ROM reaches reconciliation with the Coalition for the Truth about Africa

ROM reaches reconciliation with the Coalition for the Truth about Africa

By Neil Armstrong

It took 27 years but finally the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) has officially apologized to the Coalition for the Truth about Africa (CFTA), and its apology has been accepted.

At an event held at the museum in Toronto on November 9, opened by Nunmo Nii Akrong, Chief Priest of Ga Dangme, offering libation, the ROM delivered a statement of reconciliation saying it produced the exhibition, Into the Heart of Africa, which opened there in November 1989.

It said the exhibition was intended to critically examine the colonial relationships and premises through which collections from African societies had entered museums.

“The exhibition displayed images and words that showed the fundamentally racist ideas and attitudes of early collectors and, in doing so, unintentionally reproduced the colonial, racist and Eurocentric premises through which these collections had been acquired. Thus, Into the Heart of Africa perpetuated an atmosphere of racism and the effect of the exhibition itself was racist. The ROM expresses its deep regret for having contributed to anti-African racism. The ROM also officially apologizes for the suffering endured by members of the African-Canadian community as a result of Into the Heart of Africa," said Dr. Mark Engstrom, the museum's Deputy Director, Collections and Research, who read the statement and was the person guiding the reconciliation process for the ROM over the past two years.

The CFTA came into being in the fall of 1989 after a number of individuals had seen the exhibition, Into the Heart of Africa, and concluded that it was racist, deciding to do something about it.

Initially an ad hoc group, it later consolidated as a broad-based coalition consisting of nearly one hundred groups from across Canada.

Many CFTA members had been, and some are still vilified and hurt by this experience.

Josh Basseches, Director and CEO of the ROM, said the reconciliation event marked an extremely important milestone for both the CFTA and the ROM.

He said the ROM had evolved significantly from the museum it was in 1989 and today collaborates and engages with diverse communities on exhibitions, events, and programming.

Martha Durdin, Chair of its Board of trustees, said the board is committed to ensuring that the museum is a welcoming place for all communities.

Rostant Ras Rico John, who accepted the apology on behalf of the CFTA and the African community in Canada, expressed pride in having reached this point of reconciliation after twenty-seven years.

“It took a long time to get to that point but the ROM understood its responsibility and moved forward and invited us in 2014 to get together with them to work out some form of getting together to bring respect and dignity back to the African community in Canada here,” he said.

He said the ROM’s team worked diligently and honestly with CAFTA and though there were “little problems, little bumps’ to overcome, they did so.

“We worked out many very good plans and those plans will benefit the African community here in Canada. When a wrong has been done it has to be righted and the efforts that were put down have made it right,” he said, acknowledging the collective work of his CAFTA colleagues: Yaw Akyeaw, Ajamu Nangwaya, Afua Cooper and Geraldine Moriba.

The ROM’s negotiating team included Basseches, who became CEO in 2015, Dr. Engstrom, Cheryl Blackman and Dr. Silvia Forni.

“We want our community to know that the ROM did not slip or slide, nor hide. They came forward, showed themselves, and they worked with us. We think that we worked very diligently on behalf of our community, the African community in Canada, and we think that where we have reached is where the community would like us to be.”

He said in addition to the apology, which was one of the introductions to the affirmative action that will be taken, the ROM itself initiated some that CFTA did not ask for and also agreed with a lot of those they wanted.

“There will be a lot of good works in the future coming out through the ROM and through the efforts of the CFTA,” said John.

The ROM announced a number of steps it will take in the coming years to continue to strengthen collaboration with African-Canadian communities and help shape the museum of the future.

These include enhanced partnerships with Black educational networks, opportunities for training Black youth interested in museums, and continued support of events and lectures that address the history and cultures of Africa and the Diaspora.

Working with the CFTA and other community partners, the ROM is committed to sustained and meaningful programming, and acknowledges the importance of dialogue and collaboration toward enhancing its collection and public events.

Cooper thanked the ROM for “opening its compassionate heart so we could work together to do this,” and also curators, Julie Crooks and Dominque Fontaine.

She said the present administrative structure of the museum is different from that of 1989 and she feels that it is genuine and sincere.

Cooper thanked Ras Rico for taking the leadership on the matter for the CFTA as well as the African Canadian community.

“When these discussions started in 2014 we said Rico you do this. You have been such a committed speaker throughout in the first dispensation and now in the second dispensation when we had the conference in October 2014 it was such a tremendous effort we wanted you to continue that leadership role,” she said.

Cooper said she felt like she was in a twilight zone because she remembered marching outside the ROM in 1989/1990 and it is now 27 years.

“No one would have thought that we would, tonight, be receiving an apology,” she said, noting that her son, Akil, who was little at the time, used to march with her outside the museum.

“Many of us suffered as a result of our taking the ROM to task during those years. People lost their jobs, people had to flee the city of Toronto, people were harassed by the police, people had difficulty crossing the borders, people were jailed, and even one person, Adisa Oji, was incarcerated in a prison in Windsor, Ontario and was not able to practice his craft as a teacher. And so we remember Oji tonight as we stand here.”

Cooper said through art, through culture “we can claim ourselves, we can claim our spirit, we can envision a life of beauty, a life of passion, a life of compassion” and the museum is a crucial place in society.

She said the museum has a significant role to play in society because the museum can do all these things.

