Anthony Morgan2013-05-23T00:51:33-04:00Anthony Morganhttp://www.quebec.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=anthony-morganCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Anthony MorganGood old fashioned elbow grease.How French Immersion Got Me Out of the 'Hoodtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.26270062013-02-06T12:31:14-05:002013-04-08T05:12:01-04:00Anthony Morganhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-morgan/op-ed by Margaret Wente, The Globe and Mail's favourite lightning-rod commentator offers her take on what's behind the growing popularity of French Immersion in Canada.
Wente spends the article trashing the program and ultimately suggests that French Immersion should be rolled back to the status of a restricted luxury good to be enjoyed by a privileged, lottery-winning few. Most shockingly, Wente even negates the geographical location of Canada's capital city and insults both Franco-Ontarians and Franco-Manitobans by going as far as to write that Canadian students don't need French "unless they live in Quebec or New Brunswick."
While certain French Immersion programs are not delivering on their full potential, I think most fair-minded Canadians will be rather confused by Wente's inability to recognize that many of its short-comings are consequences of politicians and policy makers failing to fund the program in a way that keeps pace with demand, and that the challenges she points out actually stand as strong reasons to direct more resources towards French Immersion education, rather than restricting or reversing its expansion.
Beyond that point, however, I'd like to use my own story to draw attention to the immensely positive side of what can happen when parents who believe deeply in the Canadian dream are determined to have their child placed in French immersion, and commit to supporting that child through the program's challenges, good and bad.
My mother and father are immigrants from England and Jamaica, respectively. They arrived in Canada as children. My parents were never married. Before they turned 19 they already had my older sister. I was born just over three years later when my parents were 22 years old.
Barely adults and with three kids by the age of 26 (having added my younger brother to the mix by then), my parents bobbled back and forth from being on social assistance to being working poor. We grew up in social housing in various corners of the Greater Toronto Area, finally settling in the Mississauga neighbourhood of Malton, which for the last 20 years has mostly been known for its high density of immigrants, poverty and violent crime.
In a fight against the momentum of generational poverty, my parents deployed different strategies with me and my siblings so that we would not have to grow up restricted to the world of narrow and depressing options that were surrounded by in our troubled neighbourhood.
For me, they decided that French immersion would be my ticket out: I thank God every day for their foresight and wisdom.
Instead of leaving me to attend under-resourced schools where the overwhelming majority of my classmates would have been from the same impoverished and marginalized neighbourhood, because the vast majority of kids in the French immersion programs in Bramalea were bused in from some of the richest and poorest neighbourhoods around the area, I was afforded the invaluable experience of learning in classrooms that featured a rich tapestry of cultural, ethnic and most importantly, socio-economic diversity. While our home lives differed markedly, at school my classmates and I were united in our enriching pursuit of a French language education.
I will admit that despite being awarded a Certificate of Bilingual Studies upon graduation, I didn't graduate as a fluent French speaker -- it was mostly just the kids with a French-speaking family member or those whose parents could afford added private tutoring that did so.
However, my French immersion education prepared me for not only the intellectual challenges that awaited me at the University of Toronto where I did undergraduate studies, but also allowed me to develop the confidence to believe in my ability to succeed in university despite the fact that only a handful of my classmates did not come from exceptionally privileged, white schools and families. In one important sense, university was an extension of high school; just 60 times bigger, and 1000 times more Red Bull.
By the time I was set to graduate from U of T, my parents were ten years separated but still in better financial positions than when we were kids. However, although I amassed a healthy number of academic recognitions in undergrad, my parents were still in no place to help me cover tuition, books and/or living expenses at any English-language Canadian law schools.
Enter: McGill Law's bilingual, double-degree law program.
My French immersion education not only allowed me to get into McGill Law, but because it's a bilingual program, that same education was literally critical to successfully getting me through law school. Now, I find myself living in Ottawa, articling within the federal government and calling on my French language education every day, as the cases I work on often come from Quebec, and the default language in my office is French. In light of this, my parents are right to smile widely when they talk about the chance they took to put me in French immersion and push me to stick with it even when I wanted to quit.
Now, the next few months for many of the non-French immersion friends I grew up with will consist of: having and/or providing for their kid(s); continuing in the monotony of lower-skilled and often dangerous jobs that many have told me they can barely tolerate; and in too many cases, worse.
For many other important reasons but due in significant measure to my French immersion education, I will become licensed to practice law in Ontario in four months' time and am now planning to get married to my wonderful, perfectly bilingual fiancée who I met while in law school in Montreal, and whose Haitian parents also pushed her to pursue a mastery of both of Canada's official languages.
Mine is a story that stands as an emphatic defence of the expansion of and more robust investment in French immersion education in Canada. And no, my story is not the exception; rather it is one of the tens of thousands of under-told and underappreciated stories that demonstrate the extraordinary benefits and promise of a French Immersion education for children of all racial, ethnic, cultural and economic backgrounds.
Speaking as a young Black man born to younger, under-educated, poor, immigrant parents, I can only give thanks that the Margaret Wentes out there did not have a more credible or influential say on education policy when I was just a little Black boy more statistically inclined to being called a criminal, than being addressed as Counsel.
]]>This African-American Refugee Found Freedom In Canadatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.25997932013-02-04T17:02:06-05:002013-04-06T05:12:01-04:00Anthony Morganhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-morgan/
"Canadian Judge Frees North Carolina Negro"
The above is the title of a New York Times article published on March 3, 1922. The "North Carolina Negro" being referred to is Matthew Bullock. This is his story:
In 1911, Canadian Prime Minister, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, passed the following Order in Council:
"His excellency in Council, in virtue of the provisions of Sub-section c of Section 38 of the Immigration Act, is pleased to Order and it is hereby Ordered as follows: For a period of one year from and after the date hereof the landing in Canada shall be and the same is prohibited of any immigrants belonging to the Negro race, which race is deemed unsuitable to the climate and requirements of Canada."
This Order, which effectively barred immigration of blacks to Canada, had the effect of law and was not repealed until 1962. As such, in the early 1920s when 19-year-old Matthew Bullock, an African-American, and World War I veteran, arrived in Hamilton, Ontario to escape being lynched in the American South, legally and literally, Matthew Bullock was as good as dead.
Bullock's troubles began in Norlina, North Carolina when Matthew's brother, 16-year-old Plummer, attempted to return 10 cents worth of apples which he discovered were rotten soon after they were purchased. After making his request, an argument ensued between Plummer and the store-keeper, a white man, as the latter refused to accept the returned apples. So heated the exchange became, that threats were allegedly exchanged between Plummer and the store-keeper.
Later that evening, a group of armed white men went looking for Plummer. The group eventually confronted a group of black men and gun-fire was exchanged between the two groups. No one was hurt in the gun-battle. However, the incident resulted in Plummer and his brother, Matthew, being charged with attempting to incite a riot. Both men were shocked to have such charges laid against them as they maintained that they were miles away when the events occurred.
The day after the incident, Plummer was arrested and jailed. The next morning, though, he was broken out of the jail by a mob of Ku Klux Klan members who, within hours of kidnapping Plummer, tortured, shot, castrated, hung and set fire to the boy.
Unaware of the fate suffered by his little brother, on instruction from his father, Matthew Bullock fled Norlina, driving north and in hopes finding safety and security on Canadian soil. Matthew drove directly to Canada, stopping only to sleep, eat and use the bathroom.
Matthew only knew Canada as the country famed for being the Promised Land of freedom to which many of his black ancestors escaped slavery by way of the Underground Railroad. Thus, one can only imagine the immensity of the shock, fear, pain and humiliation he suffered when he finally arrived at the Canadian border: He was denied entry into Canada due to the aforementioned Order in Council that was passed by former Prime Minister Laurier.
Not to be easily deterred and feeling that his life remained in peril in the U.S., Matthew decided to take drastic measures to secure entry into Canada. After spending hours observing Lake Erie's flow of ice and water, at a spot just south of the rushing chute of Niagara Falls, Matthew ventured out, literally hopping, skipping and jumping from one ice-patch to the next until he arrived on Canadian soil; tired, cold and wet, but in Canada.
Matthew quickly continued his trek north, heading for Hamilton, Ontario where he knew there was a small community of blacks made up of the descendants of fellow African-Americans who had escaped U.S. slavery just a few decades before. When he arrived in Hamilton, Matthew was quickly able to settle into the black community there, adopting a new name and gaining employment as a skilled construction worker.
Not long after his arrival, however, while out one day in early January 1922, Matthew was approached by the police who demanded that he prove that he was not a vagrant. Unable to furnish satisfactory papers because of his illegal status, Matthew was charged with vagrancy and entering Canada illegally.
