Teach Black history to fight racism, students say
B.C. government vows to update curriculum as youth demand change
VANCOUVER—Daniel Afolabi remembers one soccer game in particular at age nine in Okotoks, Alta., when a player on the opposing team refused to shake his hand.
“He goes, ‘I don’t want to shake your hand because you’re Black,’” Afolabi says.
He was around the same age when a woman showed up in his class wearing blackface to portray American abolitionist Harriet Tubman, who freed slaves in the 1800s via the Underground Railroad to Canada.
“I don’t really want another kid to have to go through that and not realize what’s with that until like five years later,” he said.
Afolabi, who is 20 and entering his third year at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, said the outpouring of emotion after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis is an opportunity for Canadian schools to address racism against Black people.
He is planning an online petition to present to Alberta Education in hopes of getting more Black history taught in schools. It would be based on the teaching of Indigenous history and cover the historical, social, economic and political impact of racism.
“I’m not saying learning about racism in high school or elementary school will solve racism, but at least people can be held a bit more accountable,” he said.
When he was in high school, one of the few Black-themed assignments Afolabi remembers was the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a book he enjoyed reading on his own, but not hearing it read aloud by the teacher.
“My discomfort was when a white woman is reading it and there’s the N-word and other students will point to you whenever the word is read,” he said.
Alberta Education spokesperson Colin Aitchison said the province’s current curriculum for kindergarten to Grade 12 addresses race and racism by teaching students to value and respect diversity and support equality.
“Throughout the social studies curriculum, there is a strong focus on Canadian history, including issues related to the histories, cultures and contributions of Indigenous Peoples and people of African and Caribbean descent to our province and country,” he said in a statement. “The recent events unfolding across North America are a clear example as to why it is important to educate our youth about racism.”
He did not immediately respond to questions about possibly changing the curriculum.
Jean Ngendakumana, a Grade 11 student in Vancouver who moved from Tanzania when he was four, said any Black history he has been taught at school was skimmed over.
“I would say the best learning I’ve had was maybe about Viola Desmond and what happened to her and why she’s on the $10 bill,” he said. “I don’t think many people are well educated, or educated at all, about what we had to go through and what we still have to go through.”
British Columbia Education Minister Rob Fleming said his ministry is examining ways to work with local groups to develop a curriculum that better incorporates Black history, including the slave trade and the Underground Railroad.
Ministry staff is meeting with the B.C. Black History Awareness Society next week in an effort to address the needs of young people who are demanding change, Fleming said in a statement.
“We plan to listen and we are committed to working with community partners to strengthen the curriculum, to support diversity and to add to the global effort to end systemic racism,” he said.