1. Introduction

It is no doubt a cliché to note that the world has become increasingly polarized—but the cliché status does not make the statement less true. The 7 October 2024 attack on Israel has further exposed longstanding fault lines among individuals who would likely all see themselves as progressive and anti-racist, and yet have very different views on how peace can be achieved in the long run in Israel and Palestine. Many challenges accompany such polarization. Commentators on both sides claim routinely that they have been cancelled, or that their right to free speech is being suppressed (Peters 2024).

Mincheva and Hirji (2022) have argued previously that the right to free speech can be framed and understood differently, and that access to free speech is not available for all, at least not on equal terms. Therefore, complaints about limited ability to voice one’s belief should not all be accorded the same weight and emphasis. In this paper, I highlight the limited opportunities that some individuals, particularly those who are racialized or practitioners of certain religions, have to express their viewpoints. Platforms do exist—but what are the consequences of expressing an unpopular viewpoint on these? In the following sections, I note pressures and consequences that can range from threats to job security, to ostracization from academic or activist communities (for being insufficiently progressive or failing to vocalize a progressive position) or ostracization from one’s faith or cultural community. Within this, I re-visit the notion of public spheres and counterpublics enabled by different forms of media, and examine whether other forms of media may provide greater potential for learning, the development of empathy, and opportunities—however small—for dialogue.

Ultimately, I hope that this paper can serve as part of a larger discussion about where we might find or make spaces for genuine, complex conversations that recognize the contradictions with which racialized academics and other citizens must contend.

2. Dialogue and Difference

2.1. Teachable Moments? How and Where to Take a Stand

Different viewpoints are inevitable in any society, and the ability to express these differences can be healthy (Rad et al. 2018). However, in a politically polarized society, there are issues where adherents want everyone to declare their stance, to take a stand, and to hammer away, publicly or otherwise, at those who have a different perspective. This intense polarization is on display constantly in politics, in the press, online (Borges et al. 2024), and sometimes in academia (Wilson et al. 2020).

The war in Gaza is one example where such polarization has splintered university campuses, politicians, and the public. Academics, activists, politicians, and many citizens are being asked to choose a side, and are also faced with competing accusations of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia (Afzal-Khan 2024; Fortin 2024; Habeshian 2023; Smith 2023; Yousif 2024). Smith notes that there are opportunities for dialogue and learning as protests rage on campuses, but also depicts the ongoing tension between those who believe universities need to take a stand and those who endorse the University of Chicago’s 1967 Kalven Report (Kalven Committee 1967), which recommended that universities “stay neutral on political and social issues. Schools should be the home—and sponsor—of critics, the case goes, not the critics themselves” (Smith 2023). In the same article, one university administrator rejects the notion that universities can ever refrain from taking a stand on sensitive issues: “You can’t stand in neutrality,” she says, adding, “We’re an institution that says we’re deeply invested in inclusive community. You can’t say that and then stand on the sidelines” (Smith 2023). Using a different rationale from the Kalven Report, Harvard recently issued its own guidelines on making statements on social issues, reiterating that a university’s “core function” is to commit “itself to the values of free inquiry, intellectual expertise, and productive argument among divergent points of view,” and therefore it should not issue public statements “about public matters that do not directly affect the university’s core function” (Harvard University 2024).

Others might refrain from taking a public stand on a sensitive issue because the pressure to declare a position in a time of conflict does not always produce meaningful, lasting support. Similar to critiques of slacktivism (Noland 2019; Smith et al. 2019), there is a fleeting satisfaction in having achieved apparent unity around an issue, however temporarily, and yet longstanding, material support and change do not seem to accompany a proliferation of statements. Indeed, even with the increased focus on social and political issues, including cleavages around race, religion, and gender, citizens do not seem to have increased understanding or attempts to work together to bridge these gaps. There are additional spaces in which to speak, but seemingly almost no spaces for true, meaningful dialogue. This absence is important: one of the reasons why statements on social media often prove so inadequate is because many issues carry layers of complexity. A seemingly simple question may require a deep knowledge of decades or centuries of geopolitical realities, the ability to situate religious and cultural difference within larger frameworks of colonialism, and recognition that different forms of oppression may exist side by side. Oversimplifying such questions does not result in any victories or in any meaningful education.

