Black Lives STILL Matter

I remember being in elementary school in the early 2010's and genuinely wondering why there was no white history month. We had Black History Month and Indigenous History Month. My twelve year old brain thought this was reverse racism. I was convinced our different skin colors simply didn't matter any more. Turns out, I just had a lot more learning to do. It wasn't until my first year in university where I took a course on equity and justice that I finally started to unlearn my own racial prejudices.

I would hope that due to the current political and social climate, everyone knows what the Black Lives Matter movement is and what they aim to achieve. If you honestly still don't know, your ignorance is unacceptable. It may seem like racial prejudice is a thing of the past but systematic racism is still alive and thriving in North America. There are so many things wrong with our current systems. Honestly, I'm probably not the person who should be coming up with viable solutions to our systemic problems. Rather, as a white women during this critical time, I want to share how I have learned about these injustices and, consequently, unlearned my own racial biases and become a better ally to the Black Lives Matter movement.

I am a reader, so books help me to navigate and understand the world. I have compiled a list of five books that I think are very important to read during this time. Even if you aren't an avid reader, picking up one of these books could help deepen your knowledge of systematic racism in North America and make you a better ally and a more compassionate person overall.

1. The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill 
This Canadian novel follows the life of Aminata Diallo, who was abducted as an 11-year old child from her village in West Africa. She is forced to walk for months to the sea, shackled to other slaves until she reaches the slave ship that will bring her across the ocean to America. She is then sent to live as a slave in South Carolina, but eventually she forges her way to freedom. She helps the British write the "Book of Negroes" which is a historical document recording the names and descriptions of 3,000 Black Loyalists who requested permission to resettle in Nova Scotia after the American Revolutionary War. However, life in Nova Scotia is not all the Loyalists hoped it would be. Aminata eventually becomes one of the 1,200 former slaves to return to Sierra Leone.

Although it is not based entirely on true events, The Book of Negroes is an amazing piece of historical fiction that can be used as a tool to help understand the triangular slave trade which consisted of abducting slaves from Africa to work in the Americas for goods used in Western Europe. To contemporary scholars, the slave trade was the initial purpose for globalization. The events described in the book actually happened, from the capture of about 12 million Africans who were shipped like cargo across the Atlantic Ocean in horrid conditions to the difficult and oppressed life the Black Loyalists had in Nova Scotia after the Revolutionary War. Yes, even Aminata's return to Sierra Leone is based on true events.

I think for a lot of people it seems like slavery is too far in the past to have any real relevance today. However, these are the institutions upon which anti-blackness and racism became prevalent in North America. What is more, we must recognize the millions of lives and African communities that were forever altered or destroyed due to the slave trade. Most of these captured slaves lost their families and cultures forever and this is something that still exists within the Black experience today. We need to know where and what we came from in order to know how to solve the problems that are currently plaguing our society.

You can also watch the mini series based on the book at https://www.cbc.ca/bookofnegroes/


2. Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult 
I need to preface this choice in novel by stating that Picoult is a white woman. By choosing one of her novels in this entry I am not trying to whitewash the experiences of Black people in North America. I think this novel is extremely well researched and is a great tool for white people to learn how to be true allies.

One of the main characters in the novel, Ruth Jefferson , is an African American delivery nurse who is ordered not to touch the baby of a white supremacist couple. Unfortunately, the baby later dies in her care because she followed her orders and did not touch him. As a result, her whole life is turned upside down. Her nursing license is revoked and she is facing felony charges for murder. Another main character in the novel is Kennedy McQuarrie who is the white public defender representing Ruth. However, she is forced to confront her own covert racism in order to adequately represent Ruth and her future Black clients.

The title of this work is based on a Martin Luther King Jr. quote; "If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way". This is how the individuals in Small Great Things go about their lives. To unlearn our own personal racial tendencies is an important first step in dismantling the systems which perpetuate racism.


3. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas 

The Hate U Give, also a movie (which I'd also recommend!) focuses on Starr Charter, a teenager who is constantly switching between her two lives, the predominately Black neighborhood where she lives and her mostly white private school 45 minutes away. She feels like she has two different personalities, and she must flick a switch depending on where she is and who she is with. Then, she becomes a witness to the fatal shooting of her best friend Khalil, a victim of police brutality. Starr must learn to deal with the loss of Khalil while also keeping her two lives separate. She faces pressure from the media, law enforcement and local gang members. This is a story about how one girl finds her voice on an issue that is timely and paramount. For those of us who have never experienced this kind of discrimination and are less likely to be a victim of police brutality because of our skin color, this novel allows us to become more empathetic to the Black Live Matter movement. If more people read this book, I think there would be less "but all lives matter" jargon and more understanding about how white privilege plays into our everyday lives in ways we may not even realize.