“So the museum, art and culture, can create all of those things for us so why should we not as an African community  participate in these events, in these exhibits. Why should we not bring our children, bring our grandparents, bring our parents, bring ourselves, bring our families, bring our friends to these spaces and engage the art, engage the back and forthing, engage the dialogue that happens when you honour, when you – the body – reflect on a piece of art. That’s what we want for our community in a big way.”

She said Canada is now dealing with the truth and reconciliation tribunal with regard to indigenous people “and today, this evening at the ROM we are engaging in another significant reconciliation, this time in regard to the African community.”

“We’re beginning to flesh our reconciliation. We accept the apology but we also say that an apology cannot be empty. It’s not enough to say we apologize but we go the extra step of reconciling and as we reconcile we flesh out what it means for everybody. The reconciliation cannot really have meat or vegetable, I’m a vegetarian, until we recognize the full humanity of the party that has been wronged.”

She said earlier that evening when one of her colleagues, Wesley Crichlow, came, he saw her and said, “we need our own museum, are you going to talk about that.”

“We need to start the African Canadian museum. We need money to start it and the ROM should help us start it,” she said, noting that it is an idea that has been around for the past twenty-five years.

She said Toronto is the only major North American city that does not have an African museum.

Akyeaw said there was no doubt that Into the Heart of Africa was racist and that the arrests were racist and illegal because it was mainly black protesters who were detained. The white people who were arrested were released that day.

“It was a racist situation but we’re here to heal,” he said.

He said in Ghanaian culture a person apologizes to cool the heart.

“If that’s all the ROM did I would have been disappointed but they took steps, they took action,” he said, noting that the museum made substantial changes on their own to make the African Canadian know that it is important and part of the fabric of Canada.

Dr. Engstrom noted the ROM is organizing a major exhibition curated by Forni in 2018 which addresses the exclusion of blackness from mainstream Canadian historical narrative through the work of seven contemporary Black Canadian artists.

Left-right: Ajamu Nangwaya, Josh Basseches, Rostant Ras Rio John, Dr. Mark Engstrom, Dr. Afua Cooper, Cheryl Blackman, Martha Durdin, Geraldine Moriba, Dr. Silvia Forni and Yaw Akyeaw at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto on Nov. 9, 2016.

Lecture explores the Anansi poetics of Louise Bennett (Miss Lou)

Lecture explores the Anansi poetics of Miss Lou

By Neil Armstrong

Dr. Carolyn Cooper, recently retired Professor of Literature and Cultural Studies, University of the West Indies (Mona campus) delivered the 2016 Michael Baptista Lecture in commemoration of the 10^th anniversary of the passing of “Miss Lou” (1919-2006) -- Jamaica’s iconic and beloved poet and folklorist – on Nov. 3 at Founders College, York University in Toronto, Canada.

Entitled “'Disguise Up De English Language':  Louise Bennett's Anansi Poetics,” it examined Louise Bennett use of humour, in her multiple roles as poet, storyteller, folklorist, actress, dramatist and comedian, to simultaneously mask and expose a whole range of grave socio-political issues in “post-colonial” Jamaica. 

The devaluation of African-derived culture, particularly language, was a central preoccupation in Bennett's oeuvre. Like the trickster, Anansi, Bennett assumed many voices to tell the complex story of cultural identity in Jamaica.

Louise Bennett-Coverley amassed an impressive body of artistic work beginning in the late 1930s and covering more than 50 years.

Her contributions included poetry, Jamaican folk music, work on television and radio, and on the theatre stage. She spent the last two decades of her life in Canada and was awarded an honorary degree from York University in 1998.

Dr. Cooper started her presentation with a video clip of Miss Lou speaking about language and the value of music in shaping a community at play and at work.

“When you see and hear the joy of children reveling in their culture, you will begin to apprehend the epic tragedy that results from the failure of the school system in Jamaica to take the children’s first language seriously as a medium of instruction in primary schools,” said Cooper.

The video also included musicologist, Olive Lewin, sharing her views on the power of music.

Professor Cooper noted that on her radio program, “Miss Lou’s Views,” Bennett addressed a whole range of topical issues.

The jacket of a Federal Records album describes the program as “ a popurrí of typical and topical happenings in the dialect of Louise Bennett as related by Aunty Roachy.”

Professor Mervyn Morris, Jamaica’s premiere Louise Bennett scholar, edited a selection of these monologues that were published in 1993 as “Aunty Roachy seh.”

“In the opening piece, “Jamaica Language,” Louise Bennett deploys the tropes of trickery and disguise to signify the ways in which enslaved Africans creatively exercised agency in order to claim their humanity and reclaim their linguistic heritage,” said Cooper reading the English translation and then the Jamaican version.

She noted the way in which Bennett used language and dialect interchangeably to describe the Jamaican vernacular.

“The popular names for the local language in Jamaica are dialect and patois. Linguists prefer Jamaican Creole or simply Jamaican. Furthermore, Bennett acknowledges the role of language in defining community. The colonizers alienating imperative to privilege English and devalue African languages is systematically resisted by Africans who instead colonized English.

“The emergence of a Jamaican language is conceived by Bennett as the end result of a subversive political process. The new language is a cunning revolutionary assertion of African verbal creativity and cultural autonomy. Now, this is not at all how the Jamaican language is perceived by the social and political elites. It is routinely dismissed as nothing but a corruption of English.”

