Ep. #40 ~ Racism In Canada: Black Lives Matter W/ Monetta Bailey

I met Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove about 5 years ago in Durham, North Carolina, with a small group of other students from Rochester University. He spoke about how everything in society is directed under a known or unknown racial element. In truth, I really wasn’t sure I agreed with him at the time, as it seemed to place so much weight on a pendulum swing towards the guilt of a racialized society. It became that much more difficult & uncomfortable for me when he turned & asked what the racial presence was like here in Canada. Attempting to answer, I stumbled to say that I really didn’t see racism here in Canada like I do down in the States. Perhaps there was a comparison with the Indigenous & First Nations people but, Black racial prejudice just didn’t seem to be as overt to me. Looking back, I can now say I was speaking from a place of privilege & while I may not have acknowledged the hight of racial oppression here in Canada, it was very real & exercising itself greatly through a numb & blind Canadian society.