Multicultural diversity for Sask. Multicultural Week

Multicultural superheroes is a social media movement started by the Multicultural Council of Saskatchewan (MCoS) aimed at recognizing outstanding contributions people have made to combating racism, preserving culture and inspiring people through their work.

“It’s a great antidote,” Justin Waldrop, communications and marketing coordinator for the MCoS, told CBC Radio’s The Morning Edition on Tuesday. “It’s a great way to counter the fears and the negativity and to show people that there is a lot of hope and there is so much diversity in our province, not only culturally but in general.”

The theme was chosen due to the influx of superhero movies being churned out by Hollywood every year.

“Every time you turn, there’s a superhero movie coming out,” Waldrop said.

He took the prevalence of the genre as a chance to give recognition to people inspiring others, whether it be through activism, teaching, volunteering or any of the multitude of ways people promote diversity, Waldrop said.

“Diversity brings about innovation,” he said. “It brings about better ways of seeing things and knowing things.”

Waldrop highlighted five streams of work when it comes to multiculturalism and how people promote it: celebrating diversity, preservation of culture and cultural practices, doing anti-racism work, working on intercultural connections and helping people with cultural integration.

“There are so many different things that a superhero could be engaged in,” he said.

People can share and nominate their own multicultural superhero on social media using the hashtag #multiculturalsuperhero.

Waldrop said he prefers Twitter and Instagram as those platforms feed directly into the Multicultural Council of Saskatchewan’s website.

“By talking about multicultural superheroes, that is a very direct example and mirror reflection of multiculturalism in action.” (cbc)