The Room Where It Happens: When Insecurity Masquerades as Justice

A reflection on generational tension, performative knowledge, and the courage it takes to admit you don’t know.

I’ve been sitting with something for a long time. And I’ve finally found the words to write it down.

I’m also sharing an Instagram post by Bebe Montoya alongside this blog which, along with a recent episode of my podcast Auntea-Ology (Seed Room Consulting), inspired me to finally write this out.

If you’re reading this here, I’d encourage you to go look at the Instagram post — the images in that post capture something I’ve been trying to articulate for a while — and listen to the podcast episode.

Go take a look and listen. I’ll wait.

The first image in the Instagram post says:

“Cancel culture gives people justification for bullying and harassment and it needs to stop.”

The second:

“People use holier-than-thou leftwing identitarianism to justify their bullying, harassment and stalking. All bullies and stalkers tell themselves their actions are justified. They have some story about why the target of their aggression deserves what is happening to them. This story is never true. No one deserves to be bullied, stalked or harassed.”

The third:

“Cancel culture encourages people to use individuals as scapegoats for rage that should be directed toward systems. It relies on essentialized views of race & gender to do so. For example, the idea that all individuals are subconsciously a microcosm of white supremacy, colonization and patriarchy. Which leads people to take out their rage at these real systemic issues on individuals in a completely inappropriate, abusive way.”

And the fourth:

“I don’t care about the identity categories of those involved — no one deserves to be stalked, bullied, and harassed. End of sentence.”

Those words hit me like a punch to the chest when I first read them because they named something I had lived through. Twice.

This is that story.

The First Group: The Bullying of Exclusion

When I was Director of EDI and Human Rights at UPEI, I had a team of four.

Three were younger – in their 20s, bright, and racialized. The fourth was in their 30s and white.

The fourth staff member was, quite simply, brilliant. Humble. Kind. Generous. They were the type of person who, if they saw something wrong, or heard someone saying something inappropriate, or noticed a gap in someone’s knowledge, they would speak up. Not to show off. Not to dominate. They spoke up because they genuinely believed it was the right thing to do. To share knowledge. To help the team succeed.

But the other three didn’t see it that way.

Every time this person shared their expertise, the others felt “shown up.” They interpreted generosity as an attack. They projected their own internal voice – the voice that whispers you don’t know enough, you aren’t qualified – onto this colleague.

And it turned into bullying. Not the loud, aggressive kind. The insidious kind. Bullying through exclusion.

“They have some story about why the target of their aggression deserves what is happening to them. This story is never true.”

This is what I watched happen. They had constructed a story. The knowledgeable white staff member was, in their minds, a manifestation of everything wrong with the system. Their expertise wasn’t expertise, it was weaponized privilege. Their willingness to share wasn’t generosity, it was performative dominance.

And once you’ve convinced yourself of that story, anything is justified. Exclusion. Ostracism. The slow, grinding death of a colleague’s morale.

I tried everything. I brought in outside facilitators. I tried to mediate conversations. I tried to help them see that the problem wasn’t the fourth staff member’s knowledge; it was their own insecurity about their lack of it. But they were fully convinced of their own positionality. They believed they were right, and that I was being complicit in some kind of harm by not punishing the knowledgeable person.

Eventually, they turned on me. Because I wouldn’t take their side. Because I refused to label a good person as a villain just to make them feel better.

Eventually, they all left in some capacity or another.

I carried that failure with me. I replayed it over and over, wondering what I could have done differently. Wondering if I had failed them.

The Second Group: The Echo of the Voice

Those younger staff in their 20s reminded me so much of myself at that age. They were smart. Capable. Driven. Passionate. But they were also terrified of being exposed as frauds. Too afraid to admit what they didn’t know. Too afraid to ask questions.

I watched them interact with the fourth staff member who had done the reading – someone who could speak fluently about theory and practice. And instead of asking questions, instead of being curious, they got defensive. They assumed this person was trying to show them up. To make them look small.

I tried to intervene gently. I told them: “It’s okay not to know. You don’t have to have all the answers. You just have to be willing to learn.”

When they first started, I would explicitly say: “Take your time reading and learning. Build your foundation. There is no rush.”

But they weren’t ready to hear it.

Especially from one staff member. The pushback was intense. The backlash landed on me because I refused to condemn the knowledgeable person. I refused to pretend that the person sharing information was being malicious just to placate someone else’s ego.

It was hard. Because I recognized that voice. The defensive panic. The fear that if I admit I don’t know something, I’ll be seen as incompetent.

I knew that voice intimately. I had lived with it.

And I knew the truth that comes with age: Until you are ready to name that voice, until you are ready to say “I don’t know, teach me,” that voice will keep you small.

It will keep you defensive. It will keep you from learning. It will rob you of the generosity of others.

The Hardest Part: When It Turns on You

I want to be honest about something.

I am not charitable toward those three staff members. I don’t feel a warm sense of understanding. I don’t look back with compassion for their struggle.