Much of my work centres on the intersection of Islam and media, and, in evaluating the spaces and opportunities for Muslims to speak, I am more convinced than ever that there are no real public spheres in today’s society; not in the Habermasian (Habermas 1989) sense, where genuine debate, discussion and learning can occur. Counterpublics (Fraser 1990), in turn, which allow for counterhegemonic voices to emerge around a specific issue, seem increasingly marginalized. The Israel–Palestine conflict is frequently being depicted in simplistic terms, often reduced to opposition between religions (Afzal-Khan 2024; de Gruyter 2024; Karim 2000; Said 1997; Slyper 2024). The role of religion is undoubtedly important, but too narrow a focus on this aspect erases the role played by colonizers in and outside the region, as well as the decades of oppression and outside influence that have fanned the flames, sometimes in the form of supplying lethal weapons. Religion is only one of many issues that define this conflict, and the continued emphasis on a Jewish–Muslim divide also erases the fact that Palestinian Christians exist, and others who do not fit into neatly defined binaries. If anything, the conversations around Israel and Palestine have become increasingly polarized and insensitive to the realities faced by Muslims and Jews around the world. Not every Muslim supports Hamas; not every Jew supports settler colonialism or the Netanyahu government; every criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic, and scholars and activists must have spaces to speak openly and truthfully about the history and realities of both Israel and Palestine. In the absence of real dialogue, however, simplified beliefs and dichotomies are reified, and there is less and less recognition of the value of every life.

In India, the rise of Hindutva is not only ignored by other democratic countries but is validated by them, perhaps because the attendant effects can be neatly packaged within an ongoing discourse of internal religious strife, despite reports of state discrimination against Muslims or an increased stranglehold over media outlets that seek to report on instances of persecution and state violence (Sharma 2023; Yadav 2023; Zaffar and Thakur 2024).

2.2. Who Can Speak? Intersectionality and Marginalization

Similarly, though there seems to be an ongoing policy preoccupation across several countries with citizens who display their religious affiliation, as seen the passage of Bill 21 in Quebec, laws in India about schoolgirls who wear hijab, and burkini bans in France, there are limited opportunities for such citizens to advocate for themselves. For instance, there was instant backlash when Amira Elghawaby, Canada’s first Special Representative on Combating Islamophobia, commented on Bill 21 by offering the conclusion that Quebeckers may “be influenced by anti-Muslim sentiment” (cited in Zimonjic 2023). While politicians proclaimed their outrage and declared that Elghawaby should be fired and/or needed to apologize profusely for this comment, her conclusion seems relatively justifiable based on evidence at the time and has been steadily affirmed since then (Angus Reid Institute 2023; Boynton 2021; Mitrovica 2023; Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights 2023). Similarly, in 2017, Liberal Member of Parliament Iqra Khalid “received roughly 50,000 messages, many of them hateful and threatening” after she tabled a motion to eliminate “Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination” (Parry 2017).

Dialogue is necessary, yet the spaces we have do not allow for it. This is particularly true for individuals who occupy certain subject positions, such as Muslims, and as demonstrated by the backlash against Amira Elghawaby and Iqra Khalid, it is even more challenging if those subject positions intersect across race, religion, gender, or other different axes of identity. While Kimberlé Crenshaw’s (1989) essay on intersectionality treated the notion as a metaphor or analogy for understanding how overlapping forms of oppression function in real life situations, the topic has been studied, adapted and critiqued subsequently from many angles, as Carastathis (2014) notes. Despite the fact that the theory of intersectionality is widely known in academic circles and has “been celebrated by feminist scholars across the globe” (Bilge 2013, p. 410), Sirma Bilge (2013) argues that the distinctly political, counter-hegemonic roots of intersectionality work are not always acknowledged or highlighted in academic feminism, failing to acknowledge the different ways women of colour may engage with specific political protests and issues. Carastathis (2014), reviewing the literature around intersectionality as a research paradigm, notes also that intersectionality’s roots in Black feminism are often obscured, and the importance of attention to the key principle that multiple oppressions are experienced simultaneously: they cannot be viewed or analyzed separately.

