Battle-hardened from an early age
“(Our mother) made sure that we had particular books that talked about women’s empowerment and self-esteem for children.” SANDY HUDSON BLM TORONTO CO-FOUNDER
The Toronto chapter of Black Lives Matter is a grassroots group, but Sandy Hudson is no stranger to mobilizing thousands.
The 30-year-old is a veteran of campus politics, having championed the elimination of full fees for part-time course loads as president of the University of Toronto student union, as well as organizing large student rallies.
She chaired the provincial wing of the Canadian Federation of Students for two years before coming back to the union in 2012 as executive director, a paid position.
(Hudson is also the subject of a lawsuit by the U of T student union that alleges she was not entitled to nearly $280,000 of overtime and severance, paid by the outgoing union president and vice-president, when she left in 2015. Hudson countersued and denied the allegations in a statement of defence.)
Hudson grew up in North York, the middle child of three. Her mother, Juliette, stayed home to raise the kids before going to work in the laundry department of Baycrest hospital. Hudson’s father, Donovan, loads food onto planes for Cara.
Hudson describes herself as “one of those annoyingly smart kids” who got into trouble at her primary school, Owen P.S., near Bayview and York Mills Aves., because she would finish her work early and then disrupt the class. A teacher wanted to put her in a remedial program, but was confronted by Hudson’s mother, who demanded to know if she was racist, Hudson says.
“My mother was an advocate in that way for her kids,” says Hudson, who describes Juliette as a feminist who instilled a strong moral drive in her kids and let them know they could fix things that seemed wrong.
“She made sure that we had particular books that talked about women’s empowerment and self-esteem for children,” says Hudson. “We had books on black history and T-shirts that said ‘Black Is Beautiful’ and black Barbie dolls.” Hudson moved to nearby Denlow Public School for Grade 3 after she qualified for the gifted program. There, she says, she felt isolated as one of the few black kids. Hudson says other students made fun of her cornrows, calling her “Medusa.”
She spent three years at a Brampton high school after her family moved and was appalled when an English teacher there put up pictures of lynching as part of a lesson on slavery.
“I was in the gifted program and because of the way our society works, I was often the only black student in my class,” says Hudson. “It was shocking and I didn’t feel like I had anyone to talk to about it.”
Her brother encountered racism, she says, after writing a primary school essay on what he wanted to do when he grew up.
“I can’t remember what he wanted to be, but the teacher’s response on his pap- er was: are you going to rob a bank to get this money? Where are you going to get this money?
“These are things other students don’t have to deal with when they’re studying,” says Hudson.
In 2003, she entered U of T’s computer science program, but had to change majors because she couldn’t afford the jump in tuition between the program’s first and second year, despite having three parttime jobs and school loans.
Anger over tuition prompted her to complain to the student union. In 2007, she joined, becoming vice-president of equity. She was elected union president in 2008 and again in 2009.
Her views were influenced by U of T’s move in 2008 to merge the Transitional Year Programme with the faculty of arts and science. The program helps black, indigenous and other students from marginalized backgrounds get into a degree program at U of T.
Provincial funding was, and still is, 70 per cent of what it is for a student in general arts, and retiring professors hadn’t been replaced. Opponents of the merger feared it would lead to the program’s elimination. The university eventually relented.
For Hudson, those experiences came to cement her conviction that a colonial system, white privilege and racism fuelled a cycle of black poverty.
One incident that stands out for her was in 2009, when white students went to a U of T campus Halloween party in blackface and won an award for their costume.
Afterwards, Hudson helped organize a town hall at the university so that black students could air their grievances. But, she says, when her group arrived to set up the meeting room they found the chairs filled by the students who hosted the party — who reminded them of the room’s fire code. At professors’ urging, the meeting went on.
“The visual was unreal,” says Hudson. “We had white students filling up all the seats at this town hall to talk about anti-blackness. And all the black students were sitting on the floor or the stairs.”
Hudson earned a degree in sociology and political science and is back at U of T working “on a really slow master’s” in social justice education. She was hired on contract this year as a union staff representative for teaching assistants and sessional lecturers at York.
Referring to the death of Loku, she blames stereotypes of black people for enforcing the idea that a man holding a hammer who doesn’t follow instructions to drop it, in a building for mentally ill people, is a “violent black man.”
“That’s just how anti-black racism works,” says Hudson. “And so we need to acknowledge that and start thinking about different representations of black people.
“And also how we’re going to prevent that type of thinking from killing people.”