‘White collective memory when it comes to racism is like a goldfish trying to remember where it parked the car’
Community activists pull no punches discussing anti-Black racism protests
A Black man dies slowly, agonizingly, a knee lodged firmly on his neck.
And in the seismic moment after George Floyd’s death in police custody, North American cities have erupted with the kind of mass protests unseen since the civil rights movement of the ’60s.
Kitchener, in true Canadian fashion, staged a kinder, gentler rally of its own last week, drawing thousands of masked protesters to march peacefully along city streets, throwing garbage into conveniently located bins on the sidewalk.
But what happens when the flames die down, public interest wanes and everyone goes back to their tedious, pandemic-confined lives?
Does racism become a thing of the past? Or does everyone tire of the subject and move on to the next social-media outrage?
Waterloo Region is lucky to have a cache of articulate, passionate activists with lived experience willing to speak truth to power.
But there’s sadness, frustration — often palpable — and impatience with those who don’t “get” that anti-Black racism isn’t some new issue that just emerged in the last two weeks.
In today’s spotlight: Christopher Taylor, the author/Black history prof recently named University of Waterloo’s AntiBlack Racism Adviser; and Ruth Cameron, community leader/doctoral student/executive director of the AIDS Committee of Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo and Area.
Their comments below are scathing, blunt and, in some cases, darkly ironic, because af
ter 400 years of struggle, gallows humour may be the only refuge. On a personal level, how are you two holding up?
Cameron: I’m a queer Black woman who’s a mother and a leader. I’m seen as a resource, so I have to make sure I focus on radical self-care. We’re trying to live while we’re in active grief.
Taylor: I’m getting a lot of messages from concerned white folks. I might just start resorting to cutting and pasting a Black-faced smiling emoji. Searing images of burned out storefronts, militant police lines and tear gassed protesters have plunged U.S. cities into chaos and sparked protests in Canada. Is this a pressure valve being released or just more racial tension you didn’t ask for?
Taylor: Black folks are asking for life and basic human rights and the response is to quell it with state controlled violence, which is the language of white supremacy. Cameron: Yo, it’s full on fascism, folks. Stay ready. Also, take a very close look at what’s happening in political spheres close to home. Not just every four years, but All. The. Time. I want to remind people that the Montreal police used tear gas on people (last) week, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Is this a bellwether “MeToo” moment in which the world changes in an instant, or one in a long line of momentary blips that will ultimately achieve nothing? Taylor: From the conversations I’m hearing, and what I’m seeing on social and mainstream media, folks are not about real change. They’re about feeding that guilt hunger through Black pain.
So it’s going to be a lot of tears, then by Canada Day weekend — if things “open-up” a bit more — it’s going to be business as usual. White folks at the cottage in their Birkenstocks. You’ve seen this scenario play out before. Taylor: People like to go back to the 1960s, but conveniently like to forget Ferguson (where police shot an unarmed Black teenager) six years ago. Or Rodney King or the Yonge Street uprising in 1992. White collective memory when it comes to race and racism is like a goldfish trying to remember where it parked the car.
Cameron: Black people are killed every day by systemic anti-Black racism. It’s not rare. It’s a constant backdrop in Black lives. So why has Floyd’s death sparked such a prolonged and heated response? Taylor: Because we’re in a global pandemic with a U.S. government that would do anything to distract the masses from the fact they have the highest positive case load in the world and by far the most deaths. So it’s the intersection of Donald Trump, COVID-19, warm weather, 400 years of racism and one Black death too many? Taylor: Folks are now paying attention because they have nothing else to do. They got tired of baking and Instagram fitness challenges. I get the cynicism, but am I wrong in saying this time feels different? Cameron: What differs now is the tone of our calls to action. The young people I mentor and work with aren’t interested in incremental change. This is no call for reform. We want completely different ways of doing things. If the system you’ve created is hurting me, I’m not going to say “harm me just a little less.” I want it to end. Black people are rising up to claim our humanity. Christopher, you described Floyd’s death as a modernday lynching. Taylor: What a lot of folks fail to realize is that lynching in the
U.S. and Canada was a spectacle. Just like how we would go to the movies, white folks would go and see that n ***** swinging off a tree like Strange Fruit. They would even take pieces off the deceased human as a souvenir.