Likewise, the Muslim scholar, activist, or policy maker inhabits multiple identities: religion, nationality, and gender, among others, cannot be disentangled from one another. In the case of being Muslim, Sherene Razack (2022) argues that the “Muslim today activates fear of an ungovernable Other … More than a phobia, and a distinct form of racism, anti-Muslim racism should be understood as a crisis of colonial governmentality” (p. 5). Li and Zhang’s (2022) critical discourse analysis of Muslim representation in American media finds many of the same themes that were first identified by Orientalists (Said 1978) and reinforced during contemporary conflicts such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (Karim 2000): “Islam is stereotyped as the unacclimatized outsider and the turmoil maker and Muslims as the negative receiver” (p. 157). For Amira Elghawaby, a hijab-wearing Muslim woman who can be seen both as the outsider and as a figure asserting a degree of state-issued power in the climate Razack describes, there may be no way to avoid precarity in public spaces. It is telling that she is a relatively moderate figure, operating within the confines of the Canadian governmental system, and yet even she cannot speak freely. Fawzia Afzal-Khan, recounting her experience as a Muslim academic in the United States, describes an ongoing effort to construct her as a radical, dangerous figure when she would speak out on political issues:

I can attest to the fact that a strange confluence of pressure built up around me in the decades after 9/11, wherein I became the “Muslim Woman” made to emblematize both the exception to the rule of Muslim fundamentalism in western academic locations, as well as to be looked at with suspicion for harboring sentiments which, because they were at odds with the US-Zionist machine of Empire, rendered me unpatriotic (hence a traitor) in the eyes of many.

(Afzal-Khan 2024)

3. Publics and Precarities

3.1. Conflict and Complexity: Living with Difference Next Door

Global conflicts have myriad implications for citizens everywhere, and yet, as noted above, current spaces for dialogue do not always allow us to address global conflicts or global issues in all of their contradictory messiness. Many internal divides must be managed for racialized academics who are engaged in their community, and yet there is little space to discuss these without sparking controversy.

The Israel–Palestine conflict is hardly the only example where there are many competing, hardened viewpoints which can be difficult to understand and acknowledge. For scholars who are also engaged in their communities and may interact regularly with other racialized communities, including new immigrants and refugees, it is very likely that we will encounter values and beliefs that are different from our own, particularly with regard to inclusion and equity, and this struggle and how to navigate it is not acknowledged fully in activist or academic circles. In my case, while I may not agree with these values or beliefs and I am careful not to endorse them, I also try not to alienate those who have different views if they already occupy a particularly vulnerable position in Canadian society. Their settlement here is often born of trauma and they are coming to a strange country under circumstances not of their choosing. To argue unreservedly that they should instantly adopt the same values held by citizens who have lived in Canada all their lives, seems to overlook the different circumstances in which they have been living, often under the shadow of repressive regimes that limit exposure to other viewpoints. A refusal to consider those circumstances, and to try and understand the context that has given rise to their points of view, evokes uncomfortable memories of a citizenship test study guide designed by the Canadian government to educate newcomers about respect for women and the country’s prohibition on “barbaric cultural practices” such as “spousal abuse, ‘honour killings,’ female genital mutilation, forced marriage or other gender-based violence” (cited in Koca 2020). While these programs ostensibly modelled diversity and inclusion for newcomers to Canada, they promoted a false narrative which continues to exist, suggesting that regressive attitudes only come from outside Canada, or outside Western countries. However, the current political landscape in North America, which includes a deeply conservative set of homegrown voters (Filipovic 2023; Megginson 2024), suggests that the progressive/regressive binary is not easily mapped against countries and cultures. Moreover, to constantly “educate” new immigrants about progressive views may break off any avenues to discussion and spur permanent alienation.

