‘A CONSTANT BATTLE’
As a province rallies, some call confronting racism in Saskatchewan a day-to-day lifestyle
At this time of year in Regina, people usually flock to Mosaic, a celebration of the multiculturalism that built this province. Crowds gathered this week — but in protest, the chalk drawing of a dead black man in the foreground.
Christian Mbanza reflects on that contrast.
“We’re so willing to embrace the food and the happy parts of peoples cultures,” he said. “When it comes to the oppression and the struggle that they go through, people are almost willing to ignore it.”
But for people of colour, the overt, the subtle, and — in Mbanza’s words — the “covert” racism is a stark and daily reminder that truly respecting and embracing diversity means more than sampling a variety of food and music a Mosaic pavilions each spring.
Mbanza has spent the past few months teaching his Grade 7 École St. Mary students remotely.
“The best part of the job is gone right now,” says the dedicated Regina teacher.
On Monday the 27-year-old black man was racially profiled by a neighbour, who didn’t see someone simply going to his car before heading out for a bike ride or a devoted teacher — he saw a thief.
“I was trying to think back to those moments, what was I doing that looked suspicious?” Mbanza said.
In a now-deleted post made on a community Facebook page, the poster warns “just happened on keller ave watched the whole thing happen lock your doors.”
Two photos of Mbanza were attached to the post.
That night, he started to get texts and messages. Friends and neighbours were going to bat for Mbanza. He said that he’s a “chill” guy, and that normally he would have let something like this slide, but the killing of George Floyd made him act — to call out and denounce the profiling online.
People were receptive and they wanted to learn more. The support was overwhelming — but so was the disbelief.
“A lot of people were shocked it was happening in Regina, Saskatchewan,” he said.
“This isn’t an isolated event for me or any person of colour.”
The Schmidt family from the Balgonie area also know of the devastation wrought by racism and ignorance.
Dean Schmidt and Sandra Barker-schmidt say for their oldest daughter Kidist — adopted from Ethiopia in 2011 with her two siblings — Floyd’s death has added another layer to the struggles she already endures as a person of colour in a province that often doesn’t understand.
“It is hard on her,” Sandra said. “They don’t understand, like how can a police officer just kill a black person, just like that.”
Sandra said Kidist struggles as well with feelings of isolation, one of the only black students in her school.
“I’ve been really worried about her,” Sandra said. “She feels like her friends aren’t supporting her.
Having said that, I said, ‘They probably don’t know what to say because they don’t know what you’re going through.’”
Nor did many know what Sandra and Dean’s 13-year-old son Kaleab was going through — not until an inquest earlier this year into his April 2018 suicide.
A suicide note laid out the anguish the teen was enduring.
“I tried to see the better side of life but there isn’t (a) better side,” Kaleab wrote. “Everyone has hurt me so this makes it easy … If I’m not happy, what’s the reason for living?”
A coroner’s jury ultimately found racism and bullying played a role in the teen’s death.
Attending Dr. Martin Leboldus High School as a teen, Mbanza remembers riding bikes and being told he didn’t belong in certain neighbourhoods. He recalled when he was older, pulling over to the side of the road a few blocks from his house to check his phone. After approximately 20 minutes replying to messages and checking social media, a police officer walked up to his window. Someone in the area thought he was “casing the neighbourhood.”
That sense of being ostracized is something Kerry Benjoe has experienced herself.
Benjoe, a former Regina Leader-post reporter currently pursuing her master’s in journalism, said when she started reporting there were a number of occasions where she was asked to leave events.
“They automatically assumed I didn’t belong there,” said the Indigenous woman. “It’s a constant battle to prove you’re supposed to be where you are.”
That sense of being looked at as an outsider didn’t start just when Benjoe began working as a journalist.
“I remember being in a store with my mom as a little girl and she told me, ‘Don’t put your hands in your pockets, they’re going to think you’re stealing.’”
As Benjoe learned it from her mother, she’s taught her children and in turn they’ve taught their children. She hopes it’s a lesson that won’t have to be taught to her great-grandchildren.
“I’m so used to going into a store and automatically security will follow me around,” she said. “I’ve gotten so used to it.”
Her dilemma is whether or not to confront it, each and every time that discrimination rears its head. But it’s an exhausting prospect.
“It doesn’t matter how good you are, you’re not going to be good enough.”
Her masters project will look at the final generation of residential school survivors — a generation of which she was a part.
Racism in Saskatchewan seems overshadowed by scenes from abroad and in particular in the U.S.
“It’s not overt, but I think the fact that it’s often covert might almost make it worse,” said Mbanza.
Saskatchewan is where Neil Stonechild was left for dead on the outskirts of Saskatoon by police. This is the city where the men who took Pamela George outside of Regina, killed her, and bragged about it.
This is the land of residential schools and the pass system.
The racism that exists here is seldom acknowledged by people who don’t experience it on a daily basis.
Yet, Regina high school student Belan Tsegaye said racism is still far too common here. Her family having moved from Ethiopia to ensure a good education for their kids, Tsegaye said she hears racial slurs — including the N-word — frequently.
“Unfortunately, racism and bullying and discrimination is such a huge factor in our day-to-day lifestyle,” she said.
As a close friend of Kaleab Schmidt, Tsegaye has seen racism and bullying at its most tragic. She wishes schools focused more on issues of racism to enable students to better understand the impact of their behaviour — particularly those who return home to family members who condone or exhibit racist behaviour.
“Why don’t we talk about, ‘Hey, you’re not allowed to say the N-word. You’re not allowed to be discriminatory to another race,” she said. “I feel like it’s a topic we need to talk about ... Kaleab was a black person at basically an allwhite school. He didn’t survive there. We need to talk about it and make it known to people that, hey, this is wrong.”
Despite the tragedy of Kaleab’s death, there were clear indications only recently that little has changed. In May, Sandra and Dean learned another student had posted racist remarks — including the N-word — on a Snapchat tribute posted to Kaleab on the anniversary of his death.
Sandra took the matter to police. She has since learned officers spoke to the teenager and his parents, although she doesn’t know what the response was.
“I wish there could be consequences,” she said. “Why can’t there be, especially if the proof is right there? Otherwise, it’ll keep going on.”
She and Dean are planning to attend Sunday’s rally in support of the black lives matter campaign, wanting to help shine a light on a continuing problem. She doesn’t doubt there are people in the province who truly don’t know what’s going on, and she wants everyone to better understand what her children endure.
“If you don’t live with someone that’s black or different nationality, with different culture, they probably don’t know how much it goes on,” she said. “If you’re that person of colour, you do know.”