Visiting Caribbean LGBTI Rights Activists Share Strategies to Challenge Homophobia

By Neil Armstrong

Left-right: Justin Khan of The 519, Nigel Mathin of Grenada, Jason Jones of Trinidad & Tobago, Debbie Douglas, executive director of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI), Maurice Tomlinson, senior policy analyst at Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, and Sizwe'-Alexandre Inkingi, coordinator of Positive Spaces Initiative at OCASI.

Jason Jones speaking at The 519 on April 12 about his legal challenge to overturn laws that criminalize LGBT citizens in Trinidad & Tobago.

Nigel Mathlin, one of the founders of GrenCHAP based in Grenada, speaking at The 519 on April 12.

Jason Jones of Trinidad & Tobago and Nigel Mathlin of Grenada, both LGBTI activists, visited Toronto recently and spoke at The 519 about their work.

Two Caribbean LGBTI rights activists recently visited Canada to talk about the work going on at the grassroots level in their respective countries and to gain support from those in the Caribbean diaspora and friends of the region here.

Jason Jones of Trinidad and Tobago and Nigel Mathlin of Grenada met with Global Affairs Canada in Ottawa on April 11 and held community talks in Toronto later that day and on April 12.

Organized by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, in partnership with the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI), Jones and Mathlin shared information about their advocacy at Glad Day Bookshop and The 519.

Maurice Tomlinson, senior policy analyst at the legal network, introduced them as having two distinct approaches to challenge homophobia in their countries.

Jones, a prominent Trinidadian who also lives in England, said about 15 months ago he was approached to be a claimant in challenging the buggery law of Trinidad and Tobago.

He was born in Trinidad but identifies as ‘Tringlish’ as he holds dual citizenship (his mother is British) and splits his time between the two countries.

For the last eight months, he had been putting together his legal challenge of the archaic laws that criminalize LGBT citizens of Trinidad & Tobago.

“This document represents our freedom,” he said, holding aloft the challenge inside a room at The 519 community centre on Church St. in Toronto. He filed his historic claim on Feb. 23, 2017 at the height of the country’s carnival season

Re-visiting his experience of homophobia as a child, Jones said when he was 13 years old at Fatima College in Trinidad he was beaten up by his brother and was subjected to verbal and physical abuse almost daily.

A few months before his 14^th birthday, his parents told him that he needed to own who he was – to be himself – and that created the space for him to live his life as a gay male.

Jones said 15 months ago when he decided to go on the journey of challenging the Trinidad and Tobago government on the buggery law, he wrote on a mirror, “I deserve love and success.”

He said what he is doing is not just for his community but it has a direct impact on his life.

Describing the writing of the affidavit as one of the most difficult things he has had to do in his life, Jones, who is 53, said it required him to uncover some of the pain he had to endure over those years.

Jones has been in the twin-island republic for the last two months and has been the target of several death threats.

He noted that some elite LGBTI Trinidadians do not want any change to the present situation and are critical of him but he will persist with his work.

The LGBT activist said he met with the Canadian government on April 11 and he believes that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is presenting himself in a view similar to former US president, Barack Obama.

He encouraged those gathered at The 519 on April 12 to write letters to Trudeau imploring his assistance to helping him change things in his Caribbean homeland.

The activist also told them that as people living in the diaspora when they visit they should not encourage the homophobia they hear around them – they should challenge it instead.

Jones plans to create a Trinidad and Tobago Charter of LGBT Rights to ask for the human rights of the country’s lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender nationals.

By April 30, he has to submit to the judge the names of any interested parties to the challenge that he has filed against the government.

He is also planning to found a human rights organization called “L'Ouverture,” which in French patois means ‘an opening’ across the English-speaking Caribbean.

Jones is encouraging Caribbean people living here and elsewhere to help him, encouraging them also to send ‘sense and cents’ of “how you live in these countries.”

After more than 25 years of activism, Jones said Tomlinson recently reminded him of the importance of self-care, especially when doing this kind of work.

He said he has been incredibly isolated for the past 15 months, noting that his family – including 17 siblings -- has not spoken to him for the last two months.

Mathlin is one of the founders of GrenCHAP, a non-profit organization working to promote sexual reproductive health and human rights, with a focus on marginalized populations, such as LGBT and sex workers.

When it began in 2003, its primary focus was on men who have sex with men (MSM), and was a reaction to the regional partnership between Global Fund and the Pan Caribbean Partnership Against HIV/AIDS (PANCAP).

Mathlin said he was no longer with the organization but was in Canada to represent it.