While the current media moment valorizes public shaming, call outs and cancel culture, these tendencies may have the potential for backlash and increased hostility, rather than promoting meaningful social change. A 2020 New York Times article cites students who have said “that the prospect of call outs had made them hesitant to speak up or ask questions in classes, or endlessly planning for the arguments that might ensue” (Bennett 2020), and adds that multiple students “have found that shaming can make people more resistant to change” (Crockett in (Bennett 2020)). Of course, it is important to shine a light on injustice, and there are some figures and some actions that are so egregious that cancellation or ostracism may be the only solution. But, the culture of calling out, and of cancellation, can sometimes instead shine a light on well-intentioned individuals who are perceived to have made a mistake, or it can be an insufficient solution for individuals who feel they have no choice but to continue co-existing—this is particularly true in smaller cultural or tribal communities where it is not possible to avoid those who have committed even the most egregious offences. Sometimes survival may depend on co-existence, even if cancellation or casting out is depicted as an example of strength.

The use of force or intimidation can also be portrayed as strength in our society, further demonstrating the impossibility of participating in or even enabling public spheres when participants have a pronounced power differential (Mincheva and Hirji 2022). The so-called freedom convoy is one such example of a power differential, as well as the way in which this disparity is constructed. Freedom convoy protesters and their supporters insisted that they needed to keep up the good fight or all of “our” fundamental rights will be stripped away. They dismissed suggestions that they were intimidating citizens for many weeks in places such as Canada’s capital city, or that they posed a threat to the public even though some convoy protestors at a U.S.–Canada border crossing were armed (CBC News 2023; Mehta 2022; Parent 2022). In The Next Civil War, Stephen Marche (2022) writes about a dystopian American future, where attitudes become increasingly polarized and political leaders have such confidence in state authority that they do not see the far-right army mobilizing in plain sight. This may not be so far from the future in the United States, where Donald J. Trump has a fervent following, or in Canada, where a number of citizens supported the so-called freedom convoy, and where extremist activity is much higher online than many Canadians would likely suspect (Perry et al. 2017; Perry and Scrivens 2016).

3.2. Silenced and Subordinate: Muted Group Theory

Despite the protests that conservatives are discriminated against in mainstream media and oppressed by the government, there remains a clear power differential in terms of who can speak freely and who cannot. Conservatives often have deep pocketed donors to rely upon, and for all the promise of digital technology, which allows ordinary individuals to be creators and producers, the promise remains limited when new media seem to operate on the same premise that drove the growth of old media: grow big or die (McChesney 2015). If a conservative billionaire dislikes the way someone speaks about him on a tech platform, for instance, he can simply buy the platform, as seen in Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter/X.

In many ways, then, diverse opinions are muted, particularly for those who occupy more marginal positions within their societies and workplaces because of their identities, and/or because their viewpoints might be seen as radical or as a threat to social stability or to dominant structures of power. Drawing on Shirley Ardener’s (2005) muted group theory, Kramarae (2005) “suggests that people attached or assigned to subordinate groups may have a lot to say, but they tend to have relatively little power to say it without getting into a lot of trouble,” adding that letting “go of the ‘us vs them’ mentality and all the ways we hold ourselves separate is quite a task.” Cubbage (2018), writing on the obligation that educators have to create safe spaces, agrees that some groups are historically muted, even scholars of colour in their own classrooms, who ostensibly hold positions of power.