I see what they did. And I think less of them for it.

One of them quit her job and then called my boss to complain about me and my leadership. She didn’t come to me. She didn’t raise her concerns directly. She went over my head, after she had already left, to try to damage my reputation.

That wasn’t insecurity. That wasn’t a cry for help. That was an attempt to harm me because I refused to validate her version of events, because I refused to pretend that the knowledgeable staff member was the villain she needed them to be.

And here’s the part I haven’t talked about publicly before: that complaint triggered an internal investigation. The results of that investigation were used as an excuse to fire me.

But here’s what makes it even more twisted. In March 2025, months before I was fired, my then-boss hired an executive coach for me. Her job was to help me manage the workplace tension and, more importantly, to help me implement the recommendations of the workplace investigation that was underway. I believed this to be a sign of the university’s investment in my growth and development. I was told they wanted to support me.

Two workdays after we received the assessment recommendations, I was fired.

Let that sink in. They invested in my growth, told me they wanted to help me improve, gave me the recommendations to implement – and then, two days later, used that very assessment as the reason to fire me.

It was never about my leadership. It was never about the workplace culture. The assessment was just an excuse. They had already decided they wanted me gone. The complaint from the staff member gave them a reason. The assessment gave them cover. And the coach – the investment in my “growth” – was just theatre.

I honestly believe the staff member who complained wanted me fired. And she got what she wanted. But she couldn’t have done it without an institution that was already looking for an excuse to remove me – because I was Muslim, because I was anti-Zionist, because I refused to be silent about Palestine.

“All bullies and stalkers tell themselves their actions are justified. They have some story about why the target of their aggression deserves what is happening to them. This story is never true.”

She had her story. In her version, I was the problem. My leadership was the problem. The knowledgeable staff member was the problem. Everyone was the problem except her and the colleagues who had joined her in excluding someone.

But the story wasn’t true. It was a story she told herself to avoid looking at the one thing she couldn’t bear to see: her own insecurity. Her own gaps in knowledge. Her own unwillingness to learn.

And when I wouldn’t cosign that story, she used the institution itself to try to destroy me.

That hurt. I’m not going to pretend it didn’t. And I’m not going to pretend I feel any generosity toward her for it.

What I Learned After

Here’s the thing I didn’t fully understand at the time: what I witnessed was only part of the story. The exclusion I saw, the tension, the bullying through ostracism, that was the visible surface.

Since then, I’ve learned that what was happening to that staff member was far worse than I knew. There was surveillance. There were smear campaigns. There was maliciousness outside the workplace. People they trusted were recruited into the campaign against them. The coordinated nature of it went far beyond what I observed in the office.

I’m not going to share the specifics here – that’s not my story to tell. But I want to acknowledge it. Because when I look back, I realize that the dynamic I was trying to mediate was not just insecurity run amok. It was something more calculated. More harmful. And the people doing it knew exactly what they were doing.

That knowledge has changed how I see what happened. It’s deepened my anger. It’s also deepened my resolve to never pretend that identity-based justification makes cruelty acceptable.

One More Thing

I’ve written previously about the institutional anti-Muslim racism that shaped my firing – the complaints about my social media posts, the framing of my anti-Zionism as “bias,” the way the university used a workplace assessment as cover to remove me. That part of the story is important, and it’s public.

But this post isn’t about that. This post is about the workplace dynamic that gave the institution the excuse it needed. It’s about the staff member who complained about me; who went over my head after she’d already left, who triggered an investigation, who got what she wanted.

She wanted me fired. And she got what she wanted.

But she couldn’t have done it without an institution that was already looking for a reason to get rid of me. The complaint was the tool. The executive coach was the theatre. The assessment was the cover. And the anti-Muslim racism was the reason.

I was the casualty.

I’m not writing this for sympathy. I am actually grateful that I am not in that toxic space. I’m writing it because we need to be able to name what’s happening in our spaces – the way that insecurity, identity politics, and institutional racism can converge to destroy people.

The Bigger Picture: Scapegoating Individuals for Systemic Rage

“Cancel culture encourages people to use individuals as scapegoats for rage that should be directed toward systems.”

This is the part that haunts me.

Because the rage is real. The systemic issues are real. White supremacy, colonization, patriarchy – these are not abstractions. They cause measurable harm. They demand action. They deserve our anger.

But that anger is being weaponized against the wrong targets. Individuals are being used as proxies for systems. And when you reduce a person to a symbol – when you treat them as a walking embodiment of oppression rather than a complex human being – you give yourself permission to treat them with cruelty.

“It relies on essentialized views of race & gender to do so. For example, the idea that all individuals are subconsciously a microcosm of white supremacy, colonization and patriarchy. Which leads people to take out their rage at these real systemic issues on individuals in a completely inappropriate, abusive way.”

I saw this happen. I lost my job because of it. I saw my own and someone else’s mental health be harmed because of it. And since then, I’ve learned it was even worse than I realized at the time.

That is not justice. That is scapegoating dressed up in activist language. And it has real consequences.

