An uncomfortable discussion

Apologies have come fast and furiously to Black Canadians, but little said on the subject of reparations

Of the many uncomfortable discussions that need to be had about race in this country, none is more uncomfortable for white folks than the question of reparations for historical, racial injustices against Black people.

A common refrain from those who dismiss reparations as impractical and indefinable is that “we” can’t go back and right the wrongs of our ancestors – what American writer Ta-Nehisi Coates refers to as the “cost-free escape from history.”

But reparations are as much – perhaps more – about addressing the inequities that exist today as a direct result of those historical injustices, as they are about making restitution for the sins of our fathers.

Black Canadians suffer from disproportionately high rates of poverty and all that goes with that because of the conditions imposed on them and their forebears by the dominant – white – culture.

This past weekend, former residents and descendants of Africville took to Halifax streets that border that former black community on the banks of Bedford Basin, to draw attention, yet again, to its destruction in the 1960s in the interest of “urban renewal.”

They repeated their call for reparations for the expropriation – some would say theft – of their land and their community and the ongoing economic and social disadvantages that followed the forced relocation.

Africville was once a thriving, close-knit community. It had stores, a post office and the Seaview Baptist Church. Its residents paid taxes, but the city refused to provide common amenities like water and sewer and instead located undesirable things like a dump, a prison and an infectious disease hospital nearby.

The municipal neglect and abuse came in handy when the city decided it wanted the Africville land for industry and economic infrastructure, claiming the relocation of its residents would improve their standard of living.

There was never any meaningful consultation with Africville residents before the expulsion and the city dismantled the support structures it claimed would help them adjust to their new lives just three years after the expulsion began in 1964.

In 2010, the city apologized for the forced relocation and the destruction of Africville, and today a park, a museum and a replica of the church that had been a focal point of the community, occupy a tiny portion of the land that was once home to hundreds of families.

Perhaps more to the point, the abutments and approaches to the MacKay Bridge that spans Halifax Harbour, and the Fairview Cove container terminal are also on the land that was once Africville.

That infrastructure stands as concrete evidence that the Black community was sacrificed to advance the economic interests of the dominant white community that surrounded it.

Africville is part of a much larger story of Black settlers in Nova Scotia going back hundreds of years, and much of that story is of a people pushed to the margins of society.

The echoes of that history are with us today in the economic and social disadvantages that still plague the African-Nova Scotian community.

In 2017, a United Nations panel of experts recommended that Canada “issue an apology and consider providing reparations to African Canadians for enslavement and historical injustices.” Slavery was abolished in Canada in 1834, just 31 years before the more well-documented abolition of slavery in the U.S.

The apologies have come fast and furiously in recent years, from civic, provincial and federal politicians, who’ve had very little to say on the subject of reparations.

As a nation and a province we’ve proclaimed that diversity is our strength, embraced affirmative action and created commissions to study discrimination and promote human rights.

Yet the disparities persist between privileged, economically advantaged white Canadians and less privileged and economically disadvantaged racialized Canadians. Again quoting Coates, “vaguely endorsing a cuddly, feel-good diversity does very little to redress this.”

And therein lies the case for reparations.