Celebrating diversity amid ‘hidden racism’
Local leaders honoured by city
February is Black History Month and Cicely-Belle Blain’s favourite time of year.
It reminds Blain, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Vancouver, that people in her home city and across the globe are willing to come together to honour and celebrate black people’s stories and achievements, she said.
“It’s so amazing to have a time when people actually consider the contributions that black people have made, historically, to so many different disciplines and fields and industries across the world.”
Wednesday evening, the City of Vancouver held a Black History Month event with the theme of “youth engagement, activism and empowerment.”
Blain and BLMV organizer Daniella Barreto were among 11 people Mayor Gregor Robertson recognized for their achievements and to whom he presented a copy of a proclamation he made at the event.
BLMV was formed in 2016 in solidarity with a global Black Lives Matter movement created following the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida the previous year.
In its first week, BLMV drew 300 supporters to an event and another gathering soon after drew 1,000, Blain said.
“It was really great to see how people got on board with our movement because a lot of people in Vancouver don’t have a lot of connection to black culture or Black Lives Matter in general,” she said. “Some people find it to be a bit removed from their reality. They kind of see it as an American issue or a Toronto issue.”
Reflecting on BLMV’s short history, Blain said she recognizes the group created “a bit of a storm” last summer when it demanded police not march in the Vancouver Pride parade.
But Blain said the group will continue to lobby for police exclusion from the parade in solidarity with other BLM chapters and in support of Aboriginal and LGBTQ people in B.C. who have shared with her group their own stories of abuse and profiling by police.
The group’s demand was met with racist vitriol online.
“A lot of people were like, ‘Go back to the U.S., go back to Africa, there’s no place for black people here, nobody cares about your problems,’ ” Blain said.
Blain said there’s a sense of concern among people of colour in Canada that a subtle, “hidden racism” has become more overt since the election of U.S. President Donald Trump.
“It’s kind of a little bit scary that even though we’re supposedly safe across the border, we’re still seeing some of that racist rhetoric coming over.”