Tag: BHM

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Opinions

Yes, we need to celebrate Black History Month

It’s not just about slavery and hardships

n February 1926, a week commemorating “Negro History” was launched by American historian Carter G. Woodson, who in his mission to incorporate Black history in school curricula, was also looking to honour the legacies of president Abraham Lincoln and human rights leader Frederick Douglass, both of whom were born in February. Its successor, Black History Month, would be institutionalized across the United States half a century later.

First celebrated in Canada in 1988, Black History Month was then officially recognized nationwide in 1995. In 2007, the Quebec government also adopted this event in the province.

Black History Month isn’t just an important event; it’s a necessary commemoration.

Every year, I log onto Twitter — where else? — and find, within a sea of tweets highlighting the work of Black pioneers, some users’ hot takes about why it’s an unnecessary event. Their argument goes that singling out the Black community in recalling and calling attention to their history contributes to keeping them in the past and holding their identities tied to a past of enslavement.

Many also have had qualms with Black History Month because it’s a celebration of a certain group of people. You’ve probably heard someone at some point say, “But what about white history month? Or Asian history month?”

Yes, what about them?

Celebrating a specific group of people, and especially providing them with tools to overcome and make up for the institutional problems that have caused many to fall behind compared to their white counterparts, is one of the main purposes of Black History Month.

These arguments have some merit, and I’m saying this so as not to completely discredit the opinion of those who see things such as affirmative action and “preferential treatment” as another dividing factor between the multiple ethnicities in our societies.

But shining a spotlight on an issue doesn’t mean we’re putting all other ones in the dark.

It’s true that in an idyllic world, diversity hires and ethnicity quotas in schools and workplaces wouldn’t be necessary, and that making use of these methods of race-based professional considerations would contravene the meritocratic process.

Still, racism is a very real social issue in our societies, and it’s no secret that Black and Indigenous people are bearing the brunt of it.

Of course the goal of Black History Month isn’t to further the association of Black people with slavery. But by associating Black History Month as being solely about slavery and a past paved with subjugation is also reducing the richness of Black culture to their role in Western history.

For the record, Africa was a continent long before the slave trade began, and we’re getting closer to the two century mark since its abolition. Ignoring the achievements made by Black people and the Black community in North America throughout the 20th and 21st centuries is more distracting to the movement for racial equality than preaching silence.

Highlighting certain parts of history and pointing out their flaws also doesn’t mean we’re trying to remain in that place, on the contrary. How are we supposed to learn from our mistakes if we keep trying to distance ourselves from them?

And as we’ve seen throughout Canadian history and into the past year as the Black Lives Matter movement was reignited, our country is far from the point where we can say affirmative action is causing an unfair advantage for people of colour.

If you don’t want to learn about Black history or about anti-Black racism, consider examining why. But know what mindset you’re feeding into and how it’s helping the causes you support — and beyond everything, if you don’t have anything nice to say … don’t say anything.

 

Graphic by Taylor Reddam

Categories
Student Life

Black History Month: Walking through life in limbo

Reconciling my identity as a Cameroonian-Canadian in Uganda

It’s 2014. My excitement is so tangible, the man beside me can sense it with every fidget. I haven’t set foot in Cameroon for 15 years; the country from which my parents came of age, the country that holds my earliest memories, the country I’ve been told to refer to as home. In that moment, in the backseat of my uncle’s jeep, for the first time in my life, I felt at home.

Now, it’s 2018 and I am excited to be returning to the motherland for an internship. I’m a bit wary of engaging in a “going abroad” endeavour, but I’m confident that the organization I’ve partnered with is different from your typical non-profit. As the plane descends, my nerves betray me: there’s a dryness in my throat, my body is stiff, and my heart is thumping.

My head is full of thoughts, hopes and expectations. Front and center is the anticipation of that feeling of home filling me once more as it did four years earlier. Although I realized it wasn’t my home country, I was expecting to feel more at home than I did in Canada. Finally, the plane lands, I step out, and as I try to make my way through the crowd, I can feel my body searching for that ‘home’ feeling and failing to grasp it. I push those feelings (or lack thereof) aside and reunite with my fellow Canadians.

My days were spent on a compound with fellow Canadian and Ugandan interns. The work days were packed with various activities; on the weekend, people did their laundry, read a book or hung with the locals. I realized my dark skin allowed me to navigate public spaces in ways some of my fellow interns couldn’t. I could slip out and shop at the market without the boda boda men (those who transport people on motorcycles, referred to as bodas) screaming muzungu (“white” or “foreigner”) my way. I could walk all over town without getting so much as a glance in my direction. This was one of two times in my life I was not a visible minority.

One day, I went out with a friend, a white Canadian girl. We were hungry and wanted to try this cafe, which was filled with white people—foreigners. I noticed eyes on me, but wasn’t fazed. My friend places her order; her friendly disposition leads to a chat with the cashier long after having ordered. I am not greeted with the same energy extended to my friend just seconds before. Though my accent throws the cashier’s guard off, it is not enough to affect him the same way my friend did.

My ability to blend in—if I didn’t speak—was once a blessing, but I realized it was useless if I would still be treated as lesser in the presence of my white friends. I had always known that in Canada, the system favoured white people/white-passing people; but I had underestimated the extent of colonialism in “developing” countries. My time in Uganda showed how so many locals have an automatic association between skin colour and one’s “foreignness.” Even though I, too, was a foreigner, it was never the assumption. When I would speak, my accent would create such a confusion the english-speaking locals would rather speak to fellow locals rather than engage with me.

In Canada, I am a visible minority constantly fighting for the space to be seen, heard and validated unashamedly. I never thought I would have to fight for that same space in a country where most, if not all, of the population looks like me. I felt as if I had to fight even harder than I do back home, because the attention automatically went to my white counterparts.