A Hard Truth We Don’t Talk About Enough

Here is the part of this conversation that makes people uncomfortable.

In EDI spaces, we are trained to look for systemic power dynamics. We are trained to center the marginalized. But what happens when the marginalized person is also the bully? What happens when the “oppressor” in the room is actually the one being targeted?

We don’t have good language for that. It’s messy. It’s uncomfortable. It doesn’t fit neatly into our frameworks of power and privilege.

We have frameworks for understanding how a white person can harm a person of color. We have frameworks for understanding how a cis person can harm a trans person. We have frameworks for understanding how a man can harm a woman.

But what framework do we have for understanding how three younger racialized staff can systematically exclude, ostracize, and destroy the morale of a white colleague who has only ever been kind to them?

And what framework do we have for understanding when that same group turns on the person who refused to take their side – and gets that person fired?

We don’t have one. So we pretend it doesn’t happen. Or we bend ourselves into pretzels trying to find the systemic justification for the harm.

But here is the thing, from that Instagram post:

“I don’t care about the identity categories of those involved — no one deserves to be stalked, bullied, and harassed. End of sentence.”

This is the line in the sand.

I am not saying that power dynamics don’t exist. I am not saying that racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression aren’t real. They are. They shape everything.

But they do not justify cruelty. They do not justify bullying. They do not justify using someone as a scapegoat for your own rage, your own insecurity, or your own feelings of inadequacy.

And they certainly don’t justify surveillance, smear campaigns, or using an internal investigation to destroy someone’s career.

No identity category – yours or theirs – makes bullying acceptable.

End of sentence.

What I Wish I Could Tell Them

If I could speak directly to those three staff members – the ones who bullied a colleague, who turned on me, who left, who got me fired – I would say this:

I know what it feels like to sit in a meeting and feel like everyone else knows more than you do. I know the panic that rises in your chest when someone uses a term you don’t understand.

But here is the thing: Your worth is not in what you know. Your worth is in your willingness to learn.

That person who shares their knowledge? They weren’t your enemy. They were your resource. When you pushed them away, you weren’t protecting yourself – you were cutting yourself off from the very thing you needed.

And when you turned on me because I wouldn’t protect you from your own insecurity? You weren’t fighting injustice. You were fighting a mirror.

And when you used the institution to destroy me because I wouldn’t lie for you?

That wasn’t activism. That was just cruelty. And I won’t pretend it was anything else.

What I Learned

I learned that you cannot protect people from their own insecurity.

You can create psychological safety. You can offer grace. You can bring in facilitators, hold space, and talk about imposter syndrome until you are blue in the face.

But if someone is not ready to confront their own voice of inadequacy – if they are committed to interpreting every generous act as a threat – there is nothing you can do to force them to see the truth.

All you can do is refuse to validate the distortion. All you can do is refuse to turn a good person into a scapegoat for someone else’s fear.

That costs you. It costs you relationships. It costs you trust. It cost me staff. It cost me a complaint to my boss. It cost me an investigation. It cost me my job. It cost me sleepless nights questioning my own leadership.

But it also cost me the weight of pretending I didn’t see what was happening.

And I would pay that cost again.

Because the alternative – telling someone that their knowledge is a problem, telling them to be smaller so others can feel bigger – is a betrayal of everything I believe in.

Let Me Be Clear

I’m not writing this because I want sympathy. I’m writing it because we need to be able to name what’s happening in our spaces without fear of being canceled ourselves.

We are so afraid of being seen as “problematic” that we let cruelty fester. We let people use identity as a shield for bad behaviour. We let bullies hide behind the language of justice.

And when we refuse to participate, when we say “actually, this is bullying, not activism”, we become the target. Sometimes we lose everything.

I’m writing this because I’m tired of pretending.

Those three staff members were wrong. What they did to their colleague was wrong. What they did to me was wrong. And no amount of identity-based justification changes that.

I don’t feel charitable toward them. I feel disappointed. I feel angry, still, when I think about it. And I think that’s a perfectly reasonable way to feel.

A Note on the Instagram Post

If you made it this far, go back and look at those images again. Read them slowly.

I didn’t write them. But I could have. They are the words of someone who has seen the same thing I’ve seen, the way that good intentions curdle into cruelty when insecurity is left unchecked, and the way that identity politics can be twisted into a justification for abuse.

I shared that post because it said what I’ve been trying to say for a long time. This blog is my attempt to put flesh on those bones. To tell the story behind the words.

If those images made you uncomfortable, good. They should. But discomfort is where growth happens, if we’re willing to sit with it, instead of projecting it onto someone else.

Links to Related Posts

If you want to understand the full context – the institutional anti-Muslim racism, the complaints about my social media posts, the framing of my anti-Zionism as “bias” – I’ve written about that separately:

What do you think? Have you seen this dynamic play out in your own spaces? I’d genuinely like to hear from you – especially if you disagree. Drop a comment or send me a message. I’m listening.