Cooper alluded to Professor Rex Nettleford’s 1966 Introduction to Bennett’s “Jamaica Labrish,” in which he describes her experimental creative writing in Jamaican in this way, with a measure of irony Cooper supposes – “In a quarter of a century she has carved designs out of the shapeless and unruly substance that is the Jamaican dialect.”

“Nettleford’s use of the metaphor of the plastic arts further alienates the Jamaican mother tongue from conventional discourses of what constitutes a language. Unlike real languages that have shape and rules, i.e. grammar, and which do not behave unseemly, the promiscuous vernacular is according to Nettleford “an idiom whose limitations as a bastard tongue are all too evident.” Now to be fair to Nettleford, that statement was published half a century ago, I suspect that he must have changed his mind over time. But even today, there are many supposedly intelligent Jamaicans who have not moved beyond this primitive emotional view of the local language.”

She said Bennett’s struggle, in the first instance, was to achieve dialect status for this “shapeless and unruly bastard tongue” as expressed in her satirical poem, “Bans O’ Killing.”

“Bennett’s persuasive argument was that English-speaking communities in Britain had regional dialects. The fact that Jamaica also had a regional dialect should be recognized without embarrassment. The later Louise Bennett moving beyond the limiting conception of Jamaican as a bastard dialect of English herself contests the popular corruption of language way of Jamaican. In that same monologue, “Jamaica Language,” she humorously argues that English is just as corrupt as Jamaican since it is derived, in part, from Norman French, Greek and Latin. Jamaican should be similarly derived from other languages, quote “English is a derivation but Jamaica Dialect is corruption. What a unfairity.”

Cooper said Bennett concludes with, “we derive to.”

She noted that Bennett’s inclusion of  “wi English forefathers in the family history craftily acknowledges the English elements in Jamaican and simultaneously underscores the deracinating compulsion that is an essential element of the enslavement process.”

“Bennett also derives the limitations of the English colonizers who could not master the African languages. Indeed, the Africans who colonized English are represented as far more inventive than the mono-lingual English who are trapped in the castle of their skin and culture, to cite George Lamming’s brilliant anticolonial novel. And even today, the English are the least multilingual of the Europeans. They feel as if everybody is learning English they don’t need to learn anybody else’s language.”

Professor Cooper said Louise Bennett’s representation of the cunning of the African Jamaican extends beyond the linguistic domain.

“More broadly, the politics of disguise is a manifestation of the morally ambiguous craftiness of Anansi, the Akan spider god, transmuted in Jamaican folklore into Bre Anancy, the archetypal trickster. Folktales of the mighty outwitted by the clever proliferate throughout the African diaspora. The shared history of plantation slavery in the Americas consolidates within the psyche of African peoples in the hemisphere cultural continuities, ancestral memories of sabotage and marronage, systemic resistance to servitude. It is within this broader tradition of neo-African folk consciousness, the Anancy syndrome, that Bennett’s elaboration of the African Jamaican sensibility can be best understood.”

In 1988, Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s classic, “The Signifying Monkey,” a theory of Afro-American literary criticism was published which has on the cover an image of Eshu-Elegbara.

“Eshu, the quintessential trickster, both male and female, the indeterminate intermediary between the divine and the human presides over the crossroads, both literal and metaphysical. Eshu signifies the displaced African in the diaspora.”

Professor Cooper noted that in 1970, a collection of so-called slave narratives edited by the American historian, Gilbert Osofsky, was published.

“Its title, “Puttin’ On Ole Massa: The Narratives of Henry Bibb, William Wells Brown, Solomon Northup” signifies a putting on ole massa, making a fool out of ole massa.”

Cooper thinks these narratives should be called ‘freedom narratives’ not ‘slave narratives’ according to convention, “for these self-reflexive narratives disclose a consciousness of free people reclaiming their humanity through acts of revelatory agency.”

She said Anancy is Jamaica’s version of the ubiquitous trickster.

Louise Bennett wrote several collections of Anancy stories which are now out of print. The first was “Anancy Stories and Poems in Dialect,” published by the Gleaner in 1944.

Then there was “Anancy Stories and Dialect Verse” by Louise Bennett, Dorothy Clarke, Una Wilson and others published by the Pioneer Press in 1950. A new series of the book was published in 1957 and “Laugh with Louise” was published in 1961.

In 1979, “Anancy and Miss Lou” was published bringing back into print a body of stories that bears Miss Lou’s indelible imprint, said Cooper.

“In her author’s note in the collection, Louise Bennett characterizes the trickster in this way: ‘Anancy, the trickify little spiderman who speaks with a lisp and lives by his wits is both comic and sinister, both hero and villain of Jamaican folk stories. He points out human weaknesses and shows how easily we can be injured and destroyed by our greed, our stupidity, or by confidence in the wrong people and things. Anancy is an Ashanti spider god that has magical powers. He can change himself into whatever and whoever he wishes at certain times and his stories make it quite clear that he is able to get away with tricks which ordinary mortals can’t. He’s a rascal but loveable and every existing custom is said to have been started by Anancy. Is Anancy mek it.

