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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic unveiled the long-standing issue concerning health inequity within Canada's health care system. Further fueled by racial injustice, such as the murder of George Floyd, Millennials and Generation Z became active participants in protests displaying their anger and dissatisfaction, and calling for action. Nursing organizations and institutions have been at the forefront of seeking racial reckoning; however, an obvious disconnect remains within the classroom between the student-educator relationship, what Millennials and Generation Z expects, and what the curriculum provides (Canadian Nurses Association, 2021; Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, 2022). With the effects of the pandemic on the mental health and well-being of Millennials and Generation Z, nursing education is called to redress the comfort zones, a space where teaching and learning occur undisturbed under institutionalized racism (Grelle et al., 2023; Liu et al., 2021; Patel, 2022; Vacchiano, 2023; Public Health Agency of Canada, 2022).
Despite their experiences, Millennials and Generation Z have demonstrated resilience resulting in a convergence of solidarity and a desire to address social justice issues in the classroom, making the urgency of racial reckoning by Millennials and Generation Z at the forefront of discursive debates within and outside the classroom. Their passion for addressing social justice issues within nursing education discloses a disconnect between the educator-student relationship (Creasey et al., 2009; Gates et al., 2023; Guppy et al., 2022; Smith & Robertson, 2021). Educators continue to teach through the comfort zone of what Patel (2022) describes as an ideology of whiteness. Students demand a diverse and inclusive approach when teaching nursing education that addresses historical and sociopolitical issues (Kishimoto, 2018). To create harmony within diversity, educators are challenged to revisit their positionality and how they situate themselves within the current paradigm. Therefore, educators are called to trouble the comfort zone by becoming critical allies and creating safe learning environments for critical discourses to occur. Critical allyship commonly is used to dissociate it from the term ally, which many believe has been ineffective and meaningless (Gates et al., 2023, p. 372). This article explains and troubles the comfort zone of Eurocentrism, to demonstrate how Critical ally-ship can transform...