Razack et al. (2010) document similar experiences of “academic environments characterized by fear and censorship” (p. xii), joined by Monture (2010), who notes that attaining tenure and a higher rank has not improved her ability to challenge injustice, but rather the inverse: “Now if I express my rage too loudly, I am censored, ignored, or marginalized” (p. 28). Witnessing or experiencing instances of marginalization or backlash may prompt some academics or activists to self-censor, proactively staving off harassment, dismissal, or even direct violence, as experienced by a gender studies professor and two students at the University of Waterloo in 2023 in what was described as a “crime motivated by hate” (Chaarani 2023). Those who self-censor may see it as the only practical option because they cannot adequately facilitate a meaningful discussion within the existing landscape. In an environment where students are promised learning and the ability to think critically, it is inherently contradictory that certain subjects become so taboo that we cannot even comment on and learn from them. The net that drops around academics, politicians, and others who raise controversial issues is about more than any one person: drawing from Ardener, Altamirano-Jiménez (2010) argues: “muted groups are not deficient in their capacity for language, nor are they necessarily quieter than the dominant group. Rather, the ‘mutedness’ of one group may be regarded as the ‘deafness’ of the dominant group” (p. 116).

Silenced groups can face multiple pressures. There is the challenge of conservativism—sometimes within one’s own family or friend groups, sometimes from those in power—but equally, there can be the challenge from many progressives to take a stand and to be as public about it as possible. As noted previously, when one proclaims support, these statements are sometimes empty: they may win public accolades (or at least hold criticism at bay) but they do not translate into any meaningful action. Statements can also be misinterpreted, with wide ranging results: when the model Gigi Hadid posted an infographic on Instagram “condemning the conflation of support for Palestine with antisemitism or support for Hamas,” the State of Israel’s Instagram account posted a response asking if Hadid is “just fine turning a blind eye to Jewish babies being butchered in their homes” (cited in Paul 2023). For activists who occupy much more marginal positions than celebrities like the Hadids, the benefits of solidarity to a cause may not outweigh the risks posed to their survival. Some bodies are always at risk simply for existing, as in the case of the Muslims murdered in Christchurch, New Zealand (2019), Quebec City, Canada (2017), and London, Canada (2021).

In such an environment, the prospect of meaningful engagement with one another in a public sphere made available for debate seems unlikely at best. Instead, it becomes necessary to educate and affirm identity and community through other means, and this can occur most significantly in media spaces where we do not communicate directly with one another, as strange as that may seem, but rather spaces for absorbing and learning how to see from another point of view. It is possible that these are spaces where we may reflect and engage with complexity, because the pressure to speak, to declare, to decide, to stand for something, is not omnipresent.

4. Spaces, Places, and Promises

4.1. Moving from the Margins

The following sections move away from the challenges of communicating in different fora and now interrogate the question of whether seemingly one-way forms of communication, such as television shows, offer greater possibilities for teaching and deconstructing such myths, ideologies, and histories, and fostering the expression of alternate points of view, than more traditional debates and discussions within the public sphere. Only some forms of media have such potential, and even those might be embattled, controversial, or marginal. As thinkers such as Homi Bhabha (1994) and Hamid Naficy (2001) have argued, margins can be spaces of creativity and innovation, rather than spaces of isolation and invisibility. This is arguably demonstrated in the works of many visual artists, filmmakers and actors, such as those involved in shows like Kim’s Convenience (Fecan et al. 2016–2021), ZARQA (Nawaz 2022–2024), and Ms. Marvel (Feige et al. 2022). Such shows may offer examples where margins function simultaneously as spaces of invisibility and hypervisibility. In “this landscape of heightened racial animus and intensified violence” (Razack 2022, p. 4), selected entertainment vehicles offer rare, but also contested, platforms where the subaltern can speak (Spivak 1988).

In communication studies, many scholars have debated the question of metaphorical spaces that would allow citizens to engage in real dialogue, positing possibilities for public spheres, public sphericules, counterpublics and more (Fraser 1990; Habermas 1989). I ask now whether such spaces for dialogue exist anywhere. The expansion of virtual platforms, while offering opportunities for sharing different perspectives and engaging in relatively anonymous activism, may have limited the possibilities for dialogue in some ways. On social media, for instance, Hashmi et al. (2021) note that stereotyping of Muslims persists. In Marwan Kraidy and Marina Krikorian’s take on the revolutionary public sphere as found in the Arab uprisings, they note that the technology involved only provides part of the answer to open and effective political communication: “we need to focus,” they argue, “on the myths, ideologies, and histories that inspired slogans, murals, and poems and made them socially relevant and politically potent” (Kraidy and Krikorian 2017, p. 111). Televisual and cinematic representations may offer critical education on these myths, ideologies and histories. Building on the Habermasian (Habermas 1989) notion that the state should enable spaces for dialogue but not interfere in them, these creative works may be able to provide valuable context to conversations about identity and diversity, though there is always a danger that they simply offer performances of difference, viewed within the same bubbles we form when engaging with social media.