He is a graphic designer and founder of the online newspaper, NOW Grenada, reaching a significant portion of the population.

Describing himself now as a part time activist, Mathlin said GrenCHAP’s approach is to form alliances as much as they can with groups such as the Grenada National Organization of Women and others.

Their strategy is a mixture of preferred linkages as well as alliances and partnerships with other organizations.

“All of us are fighting for the same thing. None of us have achieved what we’re fighting to achieve,” he said.

Mathlin also spoke about the referendum that was held to reform the constitution of Grenada last year.

He noted that a fundamentalist Christian church suggested that a clause in the Rights and Freedom Bill about gender was an opening to have same sex marriage in the country.

“Caricom Today” reports that in November 2016, “Grenadians voted overwhelmingly to reject seven pieces of legislation that would have reformed the Constitution the island received when it attained political independence from Britain 42 years ago.”

Mathlin underscored the colonizing nature of fundamentalist Christian churches resulting in hatred and divisiveness and in which everybody suffers as a result.

He said there is, generally, a wave of nationalism, hatred and divisiveness, which is a symptom of the problem. It is not the public itself, it is not just a LGBT issue, it’s an issue of a lack of respect, he said.

The co-founder of GrenCHAP advised each person present at the event to lobby locally to support organizations that are on the ground in the Caribbean.

He said the quiet diplomacy and big stick colonization models won’t work and that the situation is “far from a one size fits all approach” because Caribbean islands are quite different.

Mathlin noted that GrenCHAP supports organizations on the ground so that it can continue to do the work that it has been doing over the years.

So far, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network has hosted LGBT activists from Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Jamaica.

“We hope to host others as funds permit as we believe that giving a platform for these activists to engage with Canadian government officials and residents will ensure that Canada provides the most appropriate response to the liberation work in each territory,” says Tomlinson.

As a region, the Caribbean has the second-highest HIV prevalence rate in the world, after sub-Saharan Africa.

UNAIDS and regional and national agencies have identified homophobia as a factor contributing to this troubling statistic.

“The legal and social environment varies significantly across the region, as does community organizing to defend and advance the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people. However, in numerous countries, particularly the Commonwealth Caribbean, the criminalization of consensual same-sex relationships and gender non-conforming people – accompanied by wider societal stigma and discrimination, often intensified by fundamentalist religious groups – has had a damaging effect on health and human rights,” says the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network.

The legal network promotes the human rights of people living with and vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, in Canada and internationally, through research and analysis, advocacy and litigation, public education and community mobilization.

Panel to Focus on Election Readiness of Black Candidates

By Neil Armstrong

Tiffany Gooch, political strategist at Enterprise & ENsight Canada                 Photo contributed

Idil Burale, senior associate for the MaRS Solutions Lab     Photo contributed

Rob Davis, founder of Campaign Solutions Inc.            Photo contributed

Matthew Green, City of Hamilton councillor            Photo contributed

The political advocacy committee of the Jamaican Canadian Association is making sure that new candidates from the Black community are ready for the upcoming provincial and municipal elections in 2018.

An expert panel of City of Hamilton councillor, Matthew Green; former Toronto city councillor and school board trustee, Rob Davis; and political strategist, Tiffany Gooch will address key topics such as how to build a winning campaign, the mechanics of a political campaign, from activism to action, and more at the Jamaican Canadian Association on April 15.

The moderator is Idil Burale who ran as a candidate in the last Toronto municipal election.

Danielle Dowdy, chair of the committee, says they have done an event like this in the past but it closer to after the last federal election was called.

“What we know is that the people who are really serious about this are planning way in advance,” she says noting that ideally this should have been in January but now is the second best time.

They will probably do another one with the candidates who are identified next year to help them along in the process.

Ontario’s next general election is on June 7, 2018, and the municipal election is on Oct. 22 next year.

“We really need our folks to get their head in the game around what this really entails and what is required of them.”

 Davis, founder of Campaign Solutions Inc., says when he ran in the 1991 municipal election in York he had the benefit of having been a political operative in a multitude of campaigns.

He had worked for MPs, MPPs, city council and school board candidates since he was 12 years and at the age of 27 already had 15 years of experience.

“That was a big, big, big benefit for me having, in essence, for most of those campaigns volunteered and then for some of them worked on a paid basis as a campaign manager or a campaign operative.”

He’s of the belief that politics is one of those things where “by donating your time in giving you actually get back a tremendous amount.” 

Davis identifies the three main elements of a campaign as time, money, and people.

“Time is of the essence. Oftentimes the candidates don’t realize how quickly the clock runs in a campaign.”

