NOVA SCOTIA
The Conversation: Augy Jones
When their middle child was born, the fabled Halifax activists Joan and Burnley “Rocky” Jones named him Agassou, which roughly meant Black Panther in the language of the legendary Dahomey warriors of the present-day Republic of Benin.
The consequential lineage and weighty given name would be a heavy mantle for anyone to carry. But Jones, who is known far and wide as Augy, has done so with pride: as a university basketball player and coach, as a teacher and educational policy-maker, and as a thinker, facilitator, consultant, and podcaster on matters of diversity, equity, and wellness.
The 52-year-old, I discovered when we met in the Saltwire studio last week, peppers his talk with images from Kahlil Gibran and the notions of Malcolm Gladwell, and is as comfortable talking about the brooding poetry of Sylvia Plath as the point guard majesty of Chris Paul. Here are some abridged highlights from our interview.
JD: Knowing what I know of your parents, Joan and Burnley Jones, I imagine your house as an interesting one to grow up in.
AJ: I remember being a little boy, my chin would be on the table (during) these conversations, which were intellectually high level. And this is a mixed crowd of people of all different races, all different socioeconomic status. But as long as you could come to the table and hold your own (you were welcome). From the constant conversations, I learned that equity matters: civil rights. We often take civil rights as meaning Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, and it's an African-descent thing. Civil rights are the rights of civilians. Every civilian's right. And that's where I think I've spread out into this inclusive piece of thinking about society, that every civilian has the right to be comfortable and safe and respected no matter where they walk. And that was embedded in my whole family from the time of growing up.
JD: What was it like growing up as a young black man in Halifax in the ’70s?
AJ: My parents protected me from a lot. I read my dad's memoir and saw some things that gave a different perspective. There were death threats. I remember coming home from teaching in the Caribbean, and there was a stack of CSIS files on them. They were under surveillance. I remember at a young age being rushed down the back steps of this boarding house on Cunard Street, where all those condos are now, that someone had set on fire. But again, I was a kid. I didn't understand what was going on. And kudos to my parents. Even if I was sneaking around listening, there were certain times where it was, OK, it's time for you to leave.
JD: How did this help form you?
AJ: I think in the versatility of being able to deal with a lot of different people. I think that when I look at my dad and my mom, I learned that the complexity of life means you're not going to solve everything.
JD: Where did sport fit into your life?
AJ: The funny thing is, for me, I was like a nerdy kid who loved reading and I did Dungeons & Dragons. And I was in this extended achievement class at Oxford Junior High, that had a whole mix of kids from the city. But the thing that stood out for me was athletics, and what it taught me was teamwork, determination, that you have to work for stuff. I remember when I first came out, I was terrible. Oh, yeah, I might have scored one basket my first season.
But it was just that if they said, “Touch the line,” I touched the line. The more I did that, that type of attitude started to mix with me being talented. And so, by the time I got to 13, 14, it was really coming together. I played the point guard position, so I appreciated making other people feel better. So, it was almost like a mix of what my parents taught me and athletics.
We lived on Windsor
Street, and we had a gravel backyard, and I would dribble the ball out there because it would go all over the place because it wasn't flat. And I remember I was out there playing one time, and my mom just got my Grade 6 marks, which were mediocre.
And she knew I wasn't reaching up my potential.
She goes, “OK, I'm not upset. But I do want to tell you one thing: I want you to realize, you know how much you work on your basketball game? You've gotten better, haven't you?” I was like, yeah, I wonder where she was going, because I thought it was in trouble. And she goes, “Well, I'm going to say that you got some exams coming up, I want you to try something: as much time as you put into basketball, I want you to put that much time into studying. Take it that serious. Love it the same way you love basketball.”
I thought this was an outof-the-box idea at the time. But you know what? That set of exams I did what she asked me, and my marks went up. And that seed stuck with me that there's this connection between how hard you work at basketball, how hard you work at school, how hard you work at relationships. Then I knew that hard work often can get you what you want.
JD: You carried this philosophy right through to university, didn’t you?
AJ: It was a beautiful time. Wade Smith (the late civic leader and principal of Citadel High School) was there, my best friend. We'd been playing basketball together at the Community Y and then QEH (Queen Elizabeth High) and then we went to St. F.X together, but we were both guys that saw the student athlete experience as 50/ 50.
So, we would get invited to dinners with professors; the dean of arts at the time would invite us over to his place. I was actually an academic allCanadian. I enjoy playing basketball. But academics were always very, very important to me.
JD: After St. F.X how did you envision your path?
AJ: I thought I was going to be a journalist. I did two summer internships with CBC, and it wasn't for me. So, I got into teaching. And after teaching, it led to me being in the Caribbean, me going back to do my master's, and now I work at the Nova Scotia Department of Education. So, I think education was why I have been put on the Earth.
JD: In today’s education system if you’re not a straight, white, male, Christian kid, will you have a hard time?
AJ: No, I don't think so actually. I think education is the pathway because it's compulsory that most children have to go to school, and what they digest in that school is very important.
And I really have to praise our Nova Scotia school system: there's a lot that's embedded in the curriculum that's giving kids a wider range of what life really is, as we can see from some of the residential school conversations, Black Lives Matter to LGBTQ+; kids are getting these wider perspectives, and teachers are accommodating their thoughts on it. And so, from that point, I think there's a lot more equity and inclusion embedded in the curriculum.
And if you're ever going to change society, you need to put it into water or put it in schools, right. And so, some of the changes that are happening in schools mean we're bringing up a generation that has a much wider scope of what's possible.
JD: You talk a lot on your blog and website, and in your consulting work, about empathy. Do we have enough of it?
AJ: No, no, not at all. Because I think men have to empathize when women tell you that they can't walk at night. Right? Men have to realize, “Oh, I can.” When we hear that a couple, of the same sex, can't really show a public display of affection without fear, I have to empathize with that and go, well, that's true: heterosexual couples can hold hands, they can do all of that. When you empathize, you hear the moderate ... conversation, you hear the trans and queer conversations outside of your realm, and the only way that we can prosper, I think, is by understanding ourselves outside of our own realm. That's the empathy part. I think the needle has moved, but there's a long way to go to authentically empathize.
My parents protected me from a lot. I read my dad's memoir and saw some things that gave a different perspective. There were death threats. I remember coming home from teaching in the Caribbean, and there was a stack of CSIS files on them. Augy Jones