How Canadians can take the next steps in this fight
IN THEIR OWN WORDS What I’ve learned from working for years on anti-racism training
Emotionally exhausted. Probably the best way I can describe my state of mind right now.
This week has been a confluence of sadness and anger about the injustices that continue to plague Black people in our societies, along with deep concern for my friends and family in the United States.
On top of that, as someone who has worked for many years around antiBlack racism, running a charity to support Black youth in Toronto and advising major institutions on equity issues, there have been so many calls from individuals asking “What can we do right now to combat anti-Black racism in Canada?”
Simply put, the current interest in anti-Black racism is unprecedented. And I know some folks are cynical as to whether public engagement with this topic will last past the current news cycle.
I empathize with that position, but also, as a pragmatist, I think it may be possible to seize this moment to create a real shift in how Canada relates to its Black communities.
Many solutions have been offered in detail by the community over the past decades.
Systemic actions like the robust collection of race-based data, reforms to policing, naming Black Canadians as a priority community and expanding targeted programs for Black youth, artists and entrepreneurs.
Individual actions such as increasing our knowledge of Black Canadian history, standing up to everyday anti-Black prejudice people encounter in their personal lives.
But where do we go from here, where do we start?
The acknowledgments we’re hearing from leaders and institutions, that antiBlack racism is real in Canada, is really step one.
But what I’ve always been passionate about is how we meaningfully expand the conversation about anti-Black racism beyond the woke and already committed. Engaging those who are just hearing the term for the first time.
I started doing anti-racism training at 19 years old, and I soon found it was easy enough to create a compelling presentation that would incite people’s emotions. And it usually led to white and other non-Black audiences reacting with anger at the implication their community had some role in racism, or a profound shame and guilt that left people immobilized with remorse.
One way I’ve found to move past this is to challenge the public discourse on racism.
A lot of time online and in the media is spent on the question of, “Is X public figure a racist?” This creates a dynamic where it feels like racism is a binary, you’re a racist or not.
And since no one wants to be a racist, the larger population and especially white Canadians many times staunchly avoid conversations or engagement with this topic for fear of saying the wrong thing, or admitting to a prejudice that may lead to them being stamped with the label of racist.
But racism is far more than individual actions, it’s a system. Anti-Black racism exists in our culture, in how our institutions operate, in where we invest our public funding, in how our workplaces function. Each day we can all contribute to this system, or work to dismantle it.
No single act, whether dating someone of a different “race,” showing up at a rally or having lots of Black friends, can exonerate you for life from having contributed to racism.
And similarly, there are few actions that can condemn you to being an irredeemable racist for a life. I’ve found talking about racism this way is a great entry point to allow people to be vulnerable enough to actually begin learning.
The next step beyond acknowledgment and expanding the conversations is to recognize that while the protests in Toronto and across the U.S. show this issue is urgent, the answers cannot be instantaneous. Defeating a system of prejudices and stereotypes 500 years in the making takes a long-term commitment.
At its heart, racism is the great lie that denies our common humanity. The counter is building real, meaningful human relationships between communities.
It’s hard to have real empathy for a concept. The social, economic and spatial isolation of Black people in this city is a real thing.
Organizations and individuals in Canada need to be intentional to partner with, employ, subcontract, be led by and
be mentored by Black folks.
Sending money is great, reading is great. Human connections are key. And as we all know, strong relationships are built on trust gained over time.
So the interest we’re seeing now in Canada is a good start.
But just as we’ve learned from our fraught attempts at reconciliation with Indigenous people, creating right relations is not an event, but a process.
It is the same with healing the scars of Canadian anti-Black racism. The question is, are you down to take part in the journey?