The ordeal of Matthew Bullock could have fallen into obscurity at the bottom of the bins of forgotten Canadian history. However, after Matthew's arrest and the revelation of his true identity in mid-January 1922, a white bounty-hunter in Hamilton decided to write a letter to the Governor Morrison of North Carolina detailing Matthew's whereabouts. This led Governor Morrison, a self-proclaimed white-supremacist and advocate of lynch law, to immediately write to Canadian officials demanding that Matthew be extradited so that he could stand trial for the charges laid against him in North Carolina.
The North Carolina Governor's extradition request resulted in the ignition of a media frenzy as major newspapers in Canada and the U.S., including the New York Times and The Globe (now the Globe and Mail) began to immediately publicize Matthew's incredible story. The immense publicity sparked intense debate in the public on both sides of the border, as wide media coverage roused many Canadians and Americans who openly expressed their views and thoughts on the story and were most intrigued by the issues it raised.
From a black-letter law perspective, the outcome looked very grim for 19-year-old Matthew. First, the U.S. and the U.K. had an extradition treaty that bound Canada because our country was yet to gain full control over its foreign policy. Secondly, there was Canada's own federally legislated ban on the immigration of Blacks enacted a decade earlier. In the face of this legal reality, all Matthew had was his plea and the advocacy of black and non-black advocates and citizens which asked that Matthew not be extradited because at best he would not get a fair hearing, and at worst (the more likely result) he would lynched like his younger brother before him.
Canadian and U.S. media and advocates on both sides of the issues kept the case live and well discussed in the public, especially since an NAACP lawyer from New York was hired to defend Matthew, and a collective of white citizens of Hamilton amassed many signatures on a petition demanding that Matthew be extradited.
At the end of the day, however, it was left to an Ontario judge to rule on the matter.
In late January, 1922 an Ontario judge weighed Matthew's charge for inciting a riot against the fact that he was a 19-year-old war veteran who upon arriving in Canada, immediately contributed to the country as a skilled employee about whom no one could make anything but positive remarks. Considering this, the judge ruled that Matthew should not be extradited, but released and allowed to remain in Canada for having demonstrated himself to be a good immigrant.
Despite a new wave of public excitement that this caused, Matthew's legal troubles were not yet over.
The Ontario judge's decision infuriated American and Canadian white-supremacists. This inspired a racist fire of new energy to get Matthew extradited and in result, a new and more serious charge was laid against Matthew. This time the charge was for the attempted murder of one of the White men who was allegedly shot-at in the incident that started this whole chain of events.
With this, Matthew was rearrested in Hamilton in mid-February. Judge Snider of the County Court in Hamilton, presided over the extradition matter to treat this new charge. The judge ultimately ordered that Matthew be arrested and held until authorities in North Carolina could present to the County Court evidence showing that they had a prima facie case legitimating Matthew's charge for attempted murder.
The result of the judge's decision to set out this requirement for the release of Matthew to U.S. authorities ended up saving Matthew's life. This is because the North Carolina state's case against Matthew relied almost exclusively on eye-witness testimony. Realizing that it would be too costly and likely found to be unconstitutional to force witnesses to appear before a judge in another country to provide testimony, Governor Morrison gave up his blood-thirsty hunt for Matthew.
Thus without any satisfactory evidence presented against Matthew in the Hamilton County Court, Matthew was released as a free man on March 3, 1922.
***
Sources:
Sarah-Jane Mathieu, "North of the Color Line: Migration and Black Resistance in Canada, ..." - Page 174
Vann R. Newkirk, "Lynching in North Carolina: a history, 1865-1941" - Page 44
Mark Robert Schneider, "We return fighting: the civil rights movement in the jazz age" - Page 195]]>How a Black Man Saved Queen's Universitytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.26000112013-02-01T17:40:41-05:002013-04-03T05:12:01-04:00Anthony Morganhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-morgan/Robert Sutherland (1830-1878).
Gifted scholar, distinguished debater and noble philanthropist, Robert Sutherland, a native of Jamaica, became the first known black student to graduate from a Canadian university when he graduated from Queen's University in 1852.
To offer some context, Sutherland was a university student at a time when black people were still being owned, brutalized and traded as chattel throughout the Americas and the Antebellum South. Added to this, he was a black man pursuing studies in Canada during a period when the lingering effects of slavery still loomed heavily over this country, which had abolished the wretched institution less than 15 years earlier.
Yet still, while at Queen's Robert Sutherland managed to masterfully overcome and discredit the popular perception of black skin being a badge of inferiority.
Undeterred by the deeply racist climate of the time, Sutherland's keen intellect shone brightly and did not go unnoticed at the university. During his time at Queen's, he managed to gain acclaim as a formidable debater on what is now Queen's Debating Union, an organization which he also served as treasurer. His commitment to excellence in scholarship was such that he also earned 14 academic awards in various subjects including Latin and Mathematics.
After completing his studies, Robert Sutherland became the first known black member of the Law Society of Upper Canada in 1855 and went on to have a successful practice in the city of Berlin, Ontario (now Kitchener). Berlin is known to have attracted many African-Americans who had escaped slavery by coming to Canada through the underground railroad and Sutherland is said to have devoted a part of his practice to assisting many of these former slaves earn titles to unsettled land. The effect of gaining such land title at the time gave men the right to vote.
Robert Sutherland later moved his practice to Walkerton, Ontario. As a distinguished lawyer in Walkerton, he became so well regarded in his community that he was eventually elected to serve as reeve of Walkerton, the rural municipality equivalent of city mayor.
The success of his practice and the fact that he had no family allowed Sutherland to amass a handsomely sizeable estate for a man of any race at that time. As such, when Sutherland became grievously ill with pneumonia, he was visited by Queen's University principal, George Monro Grant.
Grant is noted to have requested Sutherland's help in rescuing Queen's University from the financial hardship it was suffering due to money the institution lost in a bank collapse. In 1878 when Sutherland succumbed to his illness, it was learned that he had bequeathed his entire estate to Queen's University.
In total, Sutherland left approximately $13,000 (which today would likely be over $260,000 CAD) to Queen's. At the time this was equal to the university's annual budget. Sutherland's bequest makes him Queen's first major benefactor.
At the time of the writing of this article, research has yet to uncover an instance of any other private individual in Canada donating to an existing Canadian university an amount equivalent to the institution's operating budget.
Though Sutherland left a considerable amount of money to his alma mater, it was the effect of his generous gift, more than its sum that is most significant. Because of Sutherland's donation, Queen's University was able to escape being annexed by the University of Toronto, which at the time was exerting considerable pressure to take over the Kingston, Ontario institution. Queen's used Sutherland's gift to spearhead a fundraising initiative that ultimately saved the university from financial ruin and eventual annexation.
Today, Mr. Robert Sutherland's legacy lives on through a memorial room and scholarships established in his name, and also through a visitorship which brings distinguished speakers to Queen's to deliver major lectures on equity, community diversity and race relations for the Queen's University community.
Fittingly, after a tireless and hard-fought campaign by some of Queen's students and alumni that lasted approximately 15 years, Queen's University finally recognized Mr. Sutherland in the spring of 2009 by re-naming its building for graduate policy studies in his honour.
]]>Canada's First Black MP Leaves an Important Legacytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.20021642012-10-22T17:11:36-04:002012-12-22T05:12:01-05:00Anthony Morganhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-morgan/
The existential angst that arises from this civic conundrum is rooted in a paradox that pervades the black Canadian experience. On the one hand, there is a profound desire among black Canadians to fully participate and be popularly recognized as respected, valued and equal members of Canadian society, but on the other, they are faced with the fact that the country they love (with the complicity of mainstream media) has erased blacks from Canadian textbooks and civic consciousness, hyper-criminalizes and over-polices black people, and has become indifferent to black poverty and collective marginalization as a normalized feature of Canadian social, economic and political life.
Given the socio-economic conditions that disproportionately affect black Canadian communities, coupled with the attendant erosion of community values that encourage black collective success, it's only natural that a growing number of ambitious black Canadians feel haunted by a Shakespearian whisper; "To be a black Canadian (as opposed to a black person who happens to be in Canada), or not to be..."
The nature of this false choice was effectively exposed as a fallacy last week as Canada was shaken by two momentous events that should forever reshape and re-centre within our collective civic consciousness the black tile of the Canadian mosaic.
On the backdrop of Canada's official Citizenship Week 2012, the black pages of the Canadian story were re-opened with a new Canadian Heritage Minute that profiles the life and times of Richard Pierpoint.
Pierpoint was a once enslaved black man who won his freedom by fighting for the British during the American War of Independence, and who later fought again for the British to defend its Canadian colonies in the War of 1812 -- this time rallying a regiment composed of other free black men to fend off the American invasion of Upper Canada (now Ontario).
Despite the fact that this new Heritage Minute credulously perpetuates the civic myth that slavery never existed in Canada (it wasn't abolished until 1834, two decades after the War of 1812), its release marks a possible pivotal moment in the development of collectively held notions of Canadian citizenship. This Heritage Minute fundamentally unsettles the commonly accepted distortion of black people being alien to Canadian history prior to the Underground Railroad, and properly recounts the exercise black personhood and full humanity. It shows that blacks have not only acted as subjects with full civic and social agency within Canada, but that they have also actively participated in making Canada the imperfect but beautiful nation that it is today.
