Racism is not temporary
Current rush feels like January at the gym — and there’s a risk we may fall back into old habits
Corporations must act before this months’ motivation wanes,
I often joke among friends with corporate gigs that we all deserve five extra vacation days each year, just to recover from the stress white-collar Canada imposes on Black employees. We have a word for that stuff now: Microaggressions. The slights disguised as compliments — raise your hand if a white person has ever called you “articulate” — and the fretful recognition of our narrow margins for error. We’ve all seen incompetent white managers rise and flame out, knowing Black folks have to demonstrate excellence just to get hired.
And many of us have performed the unpaid labour of helping our companies straighten out internal race issues, knowing that while we act as de facto diversity consultants, our white colleagues are busy with their actual jobs. Guess which work shows up as productivity that decision-makers value?
The late May killing of George Floyd shone yet another spotlight on systemic racism in law enforcement and specific acts that cost Black folks their lives. Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin, who now faces a second-degree murder charge, knelt on Floyd’s neck, suffocating the unarmed, handcuffed man with the sneering self-assurance of a man who thought the legal system would protect him.
And the fallout from Floyd’s death has triggered social media conversations on more passive forms of racism as chronic conditions, working in the background to diminish Black folks’ personal and professional well-being. #BlackInIvory, which chronicled macro- and microaggressions Black people weather in higher education, trended on Twitter last week, as did #PublishingPaidMe, which highlighted the pay gap between white and non-white authors in the book industry.
And veteran CBC Ottawa host Adrian Harewood applied the #BlackinThe
Newsroom hashtag to his story about earning a promotion, only to have a white colleague dismiss him as a token. Most Black journalists I know, both in Canada and the U.S., could tell similar stories.
I’ve written before about the columnist who tried to belittle me to his national audience because he didn’t like me questioning Black hockey player Anson Carter about racism in the NHL. And my journalism friends remember the time a newsroom manager, no longer at the Star, mistook me for an office messenger, days after my nomination for a National Newspaper Award.
Another manager, also departed, blocked my proposed return to the sports department, telling me that no company lets employees dictate their own jobs.
After acknowledging he wasn’t familiar with my work, he asked why I thought I deserved to switch departments, so I listed what I figured made me valuable: my National Newspaper Award and fluency in two languages; my comfort on camera, and nuanced knowledge of offthe-field issues that inform sports coverage. His response? “You’re quite full of yourself.” Correct. I was one more big ego in an industry full of them. But why was my confidence suddenly seen as a defect instead of a job requirement?
I’m not sure that last incident was racial, but I also wonder if Blackness factored into that manager’s assessment of me, especially since he admitted never having read my writing. And that uncertainty adds to the mental burden shouldered by people on the business end of workplace microaggressions, compounding the effect of everyday office politics and drama.
Did you miss out on that promotion because you weren’t good enough, or because decision-makers saw your Black skin and looked for reasons you couldn’t do the job?
Did your white co-worker win that promotion because they were the most qualified or because decision-makers opted to see the best in them?
Can you bring these concerns to a manager without getting branded uppity, grumpy or selfish?
I don’t raise these points to single out the Star. Similar scenarios play out at any company that employs even a handful of Black people, which the Star does, which likely makes it unique among its peers in the Canadian news industry.
We can’t say for sure because Canadian news outlets so rarely share their diversity stats.
Four years ago, Canadaland attempted to survey18 Canadian newspapers about diversity on their staffs. Only three publications bothered to respond. But there’s hope. The multicoloured crowds at protest marches across the continent signal that a critical mass of non-Black people have clued in that anti-Black racism is everyone’s problem. And corporations in industries from footwear to petroleum to pro football have posted on social media in solidarity with Floyd’s family and the campaign against racism his death has spawned.
The overdue conversations on racism now ongoing have boosted Black presence on mainstream Canadian platforms. From an all-Black panel on TVO’s “The Agenda,” to an upcoming CTV special on racism in Canada, to TiffanyJean Gooch urging bold action against racism in the Star, Black members of the Canadian media have rarely been this visible. Still, I’m concerned. While it’s heartening to see corporations figure out that the fight against racism also boosts business, the current rush to amplify Black voices in Canada feels a little like January at the gym, where everyone with a New Year’s resolution shows up, motivated to lose fat or gain muscle. But by March, the health club is half-empty again, the New Year’s resolution crowd sidelined for a variety of reasons we can distil this way:
When motivation fades, we fall back into old habits.
The challenge for corporations and media outlets supporting this new civil rights campaign is to ingrain the habit of treating Black people like equals before this month’s motivation wanes.
Black voices in Canadian media resonate louder than ever this month, but let’s see which decision-makers still have our phone numbers next year, when it’s time to hire, promote and shape this industry’s future.
Morgan Campbell is a writer based in Ajax. He is a past winner of the National Newspaper Award for Sports Writing.