Symposium Explores Black Leadership, Partisan Politics and Social Activism

By Neil Armstrong

Photo credit: Vanessa Thompson    A rapt audience at the 'Black Leadership, Partisan Politics & Social Activism' hosted by the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora at York University in Toronto

Community leaders, activists, academics and students recently gathered at York University in Toronto for the “Black Leadership, Partisan Politics & Social Activism” symposium to discuss the limitations and possibilities of political representation and social activism for advancing Black communities.

Organized by Professor Carl James, the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora, the two-day event held on February 8 and 9 kicked off with a conversation with professors David Austin of John Abbott College in Quebec and Amoaba Gooden of Kent State University in Ohio, facilitated by Professor Tamari Kitossa of Brock University.

The Chair aims to advance access, equity and inclusivity to education through community engagement and collaborative action.

While some may be critical of the tactics of some Black Canadian activists, James believes different voices, approaches and tactics are needed to help advance Black communities.

“As we look throughout history, people have used different means to get the conversation going and to bring about the social change they need. The Black community is not any less in doing so,” says James.

 “Our community is diverse with people having different political approaches to issues. We need to engage everyone and accept the fact that there are different approaches to get where we need to go.”

There were two panels on the second day, each exploring different themes – “Black Leadership & Partisan Politics” and “Black Leadership & Social Activism.”

Tiffany Gooch, public affairs consultant, says conversations like these are happening across the country in smaller communities.

Her main message was that “we’re conscious of the power we have and the work that we’ve been able to do, and that in some ways there are regions of our country that still need that help and how we can share those promising practices and help others build capacity.”

She says wellness is also important while doing this work underscoring “caring for our health and our mental health, and really caring for others through that knowing all of the different pressures that we have in what we’re doing.”

Yafet Tewelde, a PhD candidate, Social & Political Thought at York University and a community organizer, thinks the call has to be “how do we push our people to go out and build up those numbers.”

“While I’m running I’m hoping that my run can also be something that is also encouraging that kind of work. That is the work to me,” says Tewelde, who is seeking the nomination for the NDP in York South Weston in October’s federal election.

He believes the leadership must come from the masses and the building of powerbases will not happen unless there is actual work on the ground -- not on social media.

“What I’m really focusing on is building a base in York South Weston that can be mobilized to support the candidates in York South Weston, that can be mobilized to stand up for issues that whoever is in office or whoever the so-called powerbrokers are have to respond. That’s really what the goal is.”

Seated left to right: Tiffany Gooch, Wendy Vincent, Adaoma Patterson and Yafet Tewelde. Standing behind them is Yolande Davidson

Wendy Vincent, director of communications of Operation Black Vote Canada, emphasized that elected officials, regardless of skin colour, are accountable.

“If we do not have black agendas in the person of a black leader being pushed forward or being articulated we could still hold our other officials accountable and hold their feet to the fire as black people because we voted for them. We’re paying their salaries, we are paying for them to be in our communities by way of constituency days, by way of town halls, there’s accountability there.”

Vincent says the themes of the symposium are part of the larger conversation about black civic engagement.

“We, black people, can feel left out but we need to remind people and keep it present for people about how we can be at the table, how our conversations can be and stay on the table, and push our agendas as black communities forward.”

Adaoma Patterson, president of the Jamaican Canadian Association, noted that political leadership is not just about being a candidate or being elected but that there is a big mechanism behind a candidate.

“As a community, we need to focus on being part of the entire pipeline of the formal electoral process – riding associations, presidents of associations, the strategic policy positions within parties, all those key decision-making positions that many of us aren’t even aware of.”

She says political leadership is also about the organizing done at the grassroots level for informal community organizations.

“We have a role to play as a community in organizing, in expanding the definition of leadership, thinking about what a leader is – even just that whole assumption that we have to wait for somebody who is famous to be a leader -- that it’s more than that.”

Patterson says in the last couple of years more people have engaged in the formal process, which is good, but there’s a whole mechanism and areas in which the community is not participating as fully.

“Times are difficult and as much as governments say the economy is great, our people, particularly people who are marginalized, who are poor, hustling, working two and three jobs they don’t see the connection between their lives and the things that are happening and the decision-makers so there’s a divide,” she notes.

In terms of the political process and parties, Patterson thinks it’s a bit of a closed shop because parties don’t really talk about the opportunities to become involved and to push for change.

Gooch, Tewelde, Vincent and Patterson where panelists in the morning discussion about black leadership and partisan politics moderated by Yolande Davidson, director of the Jamaican Canadian Association.

The afternoon panel about black leadership and social activism included Valarie Steele, an activist and community organizer of the Black Action Defense Committee; Sandra Hudson, founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto: Anthony Morgan, a lawyer and activist; and Desmond Cole, an activist and freelance journalist. The moderator was Sam Tecle, PhD candidate, Sociology at York University.

Steele says the Black community survived and is surviving because of activism and advocacy.

“It has to be there because no one has yet apologized to us for slavery and trying to make it right so there can be no absolution without contrition. Until that happens and the field is level -- which I’m sure that’s not going to happen in my lifetime -- we have to continue to fight, and fighting intelligently.”

She says activism is a vital part of allowing the Black community to survive “because I am not ever going to believe that we are not prosperous. We are a very prosperous community and in spite of being held back in so many ways, in income, in job security, we still continue to climb.”

 Steele says there will always be the resisters and the beneficiaries but it’s a great combination because “as we resist chances are some of the things we’re fighting for we don’t really necessarily want it ourselves but we want it for our community.”

Photo credit: Vanessa Thompson    Seated left to right are: Valarie Steele, Sandra Hudson, Desmond Cole and Anthony Morgan

Hudson noted that there are many assumptions out there about partisan politics and social activism being mutually exclusive.

