Teens Give Advice On How Canadian Schools Can Fight Anti-Black Racism
“I know a lot of us just wish we could just go to school and have a normal day, and not just have to worry about ... ‘Oh, what’s going to happen today?’” Morgan Reevie, 15, told HuffPost Canada, in an interview about her experiences as a Black high-school student, growing up in a small town near Peterborough, Ont.
Anti-Black bullying and systemic racism in schools have been more widely reported across the country in recent years, yet, among educators and school administrators, there’s still often an unwillingness to acknowledge this and make changes. Cameron Davis, 15, from Markham, Ont., told HuffPost Canada, about times when he’d talked about some of the issues affecting Black Canadian kids and felt gaslit when his educators responded, “Oh, racism doesn’t happen here,” or, “It’s not as bad in Canada.”
Watch the full video above to hear more from two Black Canadian students on what Canada’s schools should do to fight anti-Black racism.
Among the many incidents reported in Canadian media: The Montreal mother of an elementary school student filed a complaint with Quebec’s Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission, in 2019, after her son was being beaten and called the N-word by classmates, without his aggressors facing disciplinary action.
Winnipeg student Imani Pinder had to leave St. Boniface Diocesan High School, after her school administration failed to discipline her racist bullies. She told Global News, “There’s this kid that would wait for the bus with me every single day and he would show me videos or pictures of the KKK rallies, Black people being hung. Saying racial slurs to my face or in a song.”
B.C. student Daniel Afolabi told Global News about a student in his former high school class showing up in blackface to give a presentation, without repercussions.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg ― racist bullying and microaggressions are a part of everyday life that weighs heavily on Black students in the...