‘Most Anancy stories have songs and these have been the true lullabies to Jamaican children for generations Each Anancy story ends with Jack Mandora mi nuh choose none which means I take no responsibility for the story I have told. Jack Mandora – Keeper of Heaven’s Door – mi nun choose none – it is not of my choosing.’”

Sharing a story about Anancy and Fire from the collection, Cooper said: “That cunning Jamaican woman as we saw there who is celebrated and satirized with equal gusto in Louise Bennett’s ample corpus is a composite character, an aggregation of the multiple persona employed by Bennett, the ventriloquist, to voice the lives of representative Jamaican women of all social classes.”

“This multifarious heroine victim of Bennett’s comic satirical sketches presents us with a diversity of social class values and behaviours that attest to the accuracy of Bennett’s detailed portraiture. Indirection is the quintessential attribute and all dubious distinction of the crafty Jamaican woman of whom Bennett herself is a prime example for she creates with cunning irony out of the raw materials of Jamaican life a dramatized world of paradoxical characters who simultaneously mask and disclose the ambiguously shifting Bennett point of view.”

Professor Cooper said that since 1978 there has been a great flowering of writing by Caribbean women and she paused to introduce some of them attending the lecture – Dionne Brand, Olive Senior and Ramabai Espinet.

“Nevertheless, Louise Bennett remains a powerful voice for working class Jamaican women who are still very much underrepresented. And her poem, “Jamaica Woman,” is a classic articulation of the cunning of Anancy. The Bennett persona employs an earthy metaphorical proverb to expose with obvious relish the ginalship, as we say in Jamaican,  and fortitude of the Jamaican female.”

She said like Edith Clarke’s anthropological research, “My Mother Who Fathered Me,” Louise Bennett’s own sustained research into Jamaican folk cultures helped to generate real knowledge of the foundations of our society. The perception of work in Jamaica, for example, is rather complex.

“Professor Mervyn Morris cites a lovely quote from Anancy in his introduction to “Anancy and Miss Lou”: ‘Anancy sorrowing declares I don’t know what fi do. I try dis, I try dat. The ongle ting lef fi mi do is work. Why muma, a hope tings don’t come to dat.’”

She said there are several Jamaican proverbs around what appears to be “an entrenched counter-productive work ethic that seems to be the byproduct of the slavery experience. In circumstances where workers feel that reward is not commensurate with effort very little energy will be extended. Thus dawg seh before im plant yam fi look like mosquito foot, im satisfy fi tun beggar.”

Andrea Davis, Chair of the Department of Humanities and former director of the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) said working alongside Honor Ford-Smith in 1995 as graduate students at York University they hosted an event with Miss Lou in Founders College the turnout was overwhelming.

Ford-Smith, now Associate Professor, Environmental Studies at York University, in her introduction of Dr. Cooper noted that: “Carolyn is very important to us because she is the person who has put Caribbean popular culture on the map, an in particular Jamaican popular culture. And she has joined us into global debates about the significance and meaning of popular culture worldwide and its role in the formation of cultural values and cultural struggles.”

She said Cooper is one of the chief advocates who has given leadership to the movement to popularize and legitimize the vernacular in formal media and in formal academic work.

“Carolyn Cooper is a true popular intellectual committed to widening debates on cultural politics beyond the walls of the academy and to making her work and the work of others who study the things that she does the centre of public intellectual inquiry,” said Ford-Smith.

The lecture was presented by CERLAC and co-sponsored by the Department of Humanities, Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on Africa and its Diasporas, and the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora.

Carolyn Cooper, retired Professor of Literary & Cultural Studies, University of the West Indies (Mona Campus) left, and Andrea A. Davis, Chair, Department of Humanities/Former Director of the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC).

The 2016-2017 Michael Baptista Lecture: 'Disguise Up De English Language': Louise Bennett's Anansi Poetics presented by Dr. Carolyn Cooper at York University

Peel School Board plans to hold consultation before winter break

Peel school board plans to hold consultation before winter break

By Neil Armstrong

The Peel District School Board (PDSB) is acting on a recently released report on the challenges facing black male students in its schools. It is planning to hold a stakeholder consultation before the winter break.

The report, “We Rise Together: Perspectives of Black Male Students in Secondary School – Understanding the Successes and Challenges,” was completed in September and released by the board in October.

The purpose of the project was to dig deeper into the educational experiences and perceptions of black youth in the PDSB.

In an effort to better understand the experiences of black male students, a series of focus groups were conducted to capture their perceptions of school, identify the successes and challenges they encounter while in school, and explore factors that impact their engagement and success.

In an attempt to obtain a wide range of experiences, the focus groups involved both successful and struggling black male students n Grades 10-12 attending nine schools across the Region of Peel – 87 students in total.

The findings indicate that black students desire change to occur within their classrooms and their schools.

They suggested implementing culturally responsive and relevant curriculum, respectful and supportive school staff who hold higher expectations of them, programs that support academic and social success, and equal opportunities to participate in activities that align with their interests.

“In order to fully address these areas, it may be helpful to consult with various stakeholder groups in schools and throughout their communities. Such groups can include school staff; parents/guardians of black students; and local networks, agencies, and advocacy groups that represent and support black communities throughout the Region of Peel,” says the report.

It said by sharing and discussing the focus group findings, and honouring the ideas of various stakeholder groups, “we can co-create a strong plan of action involving strategies and solutions designed to effectively address the academic, emotional, and social needs of black students in the Peel District School Board.”