BLOG CONTINUES AFTER SLIDESHOW...
The second of last week's seismic shifts within nationally held notions of Canadian citizenship continues to have its aftershocks felt through the present week, as our country now mourns the passing of a great Canadian hero, Lincoln Macauley Alexander. He died on Friday October 19th, 2012 at the age of 90.
Reading the many tributes to this outstanding Canadian makes it clear that Alexander's exemplary life was lived as an emphatic declaration that blackness and Canadianness can seamlessly exist in synergetic harmony, and that there is a black experience that is inextricably and simultaneously a Canadian experience. Alexander made this clear from his first days in Parliament that this would be the mark of his decades in public service.
In September 1968, as Canada's first Black MP, Alexander boldly proclaimed the following:
"I am not the spokesman for the Negro; that honour has not been given to me. Do not let me ever give anyone that impression. However, I want the record to show that I accept the responsibility of speaking for him and all others in this great nation who feel that they are the subjects of discrimination because of race, creed or colour."
Indeed, Lincoln Alexander achieved inordinate successes through recognizing, valuing, and publicly embracing both his black and Canadian identities.
Even when racial segregation remained a feature in Canadian society, Lincoln persevered to seek empowerment through education. Motivated by his mother's oft repeated admonition, "Go to school, you're a little black boy" (which would later become the title of his memoirs), Alexander went on to graduate from McMaster University in 1949.
Then, when his blackness was outright cited as barring him from a position as a salesman at a large steel company, he elected to attend law school, graduating from Osgoode Hall in 1953. Alexander went on to live a highly distinguished public life that has led him to be dubbed, the "Jackie Robinson of Canadian politics," making a most indelible mark on Canadian life and citizenship, most especially as Ontario's first black vice-regal from 1985 to 1991.
In our national mourning of Alexander, Canadians must not forget that he joins a line of great black Canadian change-makers that have passed away since 2011.
This heroic line of Canadian civic champions includes one of Canada's most fearless civil rights activists, Dudley Laws; Canada's first black Chief Justice, Julius Isaac; the greatest black Canadian hockey player to never break the NHL colour bar, Herbert Carnegie; the gifted Canadian lawyer and political trailblazer, Leonard Braithwaite (to whom Lincoln Alexander is often whispered to have been conservative Canada's counterpoint); and yet another great Canadian lawyer, pan-Africanist, artist, intellectual and citizenship-shaper, Charles Roach, who died earlier this same sad October.
Indeed, Lincoln Alexander has now joined the league of fallen fathers of contemporary black Canadian citizenship. Like Richard Pierpoint a century before them, all these men demonstrated that full civic membership in Canada is not a question of whether to prioritize race or citizenship. To the contrary, they exemplified the symbiotic nature of black Canadian identity, showing it to be an identity that was solid enough to break racial barriers of the past, and hopefully inspiring us to believe that it is this same identity that remains best suited to conquer contemporary realities of black Canadian poverty, unemployment, crime, violence, academic under-achievement and collective nihilism.
Canada's 13th Prime Minister, and the man who encouraged Lincoln Alexander to enter the political arena, John Diefenbaker, once famously announced the following at a 1967 Progressive Conservative convention:
"I was criticized for being too much concerned with the average Canadians. I can't help that; I am one of them!"
While this should resonate with all Canadians, in the memory of Lincoln Alexander, it behooves black Canadians most especially to live actively, vocally, and unabashedly in the spirit of these words with the grace, dignity, courage and commitment Alexander exemplified. Indeed the passing of this legendary black Canadian should encourage us all to live lives that would leave us similarly criticized for our expressed concerns for the lot of the average Canadian, black and otherwise.
In an age of socially destructive hyper-individualism, it's easy to see this as a matter of private concern. However, if Lincoln Alexander's life teaches us one thing, it's that this should be understood as a matter central to the meaning of being Canadian.
...to be, or not to be, that is the question; for us all.]]>The Black Canadian Activist Who Was Never a Citizentag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19398292012-10-04T17:11:19-04:002012-12-04T05:12:01-05:00Anthony Morganhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-morgan/passed away after a hard-fought battle with cancer. He was 79 years old.
A Renaissance man, Roach was a former reservist in the Canadian Armed Forces, a distinguished lawyer, businessman, community activist, mentor, musician, painter, poet and even an occasional rapper.
He demonstrated a tireless commitment to anti-imperialism, social and economic justice for poor and oppressed peoples, and as a fervent pan-Africanist, he remained dedicated to achieving racial justice for blacks in Canada and all peoples of African descent. His legacy includes co-founding the multimillion dollar Caribbean-flavoured street festival, Caribana, and leading (alongside the late Dudley Laws) the massive community campaigns against police brutality that are directly responsible for the creation of the Special Investigations Unit, a civilian agency charged with looking into killings and serious injuries caused by police.
Of all his pursuits for a fairer and more just society, however, the most controversial and publicized of Roach's advocacy efforts was his push, since 1988, to get a Canadian court to recognize that it is a violation of individuals' constitutionally guaranteed freedom of conscience to require prospective Canadians to swear an oath of allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II, Her Heirs and Successors, as a requirement for obtaining Canadian citizenship.
As a result of his opposition to this, despite having lived in Canada since 1955, Roach remained a permanent resident. Convinced that the monarchy represents racist hereditary privilege, Roach recently explained his steadfast adherence to equality and civic republicanism by stating the following:
"I feel that we [blacks] were colonized as a people by the British throne, and we were enslaved as a people by the British throne and, to me, taking an oath to the monarch of Great Britain, without any disrespect to the Queen herself as a person, is like asking a Holocaust survivor to take an oath to a descendant of Hitler,"
Only months ago the Ontario Superior Court finally granted Roach the right to argue the constitutionality of the oath in its current form. Up until only a couple of weeks ago, he was sure that he would live to become a Canadian citizen without having to swear to the Queen. Sadly, Roach, who is predeceased by his first wife Hetty, will now never get the chance to live his final Canadian dream. He leaves behind his wife, June, his four children, several grandchildren, and what else?
Roach's life leaves this message for Canada's diffident, splintered and rudderless black Canadian community: to access the doors of justice, we must first walk the halls of sacrifice.
At a time when Canada's official immigration policy was to deny people of African descent entry into the country, Roach undertook reservist training in the Canadian army during the 1950s. Risking his chances of entering the legal profession if convicted, he was also arrested in the early 60s during a "Ban the Bomb" rally that he attended despite being in the process of taking the bar admission course. He remained undeterred in his steadfast commitment to justice through sacrifice upon entering the legal profession.
For over 40 years he chose a legal career of fighting for the poor and oppressed as opposed to setting-out on a more lucrative career path. He sacrificed the rights to vote, to travel on a Canadian passport, to run for public office, and even gave up the privilege offered to him of being appointed a judge; all this because of his unshakable resistance to swearing an oath to a monarchy in whose name blacks and Aboriginal Peoples were enslaved, colonized, maimed and murdered en mass for hundreds of years.
Though he never got to enjoy the official status himself, Roach's life provides a new model for living out black Canadian citizenship.
He did not use his distinguished education and professional privilege to distance himself from the black communities that made him who he is, but rather leveraged his privilege in service of poor and oppressed people and against racialized socio-economic injustices that, even today, make black Canadian success stories the exception rather than the rule.
Roach demonstrated that Black professional excellence and advancement in Canada need not be synonymous with the cultural suppression, self-alienation and self-censorship in the interest of ascending scales of mainstream success. Unlike the vast majority of the growing and maturing class of black Canadian professional and businesspeople of the day, Roach never feared, but rather embraced being associated with any speech, action or person engaged in transformative structural and social change for a better Canada and better world.
He demonstrated that true love of and respect for self and community meant not disregarding one's connection to a people that suffers from disproportionately high and chronic rates of unemployment, underemployment, poverty, glorified thuggery, academic under achievement, police surveillance and brutality, and incarceration. To the contrary, Roach remained ever cognizant of and engaged by the words of the great Caribbean-American writer and activist, Audre Lorde, who once said, "Your silence will not protect you."
For the principles of justice and equality, Charles Roach paid prices that most people are not prepared to pay, especially those he would call brother and sister. Some Canadians would even say that the costs were too high given that Roach never attained his dream of Canadian citizenship. This, though, is only a matter of opinion informed by subjective decisions about where to sit within the spectrum of self-interest and transformative social justice.
In the end, deciding if Roach's struggles were a success is not at all what matters most. In fact, for those who'd be quick to call his quest a failure, it is sure that he would leave them with the following words:
"The struggle is the important thing. Not how it ends. It's not whether I win or lose, but did I fight and do all I can?"
