Lavie Williams
Director, Human Rights and Equity
Lavie is the director of the Human Rights and Equity Office here at Queen’s. As a proud Black women with roots hailing from the Caribbean and a deep love for community, she spent her time at university studying, thinking, critiquing, and organizing at both Queen’s University and the University of Sussex as well as in the broader communities. Her Black feminist, anti-oppressive (budding abolitionist) praxis are all part of the space she occupies in the realm of human rights, equity, community work, and life in general. Put simply, Lavie bases her work on challenging ‘neutral’ situations to fully recognize, affirm, center and most importantly, make space for those who experience marginalization and oppression. Lavie endeavours to collaborate with and empower our communities to achieve substantive change and social transformation - culturally, systemically, and interpersonally.
Acknowledging the complexity and broadness of that, she notes it is apt to recognize that racism and other ideological systems of oppression, are in a sense ‘moving targets’. This means there are no ‘one-size fits all’ approaches to deconstructing and then reconstructing our social realities. At the core of it all, world-building can only happening with the people around you. Given the centrality of relationship building and nurturing to her praxes Lavie will seldom turn down an opportunity to have a hot beverage and get to know you, your passions, and figuring out how to build together. Please never hesitate to connect with Lavie.