Dreamkeepers’ Citation to Ketcia Peters For Outstanding Leadership
Monday 17 January 2022
For focusing on anti-racism and anti-oppression in your active public engagement, championing equity and inclusion
For developing conflict resolution programs that are helpful in resolving tensions between police and diverse communities
For your trauma-informed and skilled communication within marginalized and racialized communities that aids their cultural transformation
For heightening awareness of policing and justice problems as the former Community Co-Chair of the Ottawa Community Police Action Committee
For your leadership that was instrumental in restructuring that committee into the new Ottawa Police Community Equity Council
A grateful Ottawa salutes you.
Ketcia’s acceptance speech
Hemingway said that “the best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them”.
There’s no hardest thing, though. In all my life, I’ve never been 100% sure I could’ve trusted someone, at first.
But then again: one must trust to know if one can trust.
That’s, essentially, what leadership is forged on: trust.
The ones who trusted me all along.
That’s why I’m beginning this speech with these words. Because it doesn’t exist a true leader that does it alone, that change things with none around.
Thank you, so. Thank you for your work, for your time, for your energy. Thank you for the sweat and emotions, and constant participation moving along this legacy that is the fight for justice.
The ever right and ever noble battle we power through each and every day to make our society a better place.
All my ideas, all my projects, all the things I’ve done, I’ve done with your help. Because I’ve trusted you, and you helped me and gave me strength.
I want to thank some others, also.
DreemKEEPERS for this award, to begin with.
Then I want to thank the allies who toil alongside our communities in the struggles we still live in.
Thanks to the communities themselves. They must solve a problem or must face a crisis pretty much every other day.
It’s kinda like a mom, a community.
Constantly preoccupied, harsh sometimes but always on our side whatever happens to us.
Dr King, you continue to be an example for us up to these days from the beyond. I feel the need to thank you!
And last but certainly not least, thank you to George Floyd because he was the catalyst the world needed to open its eyes. Your sacrifice, which should’ve never happened, will not be in vain.
It was the wake-up call to start, once again, to be ever more vocal and raise our voices even louder.
It meant so much for us black, all over the world. And we cannot, we WILL NOT, let this death be washed away by time and be forgotten.
George, you trickled a wave that shall never be stopped.
You gave us, all of us, a renewed will to progress towards a truly equal and fair society.
Ladies, gents and non-binary friends, it is the time to speak the truth and be authentic. With ourselves and with society at large.
It is the time, our time, to make change happen. With that restored courage and that passion within us that George Floyd rekindled.
To build a culture in which we can all fit in. Where we can ask and collaborate altogether to shape new, healthy, better places. Both physical and metaphoric ones. Industries, schools, organisations, political parties, shops, neighbourhoods, banks, workplaces. And so on, and so on, and so on.
The list of these places could be pages long.
Places where equality and the dignity of someone are not yet respected in full.
Places for which we cannot yet feel fulfilled, respected and that need us to make something evolve. Places that still need us to scream and shout, using the words of Dr King himself, that “no, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream”.
And for this, for making all of it, we will need to trust somebody.
To make change happen, we will need to ask and ask and continuously ask until someone hear us.
And once they have heard us, and once we trust them, we will ask again and then again, together. And we will labour together, and we will unite because no one, not even leaders, can alter things on their own.
We all need as many allies and comrades as we can find.
I, I started this speech by thanking the ones I trust. ‘Cause, they’re the reason I’m here today.
Without them, I don’t think I can honestly say I would have done the few things I managed to do.
They were there for me.
They supported me.
They’ve asked me.
They demanded to be heard.
They trusted me as I trusted them.
I’m proud, truly, to receive this plaque, because it doesn’t and won’t represent my greatness as a leader or whatever. No.
It represents the fact that I trusted so many great, true, amazing people.
Every time I’d walk past it, it’ll always remind me of them.
I feel honoured to have known so many who I trust.
And it’s a privilege to know that so many of you trust me.
I will always continue on our battle, with you on my side.