Suzanne Nurse, Vice-Chair of the Board and PDSB Trustee Brampton Wards 2 & 6, says
in order to create a more inclusive school system, the Board will be looking at four focus areas: “engage with the community, deliver bias-free and anti-racism professional development, integrate the experiences of Black Canadians into the curriculum, and inspire black student leadership and engagement.”

Heeding the recommendation to co-create a strong plan of action to address the academic, emotional, and social needs of black students in the Peel District School Board, Nurse identified some possible participants.

“Some of the stakeholder groups the PDSB will partner with include the Black Community Action Network - Peel, United Achievers Club, United Achievers Community Services, Peel Association of African Canadian Educators, and United Way. This list is by no means exhaustive,” she said.

The Board would like to hold the stakeholder consultation before the winter break. Timelines for activities under the other focus areas are currently being determined.

One of the things the students disliked about school is the “minimal acknowledgement of Black History Month.”

The report said in some schools, the focus placed on Black History month is limited. “Examples include: (I) 
activities reflecting Black history are restricted to the end of the month, (2) Canadian Black history is not discussed, (3) only black students and black teachers help organize events and/or participate in the activities, and/or (4) teachers only focus on the contributions of Martin Luther King. Students also noted that Asian Heritage month receives far more attention by teachers and students than Black History month.”

Asked how the PDSB acknowledges Black History Month, Nurse said every year the Board hosts a student-focused event at the central office to celebrate Black History Month.

“It is the expectation that individual schools will also celebrate Black History Month. I have seen schools create displays of student artwork, organize student lead assemblies, and welcome guest speakers as a way to celebrate the month,” she said.

With regard to addressing this particular issue identified by the black male students, Nurse said: “Our focus area to integrate the experiences of Black Canadians into the curriculum, I believe, will help address this issue, not just regarding Black History Month, but throughout a student's public school experience.”

One year ago, responding to matters arising from "VOICES of Ontario Black Educators: An Experiential Report" conducted by the Ontario Alliance of Black School Educators (ONABSE), Board Chair Janet McDougald said a gap analysis and report would be completed before the end of December 2015.

The VOICES report found that systemic anti-black racism was still entrenched in the education system “to the point where it not only hampers the hiring of black teachers, it also retains significant barriers in the promotion and advancement of black teachers, and has very serious repercussions within the classrooms.”

At that time, the PDSB was also mulling over the United Way report, F.A.C.E.S. of Peel Collaborative - "Fighting an Uphill Battle: Report on the Consultation into the Well-Being of Black Youth in Peel Region."

Black youth in Peel reported feelings of isolation and marginalization in the public education system.

“It is our intention to review the reports and the recommendations in order to better understand what programs and interventions are already underway here in the Peel District School Board. Such a review is a standard part of what our equity-focused staff would do when such a report is issued,” said McDougald in a letter last year.

On November 5, Professor Carl James, Jean Augustine Chair in Education at York University, will hold a community consultation on black student success at the head office of the PDSB in Mississauga.

Suzanne Nurse, Vice Chair of the Peel District School Board. Photo contributed

Tackling the Issue of Anti-Black Racism within the Labour Movement

Tackling the issue of anti-black racism within the labour movement

By Neil Armstrong

African Canadian workers attending a recently held conference organized by the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) in Ottawa addressed the pressing issue of anti-black racism within the labour movement.

The CLC, the national voice of the labour movement representing 3.3 million Canadian workers, held its second national human rights conference from Oct. 20-23 under the theme, “Rise Up 2016: Live The Change.”

Sonia Ellis-Seguin, executive officer with the Elementary Teachers of Toronto (ETT) and Nancy MacLean, health and safety officer of Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC)-Halifax were among those who attended the workshop, “Working While Black,” which explored the systemic barriers faced by black workers in the workplace, union, and community.

“I was outraged in the sense that so many of us are experiencing the same thing and we were clearly coming from different parts of this country,” said Ellis-Seguin.

One of the activities involved writing on a wall words in captioned boxes of what anti-black racism looked or felt like from personal experience.

“Some of the comments were: being faced with being perceived as the angry black woman or man versus passionate, being perceived as “too black” or ‘I’m not a racist, I have black friends’ – these are the lived true experiences of black people as workers in their respective professions.”

Ellis-Seguin said the added layer to this was that all the participants were black unionized workers experiencing the systemic racism that exists within their workplace.

She said this begs the question – what are the local unions doing about what their members are experiencing.

“That spoke volumes,” she said, noting that a participant spoke about racism within the union and what is not happening.

Ellis-Seguin said one of the things they were conflicted with was pushing for designated seats within their unions to advance these issues.

There was no clear answer, except where possible to push for designated seats because without it, it will make it even that much more difficult, she said.

The workshop highlighted the need to continue to advocate for black workers within the union.

“To be in a room at the CLC with well over 20 or 30 different black leaders, which were clearly across the country, it was great, it was motivating and inspiring,” she said, noting that it is sad that in her profession there are so few but that is the reality for other unions.

Individually, black elected leaders in the union are far and few between but when pulled together they become more.

The ETT is structured with a provincial body and local chapters reflecting the different cities and areas across the province connected to school boards.

They come together as a collective body provincially once a year and this is where resolutions can be put forward to direct the organization and potentially impact change.