He says the best time to start campaigning for next year’s city council election is the day after the last municipal election.

“Money is the gasoline that drives the engine of a political campaign and so, oftentimes, from the Black community I have heard two types of messages. The first message is ‘I don’t want to bother people by asking them for money.’ The second most common response from candidates from the Black community is ‘I know the spending limit is $40,000 but I’m just going to spend $20,000.’”

He describes the latter as being patently foolish and a formula for failure.

Regarding the third element – people – Davis said the way to win as a black candidate in Ontario and Canada is to attract as many people as possible from as many different backgrounds as possible “to support you, to get them to volunteer, and for you to meet them.”

“So in politics it’s not who you know but who you get to know,” he says noting that candidates have to go meet people who they don’t know because they are the ones that will determine whether they win or lose.

At the “So You Think You Can Run” event, Davis says his core message will be “action is always rewarded; inaction is always punished in political activities.”

“Doing nothing and sitting on your hands and talking in the campaign office or sitting on Facebook and Twitter, that’s not campaigning. Campaigning is about the very human interaction between a candidate and voters.”

He notes that in the Black community, oftentimes, there is an emphasis on resumes but they matter only to a very small group of people.

“What really matters is how people feel about you.”

Gooch, a political strategist at Enterprise & ENsight Canada, says she is usually the person in the backroom helping to prepare candidates for what to expect on a campaign trail, in terms of what kind of family, personal commitment, professional commitment it could also mean.

“A lot more information that helps them understand what to expect in terms of their friends and their family and the folks that they’re probably looking to help them and kind of tempering their expectations,” says Gooch about her presentation on the mechanics of a campaign.

It will also revolve around the fact that “some people who they expect to help them may not help, and some people they’ll never expect to help will give them a 100%. And how to bring out the best in those people, and how to make sure that they’re being as authentic as possible while they’re running their campaign to build strong relationships with the folks that are putting in time and volunteer on their campaign.”

She will draw from examples of the best and worst campaigns she has seen and suggest things they should do to motivate the folks around them to give of their best.

Referencing things that a candidate should have in their toolkit, Gooch says authenticity is the first and foremost. Outside of that they should have time and a willingness to learn.

“There’s nothing worst to me than someone who sort of considers himself an expert on everything and isn’t willing to learn the ropes of a new environment. So no matter where people came from, if they were a teacher before, if they were a business person before, politics is its own beast.”

Gooch says they don’t need to know everything but what they need to do is to surround themselves with people who are willing to learn. It is a steep learning curve.

For her first campaign she started out as the office manager and ended up being the deputy campaign manager.

She thinks there is a need for “properly preparing our people if they’re interested in running, and giving them the time to be successful and this is the opportunity.”

Green, who was elected to Hamilton City Council in 2014, says he’ll be talking primarily about how to turn activism into campaign organizing.

“Oftentimes, in our community we’re coming out from the grassroots. We’re often not supported by partisan party machines that bring with them campaign experience and donors and list. We’re often left kind of to our own to do all of that stuff,” says Green.

He plans to share his own experience and what he learned over the course of his campaign to save some people the time on some of the critical issues of building lists, creating what he calls Politics 3.0 – the nexus between social media and old school door-to-door Saul Alinsky grassroots organizing.

The first-time city councillor will tell his story of coming from the neighbourhood and running against fourteen other candidates in a crowded field against political parties, having the odds stacked against him, and the importance of coalition building.

Green said authenticity helped him in his campaign, knowing the people and the issues of the Ward so he could “speak to it in a way that my residents understood I knew what the deal was in our community, that I knew what the issues were.”

“The commitment that we make as elected officials to our constituents is to have integrity, defined simply as doing what we said we were going to do when we said we were going to do it. I have beside me here in my office a list of my campaign platform promises and one by one I check them off to ensure that in the next election I can go back to my community and report back and say that I did exactly what I said I was going to do.”

Green noted that if “you’re not seeing your community represented whether it’s in politics or in the legal system or in the fire department or anywhere else, you don’t even think it’s an option. So I want to just first be present so they understand that politics and elected government is an option for them.”

“We’re greatly and vastly underserved and underrepresented at the political table across the country. We have such a long and deep history in this country it’s incumbent on us to take that on from our own communities and to organize in ways that we’re seeing other newer generations of immigrants and new Canadians have been very successful at doing.”

“Politics is not taboo. If you’re not at the table you’re on the menu,” he said emphatically.

Dowdy says the panel will be a good wakeup call for potential candidates to move from thinking about it to getting serious right now if they’re doing it.