So when white folks watch the video of a Black man being killed, they really need to ask why? Might be to feed their curiosity, blood lust, guilt. Whatever it is, it ends up being a form of entertainment. And for you?
I don’t watch the videos. Seeing this Black man getting killed is a mirror to my own mortality. What about Regis Korchinski-Paquet, the Afro-Indigenous woman who fell 24 storeys to her death in the presence of Toronto police?
Cameron: Her body was left out for six hours before her remains were taken away. George Floyd was slowly murdered on camera for nine minutes by a police officer who casually kept his hands in his pockets. The manner in which Black people are killed and our remains displayed is an intentional message that we are disposable. I’m parroting a refrain from the chattering class: surely morally superior Canada is above all this. Taylor: Canada just loves to point the finger at the U.S. Meanwhile, it allows us to change the channel on the fact our government has failed its own — white — citizens. How can we expect white folks to care about Black people when they don’t even care about their own parents and grandparents dying/murdered in long-term care homes? Where were those protests? How effective has the media been in cutting through the hype?
Taylor: White media should be asking white police officers and politicians why they think it’s OK to defend the killing of a Black man. They should be asking white folks about white supremacy and not how they feel about Black people.
Cameron: I’m aware how hard individual journalists have to fight with editors to capitalize the ‘B’ in Black, to frame our issues as “systemic” versus individual
isolated events, to ask hard questions instead of “Hey Ruth, how is this stuff making you feel?” I’m grateful for that.
But mainstream media has a lot of catching up to do, to communicate where Black communities are now. Incremental change is not OK. White liberals are outraged by Floyd’s death, pledging solidarity and support on social media. Given the lack of historic follow-through, there’s a stench of hypocrisy.
Taylor: I’m all for raising awareness. I think that’s a real key in any kind of change movement. But let’s be real for a second: when was the last time a hashtag prevented a murder or an assault? Or impacted the climate we live in? Are sexual assaults at zero on university campuses after the #MeToo movement?
Cameron: There is absolutely NO point in making any statements unless they contain a clearly defined commitment to an action. Black cultures are all about accountability. I also hear grumbling from older white men about what they perceive as an angry, resentful tone when marginalized voices take the podium. They want a more “nuanced” conversation. Taylor: I think they need to go sit in the back of the class, shut up and listen. They take up too much space. Did I provide enough “nuance” or did I just fall in the trap of the indignant and “angry Black man?”
Cameron: “Civility” and “nuance” are strategies used by some white people to deflect when Black people express that we’re living in constant harm.
Taylor: What these older white men or SWAMs — Straight White Able-Bodied Men — fail to realize is that when they speak up and ask for a “fairer” or more “nuanced” conversation, they actually mean that they want the conversation to fall within parameters they control, that they dictate, that fall under their terms and in language they understand. What can all the self-professed allies who have suddenly popped out of the woodwork do to make a difference?
Taylor: There’s no blueprint for white folks to follow. It’s like teaching a lion to be a vegan.
If there’s one thing I would suggest, it’s to understand that this s*** happens every day. Black bodies are being killed and there’s no hashtag or protest. Just because it’s not popping up on your social media feed — your echo chamber of a fabricated reality — doesn’t mean it’s not happening all the time. Cameron: Donate to organizations that are Black-led and serve Black people. Hire multiple Black people, rather than individual tokens. Interrupt racism and amplify Black decision-making leadership within your organizations. Stop consolidating power and hoarding resources. Share and hand over. Even in Waterloo Region, a serenely insulated multicultural nirvana?
Taylor: We don’t live in a vacuum. We wake up for the “sensational deaths,” but anti-Black racism permeates all facets of society. Black kids being followed in stores; not being called on in class; the liberal use of the ‘N-word’ by white folks; the coopting of Black voices for political gain. These are all functions of the same system that killed George Floyd.
Cameron: Black people in Waterloo Region are subjected to targeted policing surveillance in neighbourhoods like Chandler-Mowat and Kingsdale, the school resource officer program and the Community Outreach Program (COPs). This must end now, and those financial resources must be given to the Black community to administer. These programs are run by “allies,” are they not? Taylor: I’m always wary of institutions that co-opt the language of the oppressed, stand as “allies,” but actually and deliberately choose not to make change. The FBI knew that folks wanted to kill, and when they would do it, Malcolm X, but they didn’t stop them. Why not?