Black History Month absolutely deserves commemoration, but without tangible action, without recognizing and trying to rectify existing systemic issues, observing Black History Month is nothing more than performative activism.
In grade school, I learned a lot about Canadian Black history, but essentially only during Black History Month. I learned about Viola Desmond as a civil rights activist, but never as a businesswoman, and never outside of February. I learned about abolition in Canada, but never about Canada’s role as an arms supplier during the American Civil War, supplying ammunition to both abolitionists and enslavers, profiting off of both sides of the conflict.
I learned about Africville as a testament to Black resilience, but never about the government’s exploitation of their taxes and the eventual destruction of the settlement by the Canadian government. I learned about Black history as if there was only history, which is one of the most glaring flaws of Black History Month programming.
The harm caused by the Canadian government didn’t just end one day. The prejudices normalized in society didn’t just up and disappear. There have been great strides made in fighting for Black Canadians to have the right to vote, own property, attend school and more. But let’s be clear: long-standing, racist systems and practices didn’t get dismantled. They just became more implicit.
The Canadian Race Relations Foundation has the facts and figures I should have learned about in school. More than 20 per cent of Black Canadians have stated police have unfairly stopped them. Black men make 66 cents on the dollar to their white male co-workers, and the gap is even more disproportionate for Black women. Black women are more likely to die in childbirth than their white counterparts.
COVID-19 has also exacerbated and exposed systemic racism to the mass public in a way that was long overdue. One only has to look at the George Floyd case and the mixed public response to it to understand that studying Black history, systemic racism and issues cannot be limited to February alone.
It is essential to accompany Black History Month programming with acknowledgments of historical and contemporary errors.
Beyond that, there should be an unwavering commitment to rectifying past and current wrongs and diversifying our education outside of February alone.
On a personal level, it’s important to keep educating ourselves as well. It is crucial to amplify Black voices, support representation and be good allies for all 12 months of the year, not just one.
We are called to uphold and support one another and call out injustice when we see it. This Black History Month, commit to learning, growing and fostering positive change, this month and beyond.
(Henricus, 18, is a first-year student at Western University in London, Ont.)