The requirement is that they bring 2-3 people with them, she says, noting that some people have said they don’t have a team yet but she reminded them that they can’t win without one.

“You need to get your team in place right now, not next year, right now so that everyone is onside and everyone gets the training. It’s one thing for the candidates to know but once they’re in the process there’s so much going on that they really shouldn’t be the ones running the campaign. They’re the ones out there, they’re meeting people, they’re talking but like the details is really what the team needs to know.”

She said when the committee held the first one in 2014 after the federal election was called, the candidates were happy but so too were the team members for some of the repeat runners because they had never been included in anything like that.

“Campaigns take a lot. There’s a lot to learn, there’s a lot of small things that if you can get started now, like starting to build up the volunteer base, starting to get your name out there, meeting with people that could possibly become donors in the future – like all of these things that when the campaign is going on there is just not time for. So if they’re really thinking about it, now is the time,” she emphasized.

[A shorter version of this story is in the April 13, 2017 issue of the North American Weekly Gleaner.]

SOME MORE UPCOMING EVENTS IN APRIL AND MAY: Justice Tulloch's presentations, Endangered identies in Grenada, Mayworks, and more

Justice Michael Tulloch will present his report of police oversight review in five cities to community and policing stakeholders.

In Toronto on April 11, 6:30-8:30pm at Ryerson University, Ryerson International Living Centre, International Room, 240 Jarvis St.

April 12: Ottawa, at the Ottawa Conference & Event Centre, Room 110, 200 Coventry Rd., 6:30-8:30pm

April 18: Windsor, at St. Clair College Centre for the Arts, Waterfront Ballroom, 201 Riverside Drive West. 6:30-8:30pm

April 20: Thunder Bay, at Da Vinci Centre, Marco Polo Room, 340 S. Waterloo St. 6:30-8:30pm

April 24: Hamilton, at Sheraton Hamilton Hotel, Centre Ballroom, 116 King St. West. 6:30-8:30pm

Space is limited. RSVP at info@policeoversightreview.ca

Endangered Identities in Grenada: A conversation with LGBTI activist Nigel Mathlin will be held on Tuesday, April 11, 6-8pm at Glad Day Bookshop, 499 Church St., Toronto. FREE

Endangered Identities in Grenada: A conversation with LGBTI activist Nigel Mathlin on Wednesday, April 12, 6-8pm at Room 301, The 519, 519 Church St., Toronto. FREE

For anyone thinking about running in the upcoming 2018 elections and don’t know where to start, the JCA’s Political Advocacy Committee presents “So You Think You Can Run” on Saturday, April 15, 1:30-4:30 p.m. at the JCA, 995 Arrow Rd., Toronto. Panelists: Matthew Green, City of Hamilton councillor; Rob Davis, founder of Campaign Solutions Inc.; and Tiffany Gooch, political strategist, Enterprise & ENsight Canada. Moderator: Idil Burale, former candidate, Toronto City Council. RSVP to Danielle Dowdy at dowdy.danielle@gmail.com

Ontario Alliance of Black School Educators presents its 3^rd annual Provincial Conference and AGM “Re-Imaging Education: Inspiring Leaders & Fostering Community to Achieve Powerful Outcomes” on April 21 & 22 at York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto. Featured speakers include: Mitzie Hunter, Ontario’s Minister of Education, and Carl James, Jean Augustine Chair in Education, York University. https://onabse2017conference.eventbrite.ca

The 6^th annual Gospel Praise on Steel will take place on Saturday, April 29, doors open at 6pm, show starts at 6:45pm at Canada Christian College, 50 Gervais Drive (Don Mills & Wynford Drive).

Featuring steelband performances by: Nativity Steel Angels, Each One Teach One, Worship in Steel, Gemini Pan Groove, Malvern Praise on Pan, and St. Paul’s Steel Orchestra.

Vocalists: Highest Praise Gospel Singers. Calypsonian vocalists: Guney Cedeno, alongside Joy Lapps & other special guest performers.

MC: Itah Sadu. Tickets: $25(advance), $30 (at the door)

Tickets & Info: Wendy Jones (416) 525-2391 & Earl La Pierre Jr. (416) 953-0905

The Story of Albert Jackson will be presented on Wednesday, May 3, 7-9pm at A Different Booklist, 777-779 Bathurst St., Toronto as part of the Mayworks Festival, April 28- May 7, 2017.

All Mayworks events are FREE; as space is limited, RSVP is required: albertjackson.eventbrite.ca

Racialized workers experience higher rates of unemployment and precarious work. We are making a link between the Albert Jackson story of 1882 and the intersection of racism and precarious work today, as Canada celebrates 150 years of Confederation in 2017.