Not only do we wish that Roach rest in peace, but we also know, that for all Canadians and potential Canadians, he rests in the power of protest.]]>Does Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Have a White Saviour Complex?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18913902012-09-18T09:49:30-04:002012-11-18T05:12:02-05:00Anthony Morganhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-morgan/recently took to the regular radio segment he hosts with his brother, Doug.
This time, it was to defend himself against allegations that he has been using city-funded resources (cellphones, cars and staff) to manage his youth football teams. The Mayor defended these actions with the usual stubbornness that girds the cavalier, unapologetic and arrogant attitude with which he always rebuffs his critics -- no matter how legitimate their concerns.
Anyone who has been following the follies of Ford's mayoralty would not be surprised by the Mayor's reaction to these latest allegations which come on the heels of a conflict of interest court case that could see him removed from office. However, what did come as a surprise was the revelatory insinuation by Doug Ford that the Mayor's psyche is infected with what's generally known as a "white saviour complex," specifically in relation to the mostly black youth that he coaches.
The suggestion that the Mayor harbours a white saviour complex came from none other than his brother when, during this radio segment, Doug boldly proclaimed, "There's no one that helps black youth more than Rob Ford," which he followed with, "These are kids who have nothing."
That's right, Doug Ford actually said that the black youth whom Mayor Ford coaches have NOTHING, without Mayor Ford. Permit me to use my historical memory to translate Doug Ford's words: "dem po' black kids ain't got a damn bit'a nuthin widdout dat gud suh and Massa, I means, Maya, Robs Fowd..."
In political terms, Doug Ford is an extension of Rob Ford's brain and vice versa (though Doug is arguably the more astute, if not, the more collected of the two) and so it's not at all unreasonable to assume that at the moment Doug revealed the taint of his and his brother's white saviourism, he was expressing exactly what was on Mayor Ford's mind and drives the Mayor's work with his football teams.
So what is the white saviour complex? Most popularly perpetuated within the plots of any mainstream films featuring whites alongside blacks or other racialized groups, the white saviour complex is best described in the following way:
"[A] white person coming into the lives of a person or people of color who are often low-income, troubled, and/or severely oppressed. [...] [where] the white saviour comes in, quickly sympathizes with the problems of the people of colour, learning what needs to happen to solve their problems, and in doing so, wins their favour and becomes their hero."
The white saviour complex which Doug Ford's assertion suggests that the Mayor possesses is, in effect, a psychologically insidious manifestation that consciously or unconsciously infects and corrodes the minds of some people (of all racial and cultural backgrounds), and which maintains that blacks and other racialized minorities are fundamentally, if not, inherently incapable of achieving any measure of success or overcoming obstacles of any sort without the help of a benevolent white person. For examples, consider the movies The Help, The Last Air Bender, or more classically, To Kill A Mockingbird. Also see the Kony2012 fiasco.
So what does all of this mean about Mayor Ford and the underprivileged black youth he coaches and has coached over more than a decade? It means, or at least it strongly suggests, that the Mayor of Toronto actually thinks that black youth are hopeless, irredeemable nobodies and total zeroes without Ford's football teams. With the deep-seated belief in the hopelessness of black youth cancerously entrenched in the Mayor's mind, of course it makes sense to him to abuse public office, break the law and misappropriate tax-payers' funds to save these otherwise incurably destitute and indefinitely despondent black youth.
With some reflection, it seems that Mayor Ford's white saviourism might also explain why in the wake of the brazen public shootings that seized Toronto earlier this summer, the Mayor, dismissed community-led support programs and was instead most adamant about securing public funding for more aggressive policing initiatives targeted at disadvantaged Toronto neighbourhoods.
As the Mayor's thinking seems to go, why work to change the underlying and collectively manufactured structural conditions that entrench and legitimize the perpetual impoverishment and marginalization, out of which violent crime naturally flows, if the black youth engaging in such crimes are incorrigible miscreants?
So, am I saying that any and all work done by white people to help black people or other racialized minorities is inherently corrupt and should be stopped? Absolutely not. Such a position is totally ridiculous and fundamentally un-Canadian. After all, part of what makes our country great is expressions of our general commitment to helping residents of this country (except for Canada's First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples) enjoy standards of living that are consistent with not only the immense wealth of our country, but also consistent with the inherent dignity and equality of all human beings. Our robust, publicly-funded social-support systems, which include health care and education, are ready examples of this.
What I am saying though, is that when a white person holds the belief, as Mayor Ford seems to, that his fellow community members of racialized backgrounds, in this case black youth, have and presumably are "nothing" without their assistance, such otherwise welcomed, laudable and noteworthy community service goes from an example of fulfilling a civic and social duty to equalize the playing field, towards being a menacing act that gives permanence to relations that support white privilege and racial hierarchies of power and domination with white people unquestionably on top of the socio-economic pyramid.
"Charity" of this sort is misguided and harmful, regardless of one's intentions, because it is not offered as a way to reconstruct society so that the conditions that create racialized socio-economic disadvantage are broken down and eliminated. To the contrary, it prolongs racialized social injustice, and does so in a way that demoralizes and degrades the individuals being helped. It does this by inflicting the receivers of such assistance (and also infecting the acts and minds of the person "helping") with the psychic trauma of believing in the racial superiority of white people, a.k.a. white supremacy.
In other words, if Mayor Ford really does hold the view that the black youths he helps have "nothing" without his football program, he is only furthering the sentiment that no matter how hard black people and communities work or how committed they are to bringing themselves and their families out of poverty and into hard and fairly-won prosperity, they still have "nothing" if their self-help, hard work and perseverance is not supported by a white saviour.
There are few better ways to cultivate a culture of dependency within Toronto's black youth and families than having a Mayor who thinks this way and worse, who is backed by tax-payers who demonstrate a latent willingness to fund expressions of this mental dysfunction.
The City of Toronto's official motto is "Diversity Our Strength." Ford's comments about black youth having nothing without Mayor Ford's football program is really making me wonder who exactly in the Mayor's mind the "Our" in the city's motto is meant to include (and exclude) and how his thinking on the question may be fundamentally corrupting his capacity to lead Canada's most diverse city.]]>Does This Nova Scotian Premier Hate Black People?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16694772012-07-14T07:28:10-04:002012-09-13T05:12:07-04:00Anthony Morganhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-morgan/
"...Nova Scotia Premier, Darrell Dexter, does not care about black people."
As hyperbolic as that statement is, dumbfounded à la Kanye West was my initial disposition after reading articles I recently came across chronicling a brewing controversy in Nova Scotia's current electoral reform process.
Having now gotten over my initial shock, I must say that I cannot credibly confirm either way whether Premier Dexter cares about blacks in Nova Scotia (a.k.a. "African Nova Scotians"). However, what's clear is that Premier Dexter's government has recently shown steadfast disregard for the importance of protecting the political representation of his province's historic African Nova Scotian population.
In fact, in light of what I've learned I now have a better understanding of why Nova Scotia has been dubbed, the "Mississippi of the North." Before I get into all of that though, let me start with what led me to learn about the Nova Scotian government's discriminatory electoral reform manoeuvrings in the first place.
While recently taking some time to read up on news from the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign, I was led to numerous articles discussing covertly but clearly racist voter identification laws that at least 10 U.S. States have either passed or are rushing to pass before this November's presidential election. These laws are reported to impose increasingly rigid requirements that mandate voters to produce specific pieces of identification (i.e.: a valid driver's license) in order to be allowed to vote.
On its face, I agree that the introduction of these voter-ID requirements looks like harmless, if not, prudent and responsible law-making aimed at preventing voter fraud. However, my reading on this growing scandal suggested that these laws can be characterized as covertly but clearly racist because they have a disproportionately damaging effect on African-Americans and Hispanics -- voting blocs on which President Obama relied to win the presidency in 2008.
Anyway, as I read article after article describing what appears to be a generalizing U.S. conspiracy of racially motivated voter suppression, I eventually lost myself. It was only for a moment, but it happened...
I slipped from the mild-mannered and sometimes self-righteous humility that is so typically Canadian and I began shaking my head, thinking, "America; so far ahead but still so far behind. I mean, when's the last time anyone's heard of a government in Canada so obviously engaging in discriminatory manipulation of electoral policies?" Right?
A Google search and a bout with stunned silence later aaannd, boom!
Here's the story: Nova Scotia is undergoing reforms to adjust electoral boundaries in accordance with latest Canadian census. Mandated to undertake this process is the Electoral Boundaries Commission (EBC), an independent agency constituted to work on behalf of the citizens of Nova Scotia, not the government.
After months of community consultations, and much policy and legal research into the question of how best to protect the political representation of minorities in the province, the EBC decided to leave intact Nova Scotia's four "protected constituencies." Created in 1991, these constituencies were established to entrench political representation of francophone minority of Acadians, and African Nova Scotians in the province's House of Assembly (three of these constituencies secure Acadian representation and the other, the constituency of Preston, secures that of African Nova Scotians).