For the last six years, she has organized a black members and allies caucus and she has seen its growth over the years.

“We have tried year after year to encourage the members that are there to go back and bring somebody else. Try to get anther person of colour, another black person involved so that our presence and our agenda can move forward.”

She said a couple years ago in one of the caucuses they spoke about the need for the union to identify and address white privilege.

It took them two years but the motion passed and the organization had to create a workshop to educate members about the issue.

There was also another motion around culturally relevant pedagogy, and this year there will be another resolution to try to push the organization to create material specifically on anti-black racism.

“These types of motions and directions to the organization isn’t coming from the elected

leaders within the organization. It’s coming from us, the people, identifying the need for it and then having to bring it to the floor for debate to then be approved. But if we weren’t there, if this caucus didn’t exist, I couldn’t tell you that our organization would be taking up the cause.”

Ellis-Seguin said she is grateful for the space to have the caucus because she knows that if it wasn’t for the work of its members some of the work that the union is involved in wouldn’t have happened.

She said in some unions it is not easy to create that space for the rank and file to have their voices heard. This was apparent at the conference.

“Really knowing your union and understanding the processes that are in place to impact change is critical. And once knowing that you have to organize.”

She said journalist, Desmond Cole, who was one of the speakers reminded them that they are not calling individuals racist, the system is racist and it is important to acknowledge that and do something about it.

“I can attest to that within my own union, I feel as though when we talk about anti-black racism, when you talk about the need for calling out racism, they don’t want to be associated with it.”

There was also a lot of talk about decolonizing oneself first before even being able to move on.

She said change has to come from the grassroots members because she has not seen it come from the elected officials or the staff on their own.

She said activism is tiring and there are days when she feels like why bother, the struggle is too great.

However, the conference provided her with the rejuvenation that she needed knowing that there are others trying to make their union and their profession more aware of the issues facing black people and addressing anti-black racism.

“My experience is that while we talk the talk, we have not been able as an organization to walk the walk. And I find that with a lot of even provincial labour organizations, labour unions and also national organizations as well, you know we talk to people and other national organizations, like CUPE and Unifor, even the terminology “anti-black racism” is new,” said MacLean.

She noted that some have said: “We’ve been hearing about racism, now what’s this whole thing around anti-black racism. Now you’re adding something more to it. And now you’re frightening me even more.”

MacLean thinks labour organizations have not been able to address these things internally because of the systemic and institutional barriers within.

She thought that through the “Working While Black” workshop the goal was to try to come up with some recommendations specifically for the CLC but that did not materialize.

However, through other workshops they also talked about anti-black racism.

She said the terminology was new to a lot of union activists but people were thoroughly engaged and there were recommendations.

They said people need more education and training and they are looking for the CLC to develop a course around this and to develop a leadership course that would focus and engage members around anti-black racism.

“They wanted the CLC, as a national labour organization, to actually do more, and they didn’t say the word ‘campaign,’ per se, but utilizing what’s going on here in Canada, particularly around the Black Lives Matter movement, to do more work, in terms of a campaign, to bring greater awareness around anti-black racism, not just in the formal setting but also in the informal setting.”

The recommendation is to do campaigns or more engagement at the local level and try to get that filtered down to the federations of labour so that it can reach people at a greater level.

MacLean recently settled a Nova Scotia human rights complaint against her employer on the basis of racism.

Within the complaint process, she cited several examples such as: a supervisor asking her in a staff meeting ‘what would Kunta Kinte say?’ when she expressed being tired because she watched the new televised movie series, “Roots,” and being affected by it.

Other examples included being asked to go fetch coffee and to deliver it, and MacLean cited that, in terms of discrimination, because she was made to feel like she was the maid, she said.

She was also accused of stealing something out of a kit bag being assembled for a conference. She was the only black staff member helping.

“When an item went missing I was the one that was bluntly accused of stealing that item when, indeed, it had been somebody else, so I’ve experienced a number of different issues around racial discrimination in my own workplace hence I filed the human rights complaint and we settled it at a resolution conference two weeks ago with a number of other grievances,” said MacLean who spoke to me

Sonia Ellis-Seguin

Nancy MacLean

on October 24, a day after the CLC conference ended.

One of the things that she addressed in the resolution conference, as part of a settlement, was the issue that in 2004 there was a recommendation for her organization to have anti-racism and anti-oppression training for elected officers and management.

MacLean said this never happened and later in 2009 a major event happened in the workplace. Thirteen grievances were filed from it, including one on racial discrimination, “where we were called miserable niggers in our own workplace.”

She said the grievance took five years to be resolved because their employer told them that they had to prove that it was racism.

MacLean said a big investigation took place and they ended up in arbitration and after almost 18 months, they initiated a settlement.

“One of the settlement items again was around mandatory training. The employer signed off on that as part of an arbitrated settlement. It never transpired; that was two years ago. Nothing in relation to training or education or development for the union, as a whole, happened. And we signed off on it as an arbitrated settlement.”

She said two years later, which is 2016, she found herself asking for it through the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission that is now mandated to ensure that it happens.

“That’s the only way that I felt I could get what this organization needs. When it comes to anti-black racism, really they just don’t get it. They talk about racism but they talk about it as a kind of a global sense and now the talk about, specifically, anti-black racism, that’s going to make people feel uncomfortable,” says the union representative.