The event will see the launch of a new picture book by and for children about the story of Albert Jackson, Toronto’s first black postal worker who faced racism from the other postal workers.

Following the book launch is a panel discussion moderated by Itah Sadu (A Different Booklist) and featuring Maryama Ahmed (Jane Finch Action Against Poverty), Mark Brown (Canadian Union of Postal Workers), and Kingsley Kwok (Ontario Public Service Employees Union).

Co-presented with Ontario Black History Society, The Elementary Teachers of Toronto, Toronto Workers’ History Project.

More information at www.mayworks.ca

[During Panamania in 2015, Appledore Productions presented “The Postman” a play about Albert Jackson conceived by David Ferry and written by Joseph Pierre, Lisa Codrington, Andrew Moodie, Leah-Simone Bowen, Sugith Varughese, Roy Lewis and Ferry. It was an outdoor play, starring Laurence Dean Ifill as Albert Jackson, which took place along Jackson’s delivery route in the Annex.]

Scene from Appledore's production, 'The Postman,' about Albert Jackson, Toronto's first black postman. The play was held along Jackson's mail delivery route in the Annex where he lived. It was part of PANAMANIA in 2015.

'The Postman' starring Laurence Dean Ifill in the Annex during PANAMANIA in 2015.

Joyful Rebellion (a Blackness Yes! fundraiser) will be held on Friday, May 5, 10pm-2:30am at Glad Day Bookshop, 499 Church St., Toronto.

Walk Good fundraiser – the JCA’s 35^th annual walkathon will be held on Sunday, May 7. 5k or 10k routes. Walk, jog, run or cycle! Pledge forms are available for the Jamaican Canadian Association or online at jcaontario.org/walkgood or Sandra Whiting, Chair, 416-573-1375

Black Action Defense Committee presents the annual Dudley Laws Scholarship Fundraising Brunch on Sunday, May 7. Doors open at 1:30pm, starts at 2pm and ends at 6pm at the Jamaican Canadian Association, 995 Arrow Rd., Toronto. Keynote speaker: Royson James, municipal affairs columnist of the Toronto Star.

Tickets: $50 (includes meal and entertainment)

A Different Booklist Officially Opens and Launches a $2M Fundraising Campaign

By Neil Armstrong

Ribbon cutting outside A Different Booklist Cultural Centre in Toronto on Friday, April 7, 2017.

Ribbon cutting outside 777-779 Bathurst Street in Toronto -- A Different Booklist Culural Centre.

Michael Lashley, former consul general of Trinidad & Tobago in Toronto and a member of the board of the cultural centre, cuts the ribbon.

Itah Sadu, owner of A Different Booklist Cultural Centre

Akua Benjamin and Rita Cox in conversation at the Open House, Ribbon Cutting Ceremony and Launch of a Fundraising Campaign at A Different Booklist Cultural Centre on April 7, 2017.

Judy Brooks, chair of the board of A Different Booklist Cultural Centre, and Zanana Akande, a patron of the centre.

Itah rallies the team to go outside to cut the ribbon to officially open 777-779 Bathurst St. Each person was encouraged to bring their own ribbon to cut at the event.

Nene Kwasi Kafele calling on the ancestors to be present in the space.

Toronto city councillor Joe Cressy, Rita Davies, chair of the Ontario Arts Council, and Toronto councillor, Mike Layton, speaking at the event.

Akua Benjamin and Tiki Mercury-Clarke

Conversations at the gathering

Itah Sadu and Cherita Girvan-Campbell

Marva Wisdom and Zanana Akande in conversation

Angela cuts the cake for the celebration

Miguel San Vicente hard at work at the cash register

It didn’t take long last night (April 7), for the new space of A Different Booklist Cultural Centre: The People’s Residence at 777-779 Bathurst St. in Toronto to fill up with well wishers, supporters and potential members.

It was a grand celebration for the cultural hub, which held its open house, ribbon cutting stretching from one entrance to the other, and launch of its fundraising campaign, with a major announcement.

A Different Booklist is aiming to raise $2million in two years to enable it to fulfill its mission when it moves into its permanent home in the new development of the former Mirvish Village site five years from now. The new location will be at the corner of Markham & Bloor St.

Toronto city councilors, Joe Cressy (Ward 20 Trinity-Spadina) and Mike Layton (Ward 19 Tinity-Spadina), confirmed this at the event.