When the EBC released its interim report in May 2012 indicating its decision to maintain the protected constituencies, Premier Dexter and his Attorney General, Ross Landry, publicly opposed this decision, flatly rejected the report and demanded that the EBC do it over again -- this time with the protected constituencies obliterated and absorbed into surrounding electoral districts. (It's worth noting here that Dexter's provincial NDP holds none of these protected seats.)
So, what's Premier Dexter and Attorney General Landry's excuse for blatantly violating the political independence of the Electoral Boundaries Commission? Ironically, they argue that the Commission breached its Terms of Reference outlining the scope of the Commission's powers, namely the stipulation that the Commission ensure that the population of each constituency fall within 25 per cent of the provincial average of about 14,000. The four protected constituencies are all about half that size.
Now, I can't comfortably speak on the historic discrimination suffered by Acadians at the hands of successive Canadian and Nova Scotian governments. However, I can confidently and assuredly assert that regardless of the EBC's Terms of Reference, African Nova Scotians have earned the right to retain their protected constituency of Preston.
This is not a privilege but an African Nova Scotian right that has been paid for with way more than their fair share of blood, toil, tears and sweat. Indeed, there are at least 10 reasons for maintaining the political representation of African Nova Scotians' protected constituency:
9. Current statistics evidencing a socio-economic "state of crisis" in the African Nova Scotian community.
10. The principles of Premier Dexter's own party, especially the fourth.
With all that said, I am strongly of the opinion that Premier Dexter should revisit his government's position on this issue. If for no other reasons, he should do so to convince the rest of Canada that Nova Scotia is nothing like the American Old South, that his belief in democratic principles of fairness and political independence are uncompromising, and most of all, to assure the public that he thinks of the black citizens in his province as more than, well, you know...
N*gg@$ in Preston.]]>That Gangster Could Be the Next Bill Gatestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16312472012-06-29T12:10:24-04:002012-08-29T05:12:05-04:00Anthony Morganhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-morgan/
In a speech recently delivered in Westminster, UK Member of Parliament and Chair of the London Gangs Forum, Chuka Umunna, shook conventional assessments of urban gangs by focusing on the "entrepreneurial zeal" that drives gang members and their illicit activities.
While in no way excusing the harmful criminality and deviance engaged in by gang members, Umunna described how individuals involved in gangs tend to demonstrate an "entrepreneurial instinct" that "if channelled in the right way, would provide them with an alternative route to success." That "right way," Umunna asserted, is legitimate business and constructive entrepreneurial opportunities.
Umunna's suggestions are interesting because of the way they break with politicians' typical manner of approaching the problem of urban gangs. Instead of hyping-up fear-inspiring rhetoric that creates images of incorrigible boogeymen lurking in the shadows of the cities' streets, Umunna re-humanizes gang members by acknowledging that they are people like the rest of us, and they can change if given greater opportunities to achieve upward social mobility.
Reading about Chuka Umunna's speech eventually led me to wonder about what Canadian politicians have recently been offering in terms of perspective and proposed solutions to address the issue of guns and gangs -- a topic that has once again seized the Canadian public's attention as a result of the recent Eaton Centre shooting. Here's a small sampling of what I've found:
Federal Conservative Cabinet minister, Julian Fantino, responded to the Eaton Centre shooting by saying: "Some of these people obviously need to be taught a lesson [...] We haven't been able to effectively get their attention. That's why some of these sentences, severe sentences and mandatory sentences are absolutely critical."
While a predictable and stale assessment and proposed solution, NDP Justice critic, Françoise Boivin, responded to the incident by saying, "What are really needed are more police on the ground."
The best of these altogether tired and hollow suggestions came from Bob Rae, interim Liberal leader, who is reported to have insisted that, "rather than waiting for the crimes to occur and then getting up on our high horses and saying, 'Isn't it a terrible thing?'" emphasis should be put on preventative measures supported through having the provinces work with Ottawa to address the festering problem of urban gun crime and violence.
These suggestions on how to properly address gang-related activity, leave much to be desired, but can be considered far less out of touch than what's recently come out of Toronto's City Council on the matter.
Of the latest gun and gang-fighting suggestions to come from Toronto City Council is the maintenance of an anti-gun by-law -- even where it has little to no impact on the lives of Torontonians most affected by guns and gangs, as well as a proposed city-wide ban on the sale of bullets in Toronto.
Though of some value, these responses suggest that in a general sense, our politicians are simply unable to meaningfully and creatively engage this long-standing issue of urban gangs and gang-related activity in a manner that provides workable and innovative solutions.
What differentiates Chuka Umunna's evaluation and approach to curbing urban gang activity from the sampling of Canadian politicians' perspectives just outlined is that Umunna's prescriptions feature a more promising and less fatalist appreciation of the matter.
In contrast to the new directions proposed by Umunna, our Canadian politicians seem to have largely adopted the position that those involved in gangs are hopelessly and permanently corrupted. As such, instead of seeing their human and individual potential for making positive contributions to our cities and Canadian society, it seems that our politicians have become fixated with the idea that these kids and young adults are just inherently bad people who can only be dealt with through harsher punishments and further measures of state-sponsored control.
Of course, the UK's London gangs are not the same as the gangs that we've seen in Canada's major urban centres. However, Umunna's interest in redirecting the entrepreneurial and business acumen of gang members becomes all the more relevant to the Canadian situation when we consider that the Italian mafia, biker gangs and major international criminal organizations have all been known to incorporate Canadian urban street-gangs into their illicit enterprises.
If you're wondering whether value could come from seriously considering Umunna's approach, you should consider the global phenomenon and profitability of the hip-hop/rap industry which has made legitimate millionaires out of once street-level drug dealers Jay-Z, Nas and 50 Cent.
Indeed, the rap game offers neither an ideal nor reliable route out of ganglife. However, it does exemplify what can happen when legitimate, relevant and competitive opportunities are offered to those attracted to the profits of gang affiliation.]]>An Africentric School Will Teach the Community Tootag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16176732012-06-03T15:17:01-04:002012-08-03T05:12:17-04:00Anthony Morganhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-morgan/
The 'hood, however, is much more than these mediated projections of urban folklore and pathetic pathology.
For many Canadians, the 'hood is the beloved birthplace and nurturer of individual and collective identity; it represents that place where the feelings of belonging, shared understanding and validation resonate with such an unparalleled familiarity that bullet-riddled walls can become, for some, hood monuments pointed at with pride.
Though it's likely a difficult fact for the majority of Canadians to accept or understand, the truth is the 'hood exists for many of their fellow citizens as the cradle of identity formation, and fundamentally informs how some of us live out our membership within Canada's national and civic community.
Now , it should to be said that in Canada, identifying with "the 'hood" is arguably most prevalent among black people. This is partly because of the drowning influence of negative aspects of rap/hip-hop culture, mixed with the overrepresentation of blacks in Canadian poverty statistics.
Either way, the propensity of black Canadians, especially younger blacks, to affectionately identify with the 'hood leads me to ask the following question: In a country as free, prosperous and with as robust a social security system as Canada has, why do some black Canadians actively choose to draw on the frightful, depressing and dangerous place that is the hood in order ground to themselves within the landscape of Canadian life?
While the answers to this question vary in number and complexity, I think an important and under-appreciated reason for this is the erasure of African and black Canadian history, culture and contemporary contributions from our primary, middle and high school curricula throughout Canada. In fact, one might say that our Canadian education systems are so dismissive of the presence and impact of African descendants in Canada and around the world, that our schools are unmatched as Canada's most effective and efficient public institution when it comes to confining blacks in Canada to the 'hood.
In other words, the absence of blacks from our provincial curricula (most especially when considered with the backdrop of the standard deeply negative representation of blacks in the media), is critical in creating the widespread and deeply held belief that black people belong in the 'hood, and by default, stand outside of our commonly held notions of Canadian citizenship, identity and nationhood.
For this reason, I am a strong supporter of the Toronto District School Board's (TDSB) decision to open an Africentric high school for this coming September. Although the ideal would be a universally implemented curriculum that was meaningfully inclusive of all under-represented ethnic, cultural and national groups, the Africentric education initiatives being bravely undertaken by the TDSB provide important and enriching soil in which a growing number Canadians can re-root their understanding of black people, their communities and histories as they are and have been lived in Canada and beyond.
The developments of Africentric education in Canada are an important advancement because at present, the images and impressions that dominate the vast majority of Canadians' understanding of their national kin of African descent are overwhelmingly wrapped up in the images of African-American history, personages, politics and pathologies. As such, more often than not, when relating or reacting to blacks in Canada, most people (blacks included), use what they know about African-Americans to guide their behaviour.
Though many myopically call the TDSB's Africentric schools segregationist, any intellectually honest approach to this issue of Africentric education has to acknowledge that current circumstances are such that black Canadians are, by and large, being badly misrepresented within the media and public imagination. This being the case, what better institution than our public schools to dispel the widely held misconceptions that black people are inherently violent, criminal, loud, aggressive, hyper-sexed, unintelligent and lazy?