While television, film, and books—all different forms of media—seem to offer us only representation, not interaction, they can provide us with alternative depictions and a form of education. If we can relate to compelling characters who live lives different than our own, this may prompt more openness to engagement and additional learning. Examples of such work and artists include Ms. Marvel and the work of artists such as Riz Ahmed, Lilly Singh, and Mindy Kaling. Dialogue and critique still exist in these examples, of course: there are plenty of blogs, stories, and tweets discussing whether Mindy Kaling only writes stories of self-loathing brown girls, whether Lilly Singh engages in cultural appropriation, and whether Ms. Marvel was or was not a real Marvel series. Regardless of whether or not these critiques are accurate, there are signs of hope in a production like Ms. Marvel, with the vast reach of Disney, no less, telling the story of Partition within the context of a superhero story. That depiction is not perfect, of course: many fans praised it while others felt the portrayal focused too much on colonial powers and not enough on the real politics of India (“Whitewashed and inaccurate”, (Entertainment Desk 2022)). However, it prompted critical thinking and perhaps a desire to learn more and to talk about histories that might otherwise be lost or minimized. The very nature of this divide highlights that televisual depictions of Muslims—indeed, of any racialized or religious group—often cannot capture the diversity and heterogeneity within Muslim populations (Karim 2000; Kassam 2015; Sharifi et al. 2017). There are no binaries that can be safely affirmed, and no easy ways to wrap up stories and put them to rest. However, having a variety of depictions to view may help audience members develop a better understanding of real diversity, and to walk (in a mediated sense) in the shoes of another person from a different background.

Not all popular culture has meaning, or educational potential, but some of it certainly does, and audiences are aware of this. The cultural critic Wesley Morris observes that all art has become a battleground in our most recent rendition of the culture wars, because representation and storytelling are both deeply personal and political. This leads to a constant policing and defence of entertainment, in the service of empowering marginalized groups:

A lot of this zealous police work makes sense. Groups who have been previously marginalized can now see that they don’t have to remain marginal. Spending time with work that insults or alienates them has never felt acceptable. Now they can do something about it. They’ve demanded to be taken seriously, and now that they kind of are, they can’t not act. This territory was so hard won that it must be defended at all times, at any cost. Wrongs have to be righted. They can’t affect social policy—not directly. They can, however, amend the culture. But as urgent as these correctives, cancellations, pre-emptions and proscriptions may be, they do start to take a toll.

(Morris 2018)

The reference to affecting social policy indirectly hearkens back to one of the key attributes of the public sphere as described by Habermas: the ideal(ized) public sphere is not a political space, but the discussions there may inform policy. Here, Morris seems to imply that forms of popular culture offer a starting point for such discussions, however fraught those might be.

Perhaps, then, all media depictions are dialogical in the present day, because their limitations, their achievements, and their breakthroughs are tied so irrevocably to our broader society and culture. As Morris goes on to say with slight disbelief, “Everything means too much now. Everything. Our politics, obviously. But our genders, our food, our television. Our television” (Morris 2018, italics in original). He describes the fraught experience of interacting with media such as television, in which it is impossible for a viewer to critique the quality or realism of a show if that show helps, in one way or another, to redress a history of inequitable representation. If one criticizes a seemingly unrealistic depiction by an actor who belongs to a historically underrepresented group, this criticism cuts deep: some audience members have so much invested in the success of that one actor, and that group. Their rarity means we must be protective of them—the stakes become impossibly high. Everything really does mean too much.