“On Tuesday, we passed the new zoning bylaw for the property that is now known as Mirvish Village and it included a future space, in perpetuity we hope, but a future space for this organization on the future site across the street,” said Layton, noting that it is a “bigger space because we know this organization is only going to grow.”

“We are a changing community, our city has always been changing and as that change happens, we need to make sure that we look at the past and we look at who brought us here. And one of the things that Councillor Cressy and I heard through all of the community consultations around Bathurst St. that have been happening for the last couple of years was just how important this section of Bathurst was to the Black community of this city.”

Layton said various organizations expressed wanting space in the new development but “no one was more relentless in that pursuit” than Itah Sadu and Miguel San Vicente, owners of A Different Booklist.

“Now one thing we’re going to need from everyone here is the city is not going to be able to come up with capital for this. We’re not going to be able to give all the money. We’ve secured some of the space. This is a bookstore so spend some money but also sign up to be a member. It’s going to take the community to keep it going.”

Membership is $100 for individuals for the year and includes: access to events, corporate discounts, on-site Wi-Fi & workspace, networking & mentorship, preferred rates for advertising, preferred rates for space rentals, access to resources & professional services, and professional learning, training, and field placements. There are also rates for students & seniors, and for organizations.

Cressy, who grew up around the corner and lives in the area, said, “if Bathurst & Bloor does not reflect and continue the history of black culture then Bathurst & Bloor no longer exists.”

“That is the history of Bathurst & Bloor in downtown Toronto, here has always been a place for all. And there is a risk and it’s a risk we’re really concerned about, as the development comes here, what happens to our space for black folk – not just to reflect on the past, not just to record the past, but to ensure a vibrant place to continue a living legacy for the future.”

He said A Different Booklist Cultural Centre will live on in perpetuity in a site across the street, “not just because it reflects the history, not just because it will teach the next generation of the history, not just because it will continue and teach the history of struggle but it’s important because the future is uncertain.”

 Cressy continued: “We have serious challenges in our city right now; we have real anti-Black racism happening in our city right now. And if you don’t have a space, not just for art and culture, but activism then we won’t get the change. This space will make our city a better place.”

Sadu said the celebration was “a collective mighty moment of all of the people,” noting that the day was for all.

She shared the story of one supporter, Ms. Hyacinth, who uses a walker and operates a store on St. Clair Ave. West, coming in as early as 7:30 a.m. to offer her assistance because she wasn’t able to attend the evening event.

Rita Davies, chair of the Ontario Arts Council, said she was thrilled with the space and the name, noting that, “A Different Booklist has created that kind of cultural hub, a cultural space, a physical space, but also a psychic space where they have invited a diversity of voices, and books, and events and projects and supported them.”

She reiterated what Sadu said in her opening remarks, that it is “the mighty collective” because no one does anything by themselves.

Davies noted that no one does anything without strong leadership either, so she wanted to recognize the work of Itah and Miguel who were themselves recognized last October by Premier Kathleen Wynne.

“They’ve received for A Different Booklist for the work that they’ve done in fostering all of this incredible creative energy, they received the Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts.”

The cultural centre is now operating across from where it was before, thanks to Westbank Corp., developer of the site of what was once Honest Ed’s and Mirvish Village.

On Feb. 4, many community members helped move the bookstore and cultural centre from its 20-plus year old location, 746 Bathurst St., to just across from it.

A Different Booklist Cultural Centre: The People’s Residence is a hub where patrons re-design and shape the arts and provide intellectual legacy.

It serves to enable, house and support the creation, preservation and exhibition of the African and Caribbean Canadian artistic and historical expression.

During the ribbon cutting ceremony, community leader Nene Kwasi Kafele led the invocation of the names of ancestors who had “struggled, defended, advocated, pushed, stood up for our rights, fought for our liberation, for social justice, for change, for equality – we have a long rich tradition of struggle and resistance and achievement and overcoming,” he said.

“Tradition demands and requires that when we gather we ground our gathering in the acknowledgement and in gratitude of those who came before us, who cleared the way, who made a path and whose shoulders we stand sturdily and strongly,” said Kafele before asking for a moment of silence “for our warriors, our freedom fighters, those who struggled for our liberation and sacrificed through love and hard work, and sweat and blood and tears, and many times their own lives.

Kafele noted that, “when we stop calling the names of our ancestors, they cease to exist” so he asked the gathering to call out some names of “those who led lives that were exemplary lives of sacrifice and love and leadership and who have passed on to the next realm but whose spirits, whose memories, whose contributions live on in us, around us and with us. Call their names so that they’ll be present in this space and they’ll remain alive in our consciousness and our memory.”