In fact, we should consider this public re-education an obligation of our public schools, one which is engaged with the same sense of duty and devotion as when our teachers work to dispel myths like: girls have cooties; there's something wrong LGBTQ individuals; Aboriginal peoples are savages and; Arab and Muslim people are terrorists.
Diversifying how we inform Canadians about members of their civic community who share different histories and perspectives surely won't, in itself, rectify the longstanding, deep-seated and complex issues that find black Canadians more instinctually associated with the hood than with Canadian national identity. However, such changes in the way we educate the public about Canada's black populations can go a long way towards correcting some of those negative presumptions that diminish the value and promise of Canadian citizenship for us all.]]>Canadian Citizenship -- What's the Queen Got to Do With It?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15613902012-06-02T00:00:00-04:002012-08-01T05:12:19-04:00Anthony Morganhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-morgan/
In becoming new Canadians, these individuals often leave behind states and societies headed by undemocratic leaders and institutions whose "legitimate" grip on power rests on little more than sentimentalist appeals to tribalism that is veiled behind "tradition." Not to mention a public's nonchalance that latently defends its state's anachronistic practices with an attitude that boils down to, "well, this is just how we do things here." In many cases, expressing or even being perceived to hold positions contrary to this peculiar manner of running society can be met with various degrees of state-sanctioned repression.
Often, it is precisely these problematic practices and this primitive attitude which individuals aim to escape in exchange for the Canadian promise of full membership in a civic community that is democratic, and promotes the sanctity of basic human rights and freedoms.
Why then, is there a legal obligation for individuals to take a solemn oath of allegiance to faithfully serve the Queen, her heirs and successors in order to gain full access to the democratic protections of Canadian citizenship?
Lawyer and activist, Charles Roach, has been attempting for the past three decades to bring the courts to answer this question. In his tireless campaign, Roach, born a British subject in Trinidad, has contended that the British monarchy is racist and wrong because it is a system of hereditary privilege which undermines the Canadian way of promoting and protecting institutions that guarantee and facilitate equal-opportunity and diversity.
Relying on Charter-guaranteed freedoms of conscience, speech and association, as well as the right to equality and the enshrined principle of multiculturalism, Roach has been pleading his case since 1988. He argues that it is unconstitutional for aspiring Canadians to be denied the choice to swear an oath of allegiance that does not include the Queen and her heirs. Ardently sticking to his personal convictions, Roach has even gone so far as deciding to remain a permanent resident of Canada since 1964 despite being approved for Canadian citizenship -- an entitlement he continues to refuse to claim due to the required oath to the monarchy.
While it's easier to dismiss calls for the abolition of the monarchy in Canada, I can't help but wonder, are there any reasonable arguments for denying potentially new Canadians the right to swear an oath of allegiance that does not mention faithful service of the Queen, her heirs and successors?
Of course, there are those who will immediate cite "tradition" in defence of maintaining the status quo regarding this solemn oath. But aren't the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights a part of the Canadian tradition as well? And really, are mere historical ties and warm feelings and memories of the Queen all we have for legitimating limitations on individuals' fundamental rights, freedoms and ability to become Canadian citizens?
There are, of course, many ways to answer these questions. However, I don't imagine that any of these answers would serve to rebuff a leering suspicion I have that retaining this oath as it only allows for the persistent festering of a national inferiority complex that has been allowed to chronically infect Canadian identity and society.
Of course, Canada is not the only country that lazily chooses to re-appropriate symbols of its historic subjugation and redeploy them as a means of instilling a sense of national unity and strength (see, for example, every other Commonwealth county and the Francophonie). In fact, when you think about it, it kind of makes sense. If it helps, you might think about it in the same way that black people sometimes refer to each other using the N-word as a term of endearment. Perfectly understandable, right?
Anyway, suffice it to say, I'd like to think that Canadian culture is resilient, creative and dynamic enough to withstand the effects of potentially new Canadians being given the option to swear an oath to serve the state and society that is offering them a better life and opportunity for full democratic citizenship, and do so without having to reference an institution and individuals that only seem relevant when searching for gossip, stale nostalgia, good pictures and contrived jubilation qua Canadian national pride.]]>What's Wrong With Affirmative Action? Ask the CBCtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15166862012-05-15T12:03:09-04:002012-07-15T05:12:09-04:00Anthony Morganhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-morgan/article, Rex Murphy characterized affirmative action as "an inequity in itself," "hollow" and "false." In his usual stern-faced, firm and finger-wagging manner of analyzing the issues of the day, Murphy makes some excellent and interesting points.
Though I don't entirely agree with his assessment of the policy, like Murphy, I am certainly in favour of putting an end to what he calls, "the hitherto unquestioned status of affirmative action." He and I likely differ, however, on why we think this should be done.
Murphy believes that a more free debate on affirmative action, or as we call it in Canada, employment equity, will ultimately help us see that this policy "has outgrown what tenuous utility or point it might once have had." I, on the other hand, think that the CBC commentator's call for a more open debate on affirmative action is important because such would reveal that affirmative action/employment equity is to North American society what the CBC is to television and radio broadcasting in Canada.
You read it right: Affirmative action is to our society what the CBC is to television and radio broadcasting in Canada.
Indeed, I can already sense your confusion -- "How does that parallel even make sense?"
Well, think of a society without affirmative action as television and radio in Canada without the CBC (and by extension, the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission, but we'll stick to the CBC for now). Let me explain...
The dominant and default force that drives media outlets and content in Canada and other liberal democracies is ad-generated profit -- plain and simple. Consequently, if we left it exclusively to market forces to dictate what appeared in Canadian broadcast media, whatever, and I mean whatever, programs that seized the attention of the highest number of Canadians would be the sole determinant of who and what dominated the Canadian airwaves.
In other words, if laissez-faire ruled media broadcasting in Canada, it is almost certain that Canadian TVs and radios would be overwhelmingly and almost totally dominated by a 24-hour cycle that would be saturated with the likes of the Jersey Shore, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, NFL games, Fox News and CNN.
Such a mind-numbing media reality would likely mean the following: Hockey Night in Canada -- gone. Peter Mansbridge -- gone. Diana Swain -- gone. Evan Solomon -- gone. Kevin O'Leary -- gone. This Hour Has 22 Minutes -- gone. As it Happens -- gone. Rick Mercer -- gone. George Stroumboulopoulos -- gone. And of course, Rex Murphy, himself -- gone...
However, thanks to the Canadian media's artificial market distortion that is the CBC, Canadians and Canada are invaluably enriched by home-grown programming and personalities whose worth to Canadian culture and community cannot be measured by the sways of public taste and mere profit margins.
Wait, are we still talking about affirmative action here? We sure are.
In the same way that the whims of the free market should not be what determines the continued existence of, and programing on, the CBC, the comfort level and cultural familiarity of managers and employers should not be what determines which qualified candidates get hired for jobs.
Of course, affirmative action/employment equity is not a perfect or ideal policy. That being said, such policies are probably at least as perfect as the CBC is at ensuring that Canadian content and culture is a common, widespread and accessible feature of radio and television in this country.
While the ideal would be for private media corporations to meaningfully incorporate Canadian content and culture into their broadcasts, it would be naive, imprudent and detrimental to Canadian culture if we left the market to do this. And the same can be said for Canadian society and employment equity.
While all Canadians would love to believe that, in the absence of employment equity programs, Canadian employers would be universally and truly committed to hiring on the basis of pure merit, (which is the exclusive province of no single people, race or culture) it is extremely unlikely that this reality would materialize in the forseeable future.
In fact, even with an official national policy of multiculturalism and a plethora of employment equity policies that have been adopted over the past three decades, Canadian corporatations, politics, and higher learning have made progress, but still show significant difficulties in fully developing a dynamic workforce of diverse and qualified employees, managers and board members.
I may be getting ahead of myself, because in all fairness, Murphy wasn't clear on whether his thoughts on the "inequity" of affirmative action extend to its Canadian manifestation of employment equity. But truth be told, I would be surprised if Murphy doesn't feel the same disdain towards employment equity in Canada as he does for affirmative action, as it's called across the border. Either way, I can totally understand if his stance is deliberately ambiguous on the matter. In fact, if I were him, I too would probably try to remain vague on the question.
After all, any direct shots Murphy might take at employment equity might have the unintended negative effect of pushing Canadians across this vast country to start wondering how it could be that a fella from Carbonear, Newfoundland could become such a dominant voice on Canadian social, political and economic affairs.
Now thatwould just be totally unfair...]]>Rob Ford is Shooting Crooked on Gun Controltag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15098252012-05-11T14:25:17-04:002012-07-11T05:12:13-04:00Anthony Morganhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-morgan/debate that saw his and the City of Toronto's position on gun violence inadvertently exposed for its significant limitations.