The struggle on the table is not my desire for attention; on the contrary, it’s a questioning of identity. Where do third culture kids fit when they were born in one place—or their parents come from and identify with one place—but they were raised somewhere else? We spend time this month explicitly to celebrate black history, while so many black people struggle with reconciling their identity.

Should we continue trying to assimilate within the community we most identify with while negating all other parts of ourselves, or should we just create new spaces for people who are in this limbo? This isn’t the first time a black person will have questions about their identity, nor is it the last.

Feature graphic by @spooky_soda

Categories
News

Canada’s history half told

Graphic by Florence Yee

Black History Month remembers the half of the story that was never told and recognizes ongoing oppressions

This month marks Black History Month, an observance established in 1995 through a motion introduced by Jean Augustine, the first black Canadian woman elected to Parliament. This month not only celebrates black people and their culture, but also remembers black history—a history with half of the story that’s never been told, according to Michael Farkas, the president of the Montréal Black History Month Round Table, a non-profit organization which advocates black culture and education.

“Obviously, in terms of blacks, you really have to check history to understand all the things that have happened to us and that are still happening to us,” Farkas said.

“There’s so much to uncover,” said Farkas. “Every year I personally learn something new.”

“We have a chance right now to have a beautiful month. Yes, it’s the coldest one, and yes, it’s the shortest one, but who really cares? I care about getting the information,” said Farkas.

“White people and people in the world show little or no interest to Black History Month—the little month we have,” Farkas said. “It should be in schools, it should be part of the curriculum.”

Concordia has yet to develop a Black Studies program, which Sophia Sahrane, the Concordia Student Union’s (CSU) academic and advocacy coordinator and a strong supporter of black activism on campus, believes is vital to be a major and not just a minor.

Sahrane is involved in the Black Studies Collective, which is responsible for bringing the Black Studies event series to Concordia. Sahrane has also organized a BIPOC (black, indigenous and people of colour) committee, open exclusively to racial minorities on campus, which recognizes and addresses barriers faced by BIPOC students and groups at Concordia.

The first talk in the Black Studies event series, held in September 2016, featured guest speaker Dalton Anthony Jones, a black scholar from the United States, who is known for developing Black Studies programs in American universities.

“The talk was on the importance of Black Studies,” said Sahrane. However, she said a main critique amongst some educators within Black Studies is that it should be integrated into general studies.

“When the Black Studies initiative was brought up to the Concordia senate and the university a couple of times, one of the things [Shepard] said was there’s no interest in a Black Studies program,” said Sahrane. “We’re trying to prove that there is by having this Black Studies event series—people are showing up,” she said.

She said the senate meeting revealed that the university didn’t have black professors to teach this program. “If we want a Black Studies program, we want a majority of the professors to be black, to be of some type of black culture. We want them to be able to relate to course curriculums,” said Sahrane. “But the thing is, [Shepard] just admitted to the lack of diversity at Concordia.”

There have been some initiatives to diversify Concordia’s faculty. The Student Association of Graduates in English (SAGE), for example, has brought in a racial bias specialist to help make the English department’s staff more diverse. “He sits down with the hiring committees and he helps them identify their biases and helps them work around them,” Sahrane said. However, she added that the English department is the only department to have taken this initiative so far.

There are not only issues concerning lack of diversity within schools, but as well the lack of education towards certain language and pop culture references.

Farkas said the N-word has been greatly appropriated, identifying an example as the way the word is represented in rap music. “They dehumanized the word in a way—and that’s their thing—but often they don’t know their history,” said Farkas. “The name comes from a very rich heritage.” He added that in the Americas, as well as parts of Europe, the word has been used to dehumanize black populations.

“There’s a very strong history of oppression and persecution and racism in Canada and I think that Canada worked really hard to try to erase that history, and being known in the international community as the peacemakers and a multicultural mosaic society [that is] accepting of all,” said Sahrane. “I think that because there’s this general belief that Canada is great and we don’t have a recent [racial] problem—I think the event on Sunday proved that we do,” she added, referring to the shooting in Quebec City on Jan. 29.

The N-word actually originated from an Ethiopian dialect called Amharic, Farkas explained. “When you really study the etymology of the word, it means that it’s close to niggus, it’s close to Nile, it’s close to Niger and it’s close to Nigeria—it is a very highly regarded name in a different language.”

Farkas referenced Sahle Selassie, who ruled Shewa, Ethiopia between 1813-47, who was dubbed the title “The Negus,” which translates to king or ruler in Amharic.

Things have improved with the advancement of people being more politically correct, as well as being in times where anyone can be videotaped, said Farkas.

“We’re all human beings and we all sometimes have ideas or prejudice in ourselves towards others,” Farkas said. “We all have to work on it, regardless of your colour.”

“Most of the microaggressions I have experienced have been in interpersonal relationships, such as being fetishized [for being black],” said Sahrane. “As much as I am very proud of my identity—can’t I just be a woman?”

“Some people aren’t comfortable around people of colour,” Farkas said, comparing this to the discomfort some people have towards people of other religions.

“Stigmatization can happen to anyone for any kind of reason—whether you’re a gay, whether you’re obese—people can make you feel very uncomfortable and you can feel intimidated,” said Farkas. “I’m not just going to say it happens to blacks, but sometimes, if you’re a black woman, maybe some people will make you feel uncomfortable and you’ll have to fight back for your right.”

“I think we need to retain some kind of values to pass onto our kids, and the ones we should pass on are respect and nonviolence,” Farkas said. “In that respect, we all can grow, I believe.”

Graphic by Florence Yee

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