People did so with names such as: Charles Roach, Sherona Hall, Dudley Law, Louise ‘Miss Lou’ Bennett-Coverley, Rosemary Brown, and many others.

Stanley Julien, treasurer of the board, said earlier in the week he had lunch with a friend, who is Jewish, and they spoke about what makes a community successful.

They agreed on three things: culture, education and legacy.

He said all of these things are covered within A Different Booklist Cultural Centre and the last one, legacy, is the reason he wants people to contribute to the cultural centre.

Julien said he is an example of legacy of culture. As a child growing up in Montreal, from ages 10 to 17, he attended almost every Saturday what was called the Negro Community Centre.

“Now here’s a kid from Trinidad, 7 years old, who came to Montreal and then every Saturday would attend the Black Community Centre,” he said, noting that years later he became a managing director at the Bank of Montreal.

“A big reason for that is culture; I read books on my culture, so we survived based on that and we survived based on that legacy.”

Julien said a few weeks ago they gathered at the home of Zanana Akande, “a great legacy that we have in the community,” and while there with some other patrons, including Denham Jolly, they provided the seed funds of almost $400, 000 for the fundraising campaign.

“That’s through the patrons and the legacy of our community. Now it’s up to us to carry that on and we can reach out,” he said.

He encouraged everyone from the community in attendance to contribute by becoming a member of the cultural centre.

Julien said the bottom line is for them to trust in Miguel and Itah, the board, the cultural centre, and the program that it will continue in years to come.

Sadu thanked Westbank for including A Different Booklist in almost “every step of the way.”

Judy Brooks, chair of the board, noted that the space is a welcoming hub, “that’s what we want to instill in everyone, this is a welcoming home.” She also encouraged everyone to sign up for membership.

Another board member, Michael Lashley, welcomed everyone in Spanish and French after which Sadu emphasized that ‘The People’s Residence’ will also represent the people of the French, Spanish and Dutch speaking countries of the Caribbean and will be a space of diversity and progressive literature in politics.

Some of those in attendance included Carl James, Jean Augustine Chair in Education at York University; veteran storyteller and librarian, Rita Cox; motivational speaker, Sandra Whiting; Nigel Barriffe, president of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations; Zanana Akande, Dr. Edith Lorimer, Althea Prince, Tiki Mercury-Clarke, and many more.

Sadu, Akande and Dr. Lorimer led a collective reading of two poems of the late Charles ‘Mende’ Roach from his book of poetry, “Rhapso Prosodies.”

The poems, “Here We Stand” and “We Can Change The World,” urge everyone to work together to achieve common goals.

Challenging Consumer Racial Profiling or 'Shopping While Black'

By Neil Armstrong

Tomee Sojourner on a panel at the 'Justice at Work Conference' at the Faculty of Law, University of Windsor on Jan. 25, 2017.                                                                                                                                                          Photo contributed

Consumer racial profiling (CRP) is a reality in the lives of many Black Canadians, and institutions like the Ontario Human Rights Commission and Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, and individuals like Tomee Sojourner, are raising public awareness about it.

Sojourner, who is of Jamaican heritage and the founder of Prevent CRP in Toronto, is doing her second masters, this time in law focusing on this issue at Osgoode Hall Law School.

On May 11, she will be making a presentation entitled "Shopping at the Intersections: Gender and Consumer Racial Profiling" at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School.

One of her areas of focus is what happens when someone confronts a business to say they feel that their rights are not being respected as a consumer. She is also interested in the legal framing of these issues.

Sojourner says people are more comfortable talking about ‘Shopping While Black’ or ‘Dining While Black.’

On March 27, the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission launched a free online course dealing with consumer racial profiling.

In 2013, it released what was then the first report in Canada “to address the issue of the experiences of customers and how they are treated by staff in retail and service establishments in Nova Scotia.”

“More often than other ethnic groups in Nova Scotia, Aboriginal people and African Nova Scotians say they are treated poorly when they shop for goods and services,” the report said.

Sojourner’s interest in this started over 15 years ago when she worked as a security guard and had some personal experiences as a racialized young black woman.

She was told, informally, by a security supervisor that she needed to follow black youth.

The graduate law student thought it was really fascinating that particular communities and groups to which she belonged were being tagged for surveillance.

She said if a complaint was brought forward, her experience and what she heard from other people, is that they were not treated as though they deserved to be heard, listened to, and believed.

In her legal research, she is trying to understand the human rights law through the Human Rights Code to ascertain if it is efficient in dealing with these matters.