The motion being debated concerned whether to exempt city-owned Exhibition Place from by-laws banning any event that promotes firearms on city property, a change that was being sought, in part, to allow the Toronto Sportsmen's Show to be hosted at this venue which it called home for 62 years before the gun by-laws took effect in 2010. Councillman Perks opposed the exemption in the name of supporting the city's stance against ongoing gun violence which has been crippling some of Toronto's marginalized neighbourhoods.
Supporting the exemption was City Councillor Josh Colle, who represents the predominantly black, under-sourced and gun-plagued community of Lawrence Heights. Seeing through Perks' noble posturing, Colle characterized Perks' position as disingenuous, ultimately shooting it down by dropping this:
"[Some of my constituents] see this as a debate that makes downtown...I hate to say it...white people feel better that they've done something, when they're suffering from this gun violence day after day."
Ouch!
How did Perks respond to being called out? By telling Colle to "fuck off," later saying that he took offence at the reference to white people. Perks promptly apologized for his choice of words and the motion rightfully passed with 19 votes for, and 11 against, the exemption. By that point, however, the cat had already left the bag, as an uncomfortable truth about the city's fight against guns had been revealed -- a truth that cannot be f-bombed away.
As tough as it is to face, the truth is that too many of the Toronto's policies targeting guns and gang violence have been of little more than symbolic value, and of minimal effect in the communities most closely affected by this urban scourge. That's not to say that the whole thrust of the community development and empowerment initiatives launched in the wake of the infamous "Summer of the Gun" have been a failure, however. In fact, many have been laudable and effective in combating gun violence, creating greater socio-economic opportunities, and helping to build stronger character in young people and their families so as to decrease the lure of street life and gang-banging, which effectively necessitate the use or access to a handgun.
That being said, I point out the above to highlight that in a drive to appear as though he remained committed to combatting gun violence, the Toronto's previous mayor, David Miller, seems to have misdirected some of his policies at legal gun users rather than at criminals who've high-jacked communities through the traffic and use of illegal firearms that have no place in the city's streets.
While I don't doubt the former mayor's genuine and profound commitment to fighting this problem when he was in office, the problem is that the passing of symbolic policies on this issue is not only deeply offensive to the community members who have to live in constant fear of impending gun violence, but it is also deadly.
Gliding on the inertia of some of these pseudo anti-gun by-laws, Rob Ford is running a Toronto where shootings for 2012 are now reported to be up more than 54.7 per cent over since the same period in 2011. In fact, Toronto Police crime statistics are reported to indicate that there have been 82 shootings so far in 2012, whereas at this time last year there were 53. Worse still, the same report claims that at this point in 2011 there were 58 victims of shootings, but now, we stand at a shocking 104 shooting victims in Toronto since the beginning of 2012, a 79.3 per cent increase. And that's not counting the murder took place less than 24 hours after the above mentioned Council debate on the by-law exemption.
There's very little to indicate that Mayor Ford sees curbing gun violence in the city's disadvantaged communities as a priority. But as his time in office sees a resurgent climb in gun violence, it is my sincerest hope that Ford will learn from Miller's misstep, and make better policy decisions that sustainably combat not only gun violence, but also the underlying social, political and economic factors that make guns, gangs and drugs appealing, and overly accessible options in some of the city's most dispossessed communities.
Of course, doing all this takes considerable and varied resources, of the most important, money.
My suggestion? Let's start with the $1.1 billion gross annual revenue that the city-owned Exhibition Place reportedly stands to gain from allowing this anti-gun law exemption.]]>Our Health Minister Plays Race Card, Democracy Losestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.14542742012-04-26T13:34:41-04:002012-06-26T05:12:01-04:00Anthony Morganhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-morgan/ asked Minister of Health Leona Aglukkaq to explain "why (the Minister's budget) cuts target the population with the worst health outcomes in Canada, the aboriginal people of Canada?"
Usually this question would be taken as a normal part of the drama that plays out during Question Period, with the Health Minister offering some non-answer that superficially addresses the Member's leading question. But this time things were different because it just so happens that Minister Aglukkaq is of Aboriginal heritage.
Enter the politics of race, ethnicity, and political representation in Canada.
Bennett's question is of pressing importance to the health and well-being of fellow Canadians and one of this country's founding peoples. Yet, before getting to the heart of her non-answer, Minister Aglukkaq felt compelled to shoot back, "Mr. Speaker, as an aboriginal person I take that type of line of questioning to be unacceptable." In other words, she pulled the proverbial "race card."
While our Philosophy 101 professors would be proud of our ability to point out the latently ad hominem character of Bennett's question which, figuratively speaking, plays the (wo)man instead of playing the ball (or at least does both), insinuating that Bennett's question was a racially or culturally inappropriate act is quite a stretch.
After all, Bennett is not only a family physician by trade, but she is also the Liberal's Critic for Aboriginal Affairs. Her position in her party makes it her public duty to demand answers for what she and Aboriginal communities see as a troubling line of deep cuts to the funding of Aboriginal disease prevention and health promotion programs.
If we take seriously the logic underlying the bizarre nature of Minister Aglukkaq's reaction, not only are we forbidden to question the Health Minister on her decisions related to aboriginal communities (merely because the Minister is an aboriginal person herself), but we are also barred from questioning Minister Bev Oda (Minister of International Cooperation) on Canada's record on the global protection and promotion of women's rights. Why? Well, because Oda is a woman, of course...
Does that make sense to you? Ugh, me neither.
Indeed, it would be interesting and probably most comical to hear Minister Aglukkaq fully explain why her being an aboriginal person makes it impermissible for Members of Parliament to ask her questions on her ministry's decisions related to aboriginal peoples. However, this exchange between the Minister and Bennett exposes something of greater significance to Canadian politics, namely, some of the issues associated with being a visible minority or aboriginal person while serving in public office. It is the latter that deserves more attention.
Our country features a constitutional and civic commitment to a kind of multiculturalism that is (in principle) free to express itself in all its dynamism and complexities, to the extent that such expressions do not violate the principles of equality, freedom and democracy. However, such latitude is not equally afforded to the Canadian politicians who physically embody this multicultural heritage and commitment.
I say this because the standard rule in contemporary Canadian politics is that if you are a visible minority or aboriginal person serving in Parliament or in a provincial legislature, you are, for political purposes, perpetually susceptible to having your cultural, racial or ethnic background unscrupulously used against you and/or the multicultural communities with whom you share a common ethnic heritage.
Let me explain. At present, Canadian understandings of the relationship between race, ethnicity and democracy are such that the prevailing mindset holds that a visible minority or aboriginal politician is absolutely incapable of discriminating against their own or other underrepresented communities by virtue of their minority status.
As such, when a politician who is a visible minority or aboriginal person happens to make public decisions or take policy positions that have a disproportionately adverse impact on citizens who share that politician's cultural background, we hesitate and often totally avoid asking legitimately critical questions. Instead, by way of example, we tend to think in the following way: A black MP's support for policies that adversely impact black Canadians cannot ever be discriminatory, because the member him or herself is black.
In other words, it seems that we have become so obsessed with maintaining shallow appearances of multiculturalism that we have misguidedly succumbed to the false logic that discrimination, prejudice and racism are the exclusive preserve of white people. If that were the case, the concepts of "uncle tom," or "self-hating" Jew, Native or Indian would not be as well-known as they presently are.
I am not at all suggesting that Minister Aglukkaq's heritage is consciously being manipulated to hamper critique on her ministry's policies respecting disease prevention and health promotion for aboriginal peoples. And I pray that I am not being misunderstood to be insinuating that Minister Aglukkaq is in any way a "self-hating Indian," as the deplorable term goes.
My aim is only to draw attention to the fact that visible minority and aboriginal politicians rightly or wrongly have to remain acutely aware of the race-based perceptions that are bound to arise when their decisions disproportionately affect people who share the ethnic background of the political representative.
In light of this episode, it does not seem that Minister Aglukkaq was ready for this political reality, as she took Bennett's question personal and by reflex sought to delegitimize it by suggesting that some line of the racially appropriate. This problematic invocation of the Minister's aboriginal heritage does much to hurt future legitimate claims of discriminatory action against aboriginal peoples and visible minorities across Canada.
In order for Canadian democracy to continue to flourish, we cannot be made afraid to ask a politician tough questions about the decisions they make when those decisions involve or deeply affect people from the same cultural or ethnic community as that representative. Regardless of her intentions, Minister Aglukkaq's reaction stimulates this fear. If we let such a trend persist we will quickly undermine pursuits towards fully actualizing a meaningfully multicultural society.
I laud Bennett for her question. She boldly countered the silencing instincts that usually kick in when addressing political representatives from visible minority or aboriginal backgrounds.
For the sake of all fellow Canadians, I hope that Bennett's stance can be looked to as not only an encouraging example of how to fight against the chilling effect of the "race card" in Canadian politics, but also a demonstration of why it can be most important for us to do so.
