Black History Month
Canadian Perspective. Resources - History - Arts, News and an opportunity for positive change.
Black History Month is an annual observance originating in the United States, where it is also known as African-American History Month. It has received official recognition from governments in the United States and Canada, and more recently has been observed in Ireland and the United Kingdom.
FEBRUARY
According to the 2019 General Social Survey (GSS) on Canadians’ Safety, nearly half (46%) of Black people aged 15 years and older reported experiencing at least one form of discrimination in the past 5 years, compared to 16% of the non-Indigenous, non-visible minority population.
Beyond a Month...
Helping students foster an understanding of different life experiences and cultures; we intentionally incorporate the voices of people from different backgrounds, perspectives, and life experiences in course and class content throughout the year.
Use the links below as inspiration and access points to create dynamic Canadian history content, storytelling, and engagement in your classrooms and school community.
LearningTools.pdfDISRUPTING RACISM BY UNDERSTANDING THE SCOPE OF BLACK CANADIAN EXPERIENCES IN A HISTORICAL CONTEXT.
In Canada, as elsewhere, systemic or structural racism is a form of racism that is embedded in laws, policies, social practices and institutions [7]. Anti-Black racism is a specific manifestation of racism rooted in European colonialism, slavery and oppression of Black people since the sixteenth century [8]. It is a structure of inequities in power, resources and opportunities that systematically disadvantages people of African descent [9].
At the individual level, however, preconceptions, prejudices and stereotypes concerning Black people are often expressed as everyday racism. Everyday racism involves those practices that permeate everyday life and become ‘normalized’ in the mainstream even in the context of stated commitments to equity [10]. The practices may often appear to be mindless and habitual, and too minor to address in the moment; however, cumulatively, everyday racism reproduces the social relations of power and oppression, thereby damaging health and wellbeing Black and other racialized Canadians [11, 12]. In short, everyday racism reproduces systemic racism, while systemic racism simultaneously shapes the spaces of everyday racism and is itself also an outcome of cumulative patterns of everyday racism [10].