Then again, perhaps everything should mean too much. As Malinda Smith observes, “Storytelling is a profoundly political act,” adding, that there “is much at stake in how stories are told, by who, and whether and how they historicize, contextualize, and explain equity and existing social relations” (Smith 2010, p. 43). Elsewhere, I have written (Hirji, forthcoming) about the never-ending but tremendously meaningful efforts at identity construction and affirmation undertaken by young stars of South Asian descent: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Lilly Singh, Mindy Kaling, Iman Vellani, Riz Ahmed, and others have spoken at length about who they are and how they are influenced by their culture, and how they support positive representation and other actors of colour. They occupy public space, and they offer a strong sense of identity that provides validation to others, even if that validation is simply an acknowledgement of shared struggle. Likewise, the Canadian actor Mena Massoud, who starred in the live action version of Aladdin (Eirich and Lin 2019), has talked about the subsequent difficulty of landing significant roles as an actor of colour (Mackenzie 2024; Rugunya 2022). Similarly, while ZARQA (Nawaz 2022–2024), the streaming CBC series produced by Little Mosque on the Prairie (Darling et al. 2007–2012) creator Zarqa Nawaz, is a creative, boundary-pushing comedic work, one might wonder why her new series has to be housed online, in short episodes, rather than on TV screens in full-length episodes. Some women, some racialized individuals, seem to be pushed to the centre only for controversy or when they have fought constantly to claim a space there, while so many continue to fade back into the shadows, or in Innisian terms, the margins (cited in Kilian 2006).

Having said that, artists like Zarqa Nawaz do persevere. In the specific case of ZARQA, the messaging around racism, Islamophobia, Canadian identity and the sexuality of Muslim women has become much sharper than it was on Little Mosque on the Prairie, which tried hard to walk the line of inoffensiveness and fellowship among all. Nawaz has been a pioneer and trailblazer for other Muslim women working in the industry, given her advocacy for and success in depicting strong Muslim women (Kassam 2015). Similarly, actor Riz Ahmed has used his platform to highlight the work of other people of colour and to provide opportunities for them, partly through the Pillars Artist Fellowship (https://www.pillarsfund.org/culture-change/pillars-artist-fellowship/, accessed on 1 August 2024) that he helped to establish to champion “Muslim filmmakers whose work is disrupting tired, harmful narratives” (https://pillarsfund.org/2024/07/23/10-new-filmmakers-awarded-coveted-pillars-artist-fellowship/, accessed on 1 August 2024). Artists of colour have fought their way into these industries—closer to the centre—and whatever space they have carved out, they have used to invite in others from the margins, wanting to pass on along whatever opportunities they can.

It is not clear that the ability to speak together, to engage meaningfully and to build bridges, can really exist across the margins if there is no outreach from the centre—but many keep trying. In a review of Alexander John Watson’s 2005 book about Harold Innis, Kilian observes that Innis

saw the ‘mechanized’ media as replacing ordinary face-to-face conversation. Such conversations since Socrates had helped equip free individuals to build free societies by examining many points of view. Instead we were to be increasingly dominated by a single point of view in print and electronic media: the view of the imperial centre.

One might argue that Innis’s view here is merely dated, and certainly some marginalized figures have used electronic media to build their profiles, amass a following, and storm the halls of power. Yet, the pronouncement that our media are dominated overall by imperial power remains accurate: the forms of popular culture and artistic expression described above can never overcome imperial, centralized power completely, but they can pose a challenge to that power if they foster learning, compassion, or even a sliver of willingness to engage in conversation.

Speaking of the endurance of colonialism, and the way it permeates seemingly “respectable spaces” that are really exclusionary, raced spaces, Monture notes:

Patterns of colonialism, along with raced and/or gendered hate are continuous occurrences, sometimes even our daily experience. It is important that we continue to decode our experiences of ‘respectable spaces’ and our journeys through the racialized and gendered hate we experience in them … Sharing our stories is the only way to create an opportunity to transform these spaces into ones that respect all people.