With our ever increasingly multicultural society, having our politicians (regardless of their race or ethnicity) pull the race card to deflect questions about their public record is not something that should ever be taken lightly. In fact, if we don't habituate ourselves to challenging such political gamesmanship, we leave ourselves vulnerable to politicians who won't hesitate to play us, the Canadian public, with a stacked deck.]]>Leonard Austin Braithwaite is Dead. Do You Even Care?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.14293982012-04-19T11:13:15-04:002012-06-19T05:12:01-04:00Anthony Morganhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-morgan/
Leonard Braithwaite was a WWII veteran, legal luminary, daring politician, service-driven community leader, champion of social justice and equality, and a model Canadian citizen. Born in Toronto in 1923 to Caribbean immigrants, Braithwaite served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during WWII. His fierce but quiet ambition was such that by the time he was 35 years old he had already obtained an Honours Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Toronto, an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a law degree from the Osgoode Hall Law School.
Braithwaite went on to serve as a long-sitting City Councillor -- the first black Canadian to be elected to a provincial legislature -- and played a leading role in ending the longstanding institutions of racial segregation in Ontario schools, and gender discrimination that prevented women from serving as student pages in the Ontario Legislature. Braithwaite's decades of tireless civic, social and professional leadership, eventually led him to be appointed Queen's Counsel, and member of both the Orders of Canada and Ontario.
So why do so few Canadians know about this exceptional leader? Because he's black? Well, yes, that's part of it. The other important reasons have to do with how little we as Canadians collectively value, and promote Canadian civic literacy, and the fact that Canada has yet to embrace Canadian citizenship that is meaningfully duty-oriented.
Civic literacy is simply not a Canadian value. For example, while the average Canadian can identify beavers, maple leafs, hockey, tuques, or even beer as symbols associated with Canada, a casual survey of Canadian-born citizens under 35 would likely see most of us unable to explain the significance of the Royal Proclamation of 1763, how the three branches of the Canadian government relate to each other, or the importance of John Diefenbaker's term as Prime Minister.
Aside from being required to pay taxes, and being expected to treat others with respect, openness and understanding, Canadian citizenship -- especially for those born in this country -- is also remarkably lax on civic obligations. As a result, activities such as serving in either the Canadian Forces, or any other kind of national service program, holding political office, and even voting are significantly undervalued as duties of Canadian citizenship.
This becomes particularly problematic when we consider that without being asked to give much back, the average Canadian enjoys access to a relatively robust array of government-run or initiated business and social support programs. Furthermore, he enjoy the constitutional protection of a multicultural society that features a collection of progressive rights, and liberties that are enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
So what do Canada's paltry regard for civic literacy, and a more or less obligation-free notion of Canadian citizenship have to do with Leonard Braithwaite? Well, if civic literacy were a Canadian value, and we encouraged a more duty-oriented approach to Canadian citizenship, chances are that hundreds of thousands of more Canadians would know about, and value the remarkable achievements of this WWII veteran, political trailblazer, courageous politician, gifted and well-respected lawyer, and community-committed servant of social justice and equality.
In the end, instead of being given his rightful place within the Canadian civic consciousness as a true Canadian hero, Braithwaite's greatness is relegated to the margins of being celebrated as a black hero who happens to have been Canadian, and is only to be recognized and celebrated during Black History Month.
There are many problems with this, but one of the most obvious is that it creates the impression that for Canadians who are not black, there is no civic pride, or even personal inspiration for them to gain from knowing about this man.
Another problem with this is that it allows far too many Canadians of African descent to continue to harbour the collective sentiment that unless it's Black History Month, Canada and Canadians are only comfortable with our presence in the country when we're tossing a ball, wasting behind bars, or performing on-stage.
Both of these notions hold dangerous implications for Canadian citizenship and the future of our open, just, and egalitarian society.
So, while it will take many years of Canadians working together to increase both our collective civic literacy, and correct our commitment to an understanding of Canadian citizenship that is mostly free of duties, we could start to address these problems by appropriately recognizing that with the passing of Mr. Leonard Austin Braithwaite we have all lost a truly Canadian hero, and model Canadian citizen.]]>Where is the Black Outrage Against Williamson's MLK Remark?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.14144262012-04-10T12:24:56-04:002012-06-10T05:12:01-04:00Anthony Morganhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-morgan/proclaimed, "Free at last, free at last, law abiding Canadians are finally free at last!"
If Williamson's declaration seems familiar, it is because his words are an adaptation of a portion of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous speech, "I Have a Dream." At the end of this speech, King trumpets that once America achieves his vision of a country that is free of race-based and religious-based discrimination, all Americans will proudly declare: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
One can't help but to note how shockingly ironic and disappointing Williamson's stunt truly is. Only a day before Williamson chose to rhetorically defecate on the memory and legacy of King, the world marked the 44th anniversary of the day this leading civil rights leader was shot and killed.
On that day, April 4, 1968, an assassin's bullet burst from the barrel of a Remington Model 760 rifle, ripped into the round and well-known face of King, shattered through his jaw, smashed into the base of his neck and ultimately crushed the very windpipe that gave MLK the powerful baritone that most famously roared the words that Williamson chose to brazenly mock on the floor of the Commons.
Without question, Williamson should be taken to full account and pushed by the Canadian public to answer for why he thought it appropriate to diminish the words and legacy of King, demean the history and memory of the Civil Rights Movement, and degrade the meaning and spirit of King's vision in such an unscrupulous way -- and that, just to score a cute and gloating sound bite for the evening news.
I think we as Canadians deserve politicians with stronger character and much better judgment. Indeed, all Canadians should not only be disturbed by Williamson's tasteless jest, but also publicly demand better from him as one of our representatives in the House of Commons.
I can only imagine the great embarrassment Canadians would feel if his quip were played and scrutinized in the U.S. media now, at a time when the American public is struggling to deal with an all-too-recent set of high-profile shooting tragedies; that of Trayvon Martin, and that of five innocent African-Americans who were unsuspectingly gunned down over the Easter weekend during an anti-black shooting spree by two white men in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Even considering all of the above, I can't help but to feel that, at some level, the collective population of black Canadians also has some responsibility to take for the reckless regard Williamson was allowed to show for the most important figure of the Civil Rights Movement.
While there is absolutely no denying that, in general, black Canadians are still subject to a considerable and unacceptable degree of racial profiling, discrimination and socio-economic disenfranchisement in the fields of education, employment, and business, there is simply no credible excuse that in 2012 there is an absence of an active, respected and united political class of meaningfully influential black Canadians. Period.
Many people, especially a high number of individuals from the black Canadian community, may balk at this latest statement. They're likely to be quick to retort that many blacks are already deeply and variously engaged in a long-fought battle to correct the over-representation of blacks in statistics about school-related discipline, drop-out rates, unemployment lines, deportation cases, and the Canadian prison population.
This a very legitimate point, but it stands as all the more reason why a much higher number of black Canadians should be demonstrating not only a more heightened and sharpened political consciousness, but also much greater engagement in formal Canadian politics. How can change occur without meaningful participation in Canada's more mainstream political structures?
In other words, instead of being an excuse for not playing a bigger role in the Canadian political system, the fact that the average black Canadian finds him- or herself pushed to the socio-economic margins of Canadian society should be what motivates capable black Canadians to work with and on behalf of their communities by playing a much more influential role in the formal political process in Canada.
By this I mean taking up membership in any one of Canada's political parties, attending and participating in party meetings and business, or at the very least, organizing or taking part in letter-writing campaigns to political representatives, writing letters to the editor or even submitting opinion editorials for publication in media sources that are read within and beyond black Canadian communities throughout Canada. Voting alone is simply not enough.
While at first glance it may be hard to see, there is a most certainly a direct and important link between Williamson's dishonourable and appalling misappropriation of King's words and legacy, and the lack of political participation of blacks in the mainstream of Canada's political process.
The link is this: It is highly unlikely (at least one hopes) that Williamson would have even thought to so callously debase King's and the Civil Rights Movement's legacy if he knew that upon doing so he'd immediately have to answer to an effectively critical and vocal mass of blacks in his own party, in any of the opposition parties, and/or in the public where a chorale of black political commentators, journalists, and politically engaged community members would be sure the he were fairly, fully, and frankly taken to task for slighting blacks across North America (if not beyond) in shrewd attempt to score inconsequential political points against his opponents in the Commons.
But alas, such a politically engaged and formally implicated political class of black Canadians does not yet exist. So where does this leave us? Well, ultimately it just means that we Charter-fearing Canadians are stuck with a state of affairs where our politicians are given carte blanche to score pathetic political punches that diminish the historical struggles (and by extension the humanity and dignity) of blacks in North America, and free to do so without facing any meaningful consequence.
It was the African-American writer Audre Lorde who once said, "Your silence will not protect you." That seems about right...]]>