Part of her portfolio includes doing human rights work so she has two human rights committees and she does all the human rights courses, including anti-racism.

Recently, she held a workshop on representing and advocating against workplace racism and she informed her employer because many times she felt like a hypocrite at work.

“I’m singing from your songbook but the songs aren’t playing out for me. It’s not playing out for me in my workplace but I am singing from your songbook because I’m paid to do so. It really impacts us, particularly as black staff when we know that we’re treated in such as way, and that racism perpetuates itself every single day in our own workplace and nothing is done, ” she said.

The PSAC’s human rights policy statement and constitution “clearly outlines that we do not condone discrimination and that we will be vigilant in challenging discrimination in our workplaces.” 

“Human rights are protected in law – through human rights legislation, labour legislation and health and safety legislation to some extent. Collective agreements also protect human rights,” notes the union’s website about grievance and complaints involving human rights.

MacLean believes things have to start at the top of the organization where the decision makers are and she thinks what the union can do is to start to engage the grassroots members.

She said all unions operate under a political structure. There are elected officers, which means a lot to people who are elected, and if they want to maintain their positions then they have to do what the grassroots members want them to do.

She said the union needs to get more thoroughly engaged with coalition partners at the community level who will help to strengthen the organization at the grassroots level to “make sure that they force the elected officials to do that work.”

MacLean said things need to be taken to the grassroots members to make sure that they have a greater awareness and understanding.

“We have a lot of allies and we have a lot of friends at that level and that’s the community level that can impact that change. If we’re going to make that happen, I think we need to go to those, back to the grassroots membership and make sure that they are organized enough and that they’re supported enough to make sure that those people who are in elected leadership positions, be it individual unions or the Canadian Labour Congress, are doing that work.”

MacLean singled out the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) which, she says, has been instrumental, in terms of partnerships, and is doing some great stuff.

She said the coalition will be working on a project of talking more and trying to engage more union activists around anti-black racism.

The CBTU Ontario Chapter will celebrate its 20^th anniversary on November 19 in Thornhill, Ontario.

The organization challenges systemic forms of racism within the labour movement itself by promoting access and opening doors for black workers and workers of colour within their unions.

A Conversation on Anti-Black Racism and a Lecure about Miss Lou's Anansi Poetics

A CONVERSATION ON ANTI-BLACK RACISM and A LECTURE ABOUT MISS LOU’S ANANSI POETICS

By Neil Armstrong

It was such a delight to attend two events on different university campuses this week that were insightful, cleverly presented, and provided much food for thought upon my departure.

Those two events were: “A New World is Possible: A Conversation on Anti-Black Racism” Mandela Social Justice Annual Lecture – part of Ryerson University’s Social Justice Week on Wednesday (Nov. 2) – and the 2016-2017 Michael Baptista Lecture organized by the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) at York University on Thursday (Nov. 3).

The Conversation included keynote speaker, Dionne Brand, renowned poet, novelist and essayist, with Black Lives Matter-Toronto co-founders, Sandy Hudson and Rodney Diverlus as respondents.

Brand began by thanking Akua Benjamin and Winnie Ng for their groundbreaking work and paid an homage to Black Lives Matter-Toronto, congratulating its members for the work that they continue to do. The homage was from her generation to the generation of Black Lives Matter-Toronto.

She read an excerpt from “The Blue Clerk,” a book she just finished writing that is not yet published. This was a section in which the author meets her “early, tender self” on the subway – “a woman with a face empty of the meaning of failure.”

“This tender self is unassailable, undiminished, unsedimented, raw and conscious,” Brand reads.

She ends with the statement:

 “To Black Lives Matter-Toronto, you are our tender selves. You’re our most badass self too. And I know you do this work out of self-love, out of admiration for our history and of the need to save our lives, and I want you to know that you are deeply loved.

“You speak into the future, you speak in a future tense. You are as Lorraine Hansberry said ‘young, gifted and black.’ And you do as Essex Hemphill did when he wrote, ‘I want to start an organization to save my life. If whales, snails, dogs, cats, Chrysler and Nixon can be saved, the lives of black men [and I add here all black people] are priceless and can be saved.’

“I want you to know how grateful we are that you’ve come along and that you have started organizations to save our lives. And I want you to know that you sit in our love and I want you to remember that love when you are attacked and when you are beleaguered. And not only that, but to say that you carry the bones of our ancestors – those who survived and those who did not survive those ships. We, here in this room, are lucky, lucky to have you engaged in the struggle for possible new worlds. We know why you’re out there. We see and hear you and that is all that matters.”

Brand said one of the questions of her life has been – “What is it to write now?

Writing in my time, writing in the time of unrelenting racism and anti-blackness. How to write?”

“All of my work has been in meditation on blackness and meditation on living in my time. When I began writing forty years ago, I thought a new world was possible. I had this conversation with Otis Richmond. Otis had come to Toronto fleeing the draft, in fact fleeing prison, because he had refused to go to the Vietnam War saying that black people didn’t have anything to defend there because they were second class citizens anyway in the US. We became friends in the 70s and he said to me one day, ‘Dionne, do you think it’s going to happen in our lifetime?’ And he said it with a certain weariness, and I said, ‘yeah, what are you talking about, of course.’ I’m still working on it. So, I thought a new world was possible then, I still do. I began writing for that new world and I took as a mantra the sentence by Amilcar Cabral, I think. He said, ‘we are not the people who will live in the world we’re trying to make.’”