Angie Thomas' other books Concrete Rose and On The Come Up are on my to be read list. She's an amazing writer and I'm sure these novels will also deserve a place in this list. Concrete Rose is actually a prequel to The Hate U Give as it follows Starr's father, Maverick Carter as he learns what it really means to be a man. However, it won't be released until January 2021.

4. Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

This is an extremely powerful true story and memoir calling us to fix the broken system of (in)justice in North America. Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) which sought to defend those most desperate and in need including the poor, women and children and those wrongly condemned. One of the central cases in the book is that of Walter McMillian, an innocent Black man sentenced to death for the murder of an 18-year old white women. Walter upholds his innocence throughout the story and Stevenson does everything in his power to help him get off death row. In addition to Walter's story, Just Mercy tells Stevenson's efforts to win relief for several other condemned prisoners as well as his mission to end the death penalty and life sentences without parole for juveniles and the mentally ill.

Just Mercy is more than just Stevenson's time as an attorney. It aims to change the conversation around criminal justice in North America, the death penalty and the prison industrial complex. The american prison system incarcerates more than any other country in the world, with over 2 million people currently in jails, prisons and detention centers. These large numbers are a direct result of the "war on drugs" which increased incarceration rates and lengths for nonviolent drug offences. Furthermore, Black inmates make up nearly 40% of the prison population while only making up about 13.4% of the total US population. Black people are more likely to get punished harder than a white person for the same crime.When people leave the justice system, their chances of finding employment are unlikely. Although it is based on the American (in)justice system, some of Stevenson's insights can be useful in the Canadian perspective. Black and indigenous adults are over represented in prison populations in Canada as well. We need to be asking what the justice system really aims to do because it is not rehabilitation. Obviously, the current justice systems in North America simply aren't working anymore and Just Mercy is a useful tool to help us see the ways in which it is failing.


5. The Skin We're In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power by Desmond Cole
This work chronicles just one year, 2017, in the struggle against racism in Canada. That's right, CANADA. In late 2016 Dafonte Miller, only 19 years old, was attacked by an off-duty police officer and his brother in Whitby, Ontario. Dafonte lost his left eye and suffered several other injuries. In 2017, Cole was arrested at a police board meeting for refusing to leave the meeting until questions about Dafonte's beating were publicly addressed. Month-by-month, Cole discusses the systemic inequality prevalent in Canada from the police practice of carding to the under-education of Black students and discriminatory immigration laws.

https://edmontonsun.com/news/local-news/braun
-dafonte-miller-completes-testimony/wcm/
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I'm not going to lie, of the five books on this list this one is especially uncomfortable to read, partly because it is based mainly in southern Ontario, my home, and partly because all of the events happened about three years ago. Three years is not a long time. That means we still have a long way to go in dismantling systematic racism in Canada. No mater what you hear, we are not a post-racial nation. We're not even close.

A short documentary based on the  book is available at  https://gem.cbc.ca/media/firsthand/season-2/episode-14/38e815a-00be178daef

Other Helpful Links 
The Black Lives Matter website
https://blacklivesmatter.com/

Don't know where to start? Autumn Gupta and Bryanna Wallace have created  a google document which has a plethora of resources to help you become informed. Please share this with your friends, family and basically everyone you know!!!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H-Vxs6jEUByXylMS2BjGH1kQ7mEuZnHpPSs1Bpaqmw0/preview?pru=AAABcqPaNWo*Mg4LEZBP-Klp_T3LUN6uJA#heading=h.kp9nlkcqhx65

It's  been over 100 days since Breonna Taylor was murdered by police while she slept. Our first aim has to be getting justice for her.
https://www.forbreonna.com/

There are people still posting Instagram stories everyday about this movement. Click on those stories and read them. All of them.

Keep the Momentum Going
This is only the beginning. We still have so far to go. Whatever you do, do not give up now. Continue to educate yourself by whatever means possible and continue to seek change.

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