“I don’t think that that’s true and I think there’s a lot of assumptions to work through that I think people might be surprised to hear how often things actually need to overlap in order for us to be successful.”

She believes that “each of us wherever we’re working from needs to have an appreciation for one another – from one another’s position and the connections that we have as a result of where we’re working and how we’re working on making change for our communities.”

Hudson thinks there are many reasons for the assumptions about partisan politics and social activism being mutually exclusive.

“I think one of those reasons that really concern me is that it sometimes benefits people in power who are not from our community to make it seem like there is no way for us to connect if we’re involved in partisan politics with people who are involved in social activism.”

She thinks that the party establishment, at times, or people who are in power who are not part of Black communities don’t want to be pushed too hard and so make it seem that one group is reasonable and another unreasonable thus pitting them against each other.

“We have to make sure that when we’re hearing those critiques we’re asking: where is it coming from, is it really coming from our community, is it coming from an outsider community, and why do people want that to be the prevailing thought about the different people who are involved.”

The symposium had Morgan, thinking about the continuities of resistance and the ways in which underground community organizing, advocacy and engagement have led to some of the most significant developments and policy changes within Canada.

He reflected on the Black Action Defense Committee and its agitations and collective mobilization of Black communities ultimately leading to Ontario adopting its first modern policing legislation with police oversight.

Morgan notes that it wasn’t perfect but that’s not because of their advocacy as there were other forces that were involved that made it so.

The event also brought to his mind the 1992 Yonge Street uprising and how that led to the strengthening of the Anti-Racism Directorate, to the African Canadian Legal Clinic, and a host of other initiatives that were meant to support the healthy development of Black communities. 

He says many of these were subsequently wiped out by the Mike Harris government, and a fast-forward to the present finds him working at the City of Toronto in the Confronting Anti-Black Racism Unit.

Morgan says the catalytic moment was Black Lives Matter and their protest at the Toronto police headquarters in 2016, which took the city by surprise, though it shouldn’t have.

“It forced the city to really take seriously what’s happening with Black communities in a way that it had not before, and so I think about those continuities between the resistance on the ground and how it leads to structures for policy change and program implementation for Black communities.”

Morgan says resistance and the building within communities have to continue.

“I think that’s the biggest message because this government too shall pass and so we have to -- but not by hoping and praying -- but through advocacy, organizing and continuing that tradition.”

Cole said the symposium is important for him because activism has become a part of his life as a journalist and a writer.

 “I can’t really do my work thinking and talking about issues of black life without also having a direction for action, for actions that I can take and that other people can take, big and small, in our communities on a regular basis.”

He says activism is not just about holding a sign in the street. While it can be that, it is also a gathering, like the symposium, where people can talk about politics and challenge each other politically.

This is a form of necessary activism and a prerequisite for good organizing in our community, he says.

“When we’re talking about what kinds of issues we organize around, why we pick those issues, why we don’t do other things, why we choose or not choose to align with political parties we’re paving a ground for better understanding amongst one another to then do more effective work.”

He says he does not like the political system but participation of some sort in it is a necessary evil although he does not think it is the answer.

 “I certainly don’t think that voting and electing governments and trying to hold them accountable is the panacea. It’s not as though if we were able to control a larger share of a political party, for example, that I believe that all kinds of things would start to change for us. I do organize around elections, I do encourage people to vote but for me the majority, the lion’s share of the work is not about that. There are people whose day-to-day lives are in a state where participating in formal political process is not their priority and I don’t blame them.”

Photo credit: Vanessa Thompson Panelists of the 'Black Leadership & Social Activism' discussion - Valarie Steele, Sandra Hudson, Desmond Cole and Anthony Morgan -- reacts to closing remarks from Jean Augustine

Cole is a proponent of organizing in workplaces, universities and colleges and around various matters, including healthcare.

“We have to have our own organizing base so that when the time comes for things like elections we can poll them, we can influence them and not the other way around.”

Professor Kitossa says these events open up space for having conversations about different types of leadership.

“We can engage mothers, siblings, fathers, into a conversation that what they’re doing at home advocating for their children, that too is a form of leadership because they are the first example for the youth who are going to become the formal leaders of organizations and in formal politics for tomorrow.”

 He says these conversations can expand to “how we talk about leadership to leaderships” and more people can be invited into realizing that they are actually doing leadership every day.

One of the core messages from his conversation with Professors Austin and Gooden concerns young people that are PhD students working in universities and the challenges that they face, in terms of doing community work, and what that means for their ability to complete their own graduate work.

“We had a conversation about how do we effectively resource and how do we put pressure on administrations and universities to ensure that Black and African Canadian students have access to the resources that enable them to do the altruistic work in community, but which also helps them to have access to resources that enable them to complete their programs.”

Kitossa said these students are taking on work that their white colleagues and peers don’t have to do.

Photo credit: Vanessa Thompson   Jean Augustine in whose honour the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora is named speaks at the symposium

Meanwhile, in preparation for the October federal election Operation Black Vote Canada recently launched “Dinner and Politics” in Ottawa and will do so at a later date in Toronto.

The focus of the campaign is to encourage small or large groups of Black Canadians to host a dinner sometime in the next three months, so between February 3 and May 3, and talk about their political intention for 2019, says Gooch.

There are kits on OBVC’s website to learn how to be a host and the hope is that what happens at these dinners turns into political action.

As it usually does prior to an election, the JCA will hold a workshop for candidates and for the people involved in their campaign to get them understanding what to do regarding fundraising, the key ingredients that make a successful campaign, when do they have to start and how far in advance, says Patterson.

The association will organize this in June or July in the lead-up to the federal election.