Showing a slide of the pioneering Contrast newspaper from 1971 [an exhibition, Welcome to Blackhurst St., now on at Markham House celebrates Black History in the Bathurst/Bloor area through the pages of the newspaper], Brand said that was where she began.

On the cover of the newspaper where the photos of the various black figures who were attending a Black People’s Conference in Toronto. She was 18 then.

“Amiri Baraka was to be the main speaker. It was a massive conference. It was at Harbord Collegiate. It was the middle of Black Power Movement, organizations like the Black Students Union at UofT existed, the Black Education Project, the African Liberation Support Committee, the Black Youth Organization, the UNIA, many, many more. Our outview then was national and Pan American, Pan African, international really.”

Brand read her poetry at the conference and said the reception “was warm and kind for all of us and it is that reception, that affirmation that has kept me writing. I still see my literary work as writing in celebration and defense of black living in its full range and breadth.”

She read from several of her works on Wednesday and noted that: “ I want to share some of this with you not to prove that the more things change the more they remain the same but to say how as an artist and a writer I have attended to this idea -- like other black writers living and gone -- how I have tried to be vigilant in looking, seeing, illustrating, recording and improvising on the agility with which black people live our everyday lives surviving as we do in the post-apocalypse of slavery and in the historical and contemporary makings of life.”

“Christina Sharpe calls it the weather in her book just recently out called “In the Wake: On Blackness and Being.” She calls it the weather – anti-blackness, white supremacy, racism is the weather we live in. I was so fascinated by that concept, the really interesting way of looking at it. Its everydayness, its brutalities, its casual presence, its tangential presence or what I call an uncertain pond, the violence of glances, the brisk decisions of air, the casual homicides of dresses and there’s the unmasking of this casualness that we’re always engaged in.”

Hudson is a graduate student at the University of Toronto studying social justice education. Her research focuses on anti-black racism and decolonization.

Welcomed with the chorus, “Black Lives – They Matter” and affirming that, “I Believe that We will Win,” Hudson described what she is involved in as rough work. “It has really been a rough year,” she said but noted that, “It’s a very beautiful time to be black.”

Hudson said she felt that “we’re in the midst of a new Black Renaissance” that the belief in winning is important from the get-go in the work that Black Lives Matter-Toronto does.

She noted that the struggle against anti-black racism is a struggle for decolonization and that the colonizers required land and labour and needed to eliminate the humanity of black people to achieve this.

Hudson challenged notions that slavery was never present in Canada and that Black History here began with “the Underground Railroad and ends with a multicultural utopia.” She underscored the historic role that Europe played in the present matters affecting Haiti – the first black independent republic having to pay the colonizers money for the loss of their slave labour. Canada is implicated in this colonial narrative.

Hudson called for a radical rethinking of “what security and safety means in our community” and noted that Black Lives Matter-Toronto is part of a long line of resistance from the first person left The Door of No Return.

She ended by quoting from Assata Shakur’s autobiography:

 “It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

Diverlus, a dancer who speaks powerfully through the movement of his body performed a work which called for “Liberation Now,” examining the struggle against anti-black racism and rallying supporters, while asking the question “what are you doing?” for the cause.

Dr. Denise O’Neil Green, associate vice provost/vice president, equity, diversity and inclusion, Ryerson University was the moderator of the conversation.

THE 2016-2017 MICHAEL BAPTISTA LECTURE


Dr. Carolyn Cooper, recently retired professor of literature and cultural studies, University of the West Indies (Mona campus) presented the Michael Baptista Lecture which was in commemoration of the 10^th anniversary of the passing of “Miss Lou” (1919-2006), Jamaica’s iconic and beloved poet and folklorist.

 

The lecture was entitled: 'Disguise Up De English Language':  Louise Bennett's Anansi Poetics

In her multiple roles as poet, storyteller, folklorist, actress, dramatist and comedian, Louise Bennett deployed humour to simultaneously mask and expose a whole range of grave socio-political issues in “post-colonial” Jamaica.  

The devaluation of African-derived culture, particularly language, was a central preoccupation in Bennett's oeuvre. Like the trickster, Anansi, Bennett assumed many voices to tell the complex story of cultural identity in Jamaica.

Louise Bennett-Coverley amassed an impressive body of artistic work beginning in the late 1930s and covering more than 50 years. 

Her contributions included poetry, Jamaican folk music, work on television and radio, and on the theatre stage. She spent the last decade of her life in Canada and was awarded an honorary degree from York University in 1998.

“I begin with Louise Bennett herself. In this video clip she speaks about language and the value of music in shaping a community at play and at work. When you see and hear the joy of children reveling in their culture, you will begin to apprehend the epic tragedy that results from the school system in Jamaica to take the children’s first language seriously as a medium of instruction in primary schools. You will also hear the musicologist, Olive Lewin, speaking about the power of music,” said Professor Cooper in her opening remarks.

The lecture was co-sponsored by the Department of Humanities, Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on Africa and its Diasporas, and the Jean Augustine Chair in Education.

I will post a reportage about Dr. Cooper's lecture soon.

 

Left-right: Dionne Brand, Carolyn Cooper, Olive Senior and Ramabai Espinet.