(p. 30)

Perhaps all of these stories, all of these elements, have to come together, constantly, to try and chip away at the dominance of the centre—dialogue, debate, representation, the extension of relatable voices. Or perhaps all of this identity/work functions within too many constraints, and there is too little willingness to debate on all sides, most importantly in the centre. If the margins occupy a territory all around the centre, then surely, within all of those shadowy crevices, there can be small windows for empathy through which both sides can communicate. Establishing ways to create those windows, and then to see through them, is not straightforward. The language of equity, diversity, and inclusion work sometimes directs us to brave spaces, clarifying that there are no safe spaces (Verduzco-Baker 2018). The phrase seems to place responsibility ultimately on individuals to be the brave ones, rather than meaningfully restructuring the spaces we inhabit together, but it is the latter step that will help generate change.

4.2. Entertainment and Art as Avenues to Empathy

While I do believe in the potential of many different forms of media for fostering dialogue, in this fraught time we inhabit, I want to acknowledge the transformational potential of seemingly one-way forms of media, such as film and television. These are embedded within larger webs of discussion, debate, and dialogue, and in their format, they may have the ability to transform audiences through alternate representations and perspectives. If we return to the notion of the public sphere and how it might be realized in media such as social media, we might say that no truly public space exists anymore—so much media and tech have become privatized that it is becoming increasingly difficult to track which ones. We know, too, that even in the pre-X era, there have been issues with trolling and harassment on popular social media platforms, as noted in Thenmozhi Soundararajan’s discussion of intense online caste discrimination and her call to then-owner Jack Dorsey to “ensure that the trolls do not and will not own the virtual public sphere” (Soundararajan 2018), as well as Francisco and Felmlee’s (2022) work on the unrelenting racism and sexism experienced by women of colour online. Attempts to force individuals to engage with alternative points of view on Twitter (as it was then known) and evolve their thinking seem to have been consistently unsuccessful, increasing friction and polarization rather than reducing it (Bail 2018).

Some kinds of friction may be necessary, though, as Morris (2018) notes, and perhaps art is the place where we must be forced to inhabit other imaginative worlds. It is a delicate balance—a desire to promote art that meets different groups’ moral standards and promotes the fight for social justice can also run the risk of producing

safer art and discourse that provokes and disturbs and shocks less. It gives us culture whose artistic value has been replaced by moral judgment and leaves us with monocriticism. This might indeed be a kind of social justice. But it also robs us of what is messy and tense and chaotic and extrajudicial about art.

(Morris 2018)

Audiences need tension and challenge to learn—some media forms still continue to provide this, if we only seek them out.

5. Conclusions: Coming Together

Ultimately, scholars, artists, and activists are not operating in ivory towers. These groups, particularly those composed of racialized or religious minorities, have a deep investment in political and social issues, and actively take part in community engagement and publicize their work through all available channels, including social media. Such engagement is important and necessary, offering new venues for conveying information and perspectives that others might not have an opportunity to encounter otherwise, but can also create a sense of vulnerability, fear, and threat (Afzal-Khan 2024). The work of academics, brought into public discourse, does not always translate well to broader audiences, and particularly if the subject for discussion is one that is fraught—yet such conversations must continue. Academic work combined with the work of selected entertainment, of art, of television and film, rather than functioning separately or in opposition, may offer opportunities for dialogue or, at least, for learning to see from another perspective. However clear an issue may appear, there is often something to be learned by understanding the opposite perspective.

To promote change and learning and to go beyond lip service to equity and diversity, we need to accept some degree of discomfort and tension, while also refusing harassment and hate. On their own, our existing theories of spaces for dialogue and debate do not meet that bar, nor do our existing media platforms, but we can produce the potential for dialogue in different mediated spaces, even unlikely ones. How we come into these spaces is as important as the space itself: that approach must involve the spirit of empathy and openness, understanding that individual realities may be much more complex than they seem. Any media spaces we do employ must be approached with a willingness to understand and engage with the difficult, the complex, and the uncomfortable.