She is interested in the outcome of peoples’ experiences when they have been profiled.

Asked how consumers would know that they are being racially profiled, Sojourner said people usually talk about a few things.

“They talk about having a person come up to them and say, initially, ‘Hi, how are you?’ For some people that’s fine,” but “after three or four greetings by four or five different people, perhaps then you begin to think that something’s up -- either they’re great at their customer service, they really want to help you, or are you being watched.”

Two businesses – Shoppers Drug Mart (in Toronto) and Sobeys (in Tantallon, Nova Scotia) – have been in the news for their practices resulting in black consumers filing complaints against them.

A staff member of Sobeys accused Andrella David of shoplifting and the human rights tribunal in Nova Scotia, where she filed a complaint in 2009, ruled in 2015 that David, who is black, was the victim of racial profiling.

In Ontario, Section 1 of the Ontario Human Rights Code states that: “Every person has a right to equal treatment with respect to services, goods and facilities, without discrimination because of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, family status or disability.”

The Code prohibits infringement of that right and if is it infringed anyone can file a human rights complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

When people call Prevent CRP, Sojourner guides them towards contacting the Human Rights Legal Support Centre which provides legal services and legal advice.

“They have lawyers available, they will take in their facts, give them the information and then work with them to make a determination as to their next step.”

Sojourner founded Prevent CRP when she got accepted to do her masters at Osgoode Hall Law School.

 The case of McCarthy v. Kenny Tan Pharmacy Inc. where in 2011, Mary McCarthy, a black woman from Fredericton, New Brunswick who was in Toronto studying to do her PhD, was racially profiled by a store employee at a Shoppers Drug Mart in the city is one of the cases that Sojourner is examining for her thesis.

In 2015, the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal ruled that McCarthy was targeted as a shoplifter because she is black. It ordered Shoppers Drug Mart to pay her $8,000.

“What was interesting about that particular case is that the loss prevention policy in the employee handbook that was presented as evidence in that particular case, it says do not approach somebody based on race or any other criteria, you have to have a ground and reasonable suspicion,” says Sojourner.

She said what became an issue was the individual employee making a determination based on informal policy that if they found someone suspicious they would directly approach the individual before they left the store. A theft doesn't occur until after the person leaves the premises.

[This story is also published in the North American Weekly Gleaner, April 6-12, 2017 issue.]

In Tribute to Maya Angelou on her Birthday - an interview with her about her sixth autobiography

By Neil Armstrong

The late Maya Angelou, renowned author, poet, singer, actor, director, professor and activist was born on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. She died on May 28, 2014 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina at the age of 86.

I met her in May 1993 in Jamaica when she was there for a book signing at a bookstore in Kingston. She signed my copy of her bestselling first autobiography, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” with one word, ‘Joy!’ We met again by telephone in 2003 when I interviewed her in the late summer, a few weeks before she presented the Unique Lives & Experiences lecture at the SkyDome in Toronto on September 29. She was in her office in Winston-Salem.

The late Toronto Star journalist, Barbara Turnbull, who introduced her at the event, wrote in a letter from The Barbara Turnbull Foundation for Spinal Cord Research in December 2003 that Dr. Angelou “spoke about rainbows and how we each have one inside of us, and how we can be rainbows for each other.”

My interview focused on “A Song Flung Up to Heaven,” the sixth volume of her critically acclaimed landmark autobiography.

Published by Bantam Books in 2003, the paperback edition, this is how the book is described on its back cover:

“The journey chronicled in this final volume begins as she returns from Africa to work with Malcolm X, only to learn that he has been assassinated. Searching for a “path back into life,” she drifts from job to job – band singer in Hawaii, market researcher in Watts, actress in an experimental theater troupe in Los Angeles – until the terrible day when she watches Watts explode in violence, a riot she describes in unforgettable detail. Devastated and uncertain about the future, she moves to New York, where she makes a new life for herself amid a lively group of black artists, writers, and musicians that includes James Baldwin, Paul Marshall, Rosa Guy, Abbey Lincoln, and Max Roach. But then political activism calls to her again, this time in the voice of Martin Luther King, and she agrees to help him organize his Poor People’s March on Washington.

“When King, too, is assassinated, Angelou goes into hibernation. How James Baldwin helped her to find her voice again, and put her on the path to writing I Know Why the caged Bird Sings –the first line of which is the last line of A Song Flung Up to Heaven – is the crowning story of a book filled with tales from a life fully lived.”

Incidentally, Dr. King was assassinated on her birthday, April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.

To listen to this interview, click this link.