Racism in Ottawa

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Acajack

You and others may object to these rules, but they are not in any way related to "race".

I think he pretty spectacularly failed to grasp the connection between "Trudeau gloating about (the long-term survival of) bilingualism in Canada" and "Montréalais aren't all allowed to send their kids to unilingual public English schools even though that's what they'd like to do", even as he posted about both concepts together.

[eltodesukane]

From New York, not Ottawa, but relevant to kevinbottawa post
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/o...tral-park.html

[kevinbottawa]

I got to write a piece for OBJ today about my experience being a black entrepreneur in Ottawa.

https://obj.ca/article/op-ed-what-it...preneur-ottawa

Also gonna be on 1310 News tomorrow at 1:47pm for those who are interested.

[TransitZilla]

^ Thanks for sharing! Nice article.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by kevinbottawa

I got to write a piece for OBJ today about my experience being a black entrepreneur in Ottawa.

https://obj.ca/article/op-ed-what-it...preneur-ottawa

Also gonna be on 1310 News tomorrow at 1:47pm for those who are interested.

Really thoughtful article. Thanks for sharing.

I thought that your suggestions were particularly good. If Ottawa doesn't have someone playing the role that you are suggesting in developing their marketing, they definitely should.

[mykl]

Kevin, thank you for bringing this discussion to the forum. I find it very enlightening to hear a local perspective, especially at a time when there's a lot of soul searching to be done (which shouldn't have taken this long), and when many people consider this to be a USA-specific issue, which it isn't. For all the time we spend here discussing city building, I think this is an important step for us to move towards discussions on community building as well. There's an opportunity for Ottawa to do much more and be so much better and there's no reason that can't start right here.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by kevinbottawa

I got to write a piece for OBJ today about my experience being a black entrepreneur in Ottawa.

https://obj.ca/article/op-ed-what-it...preneur-ottawa

Also gonna be on 1310 News tomorrow at 1:47pm for those who are interested.

Good article. Practical reasonable suggestions. Like with aboriginal issues in Canada we often have a superficial discussion. The vast majority are against racism but a lot of the effects are structural issues which are mostly about poverty and not purely racial issues though the legacy is certainly a factor.

Your previous article said POC were under-represented in a range of occupations and even the ranks of Canada's billionaires. I notice you didn't have as concrete advice there. I don't see any solution there that can even get a majority of the progressive 60% to support it. Canadians might support some soft Affirmative Action but look at South Africa. It is has fairly draconian and basically racist laws that try to overturn the legacy of Apartheid. Still the income gap has actually grown since Apartheid ended. (everyone is better off but Whites have benefited more from the internationalization of the economy).

It is the same with aboriginal issues. Easy to say I am on unceded land but unless you are willing to start paying rent on the house you bought you are just talking about sending "other people's money" and we always run out of that.

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

Great pieces, Kevin. I remember reading at least one of them on Facebook when it first dropped after the Floyd protests erupted. Your pieces really spoke to me and my dad. I come from an Afro-Latino family with some Jamaican roots (hence part of my name), so I have seen my father, uncles, aunts, and grandmother all struggle with anti-Black racism in Canada ever since the first of them touched down here in the 60s.

[kevinbottawa]

Originally Posted by Jamaican-Phoenix

Great pieces, Kevin. I remember reading at least one of them on Facebook when it first dropped after the Floyd protests erupted. Your pieces really spoke to me and my dad. I come from an Afro-Latino family with some Jamaican roots (hence part of my name), so I have seen my father, uncles, aunts, and grandmother all struggle with anti-Black racism in Canada ever since the first of them touched down here in the 60s.

Thanks for taking the time to read it. The feedback has been great. I've been on every platform lately talking about this. 1310 News, CFRA, CTV, CBC News Network. I haven't shared much here because it's such a touchy subject and like a lot of people, I don't always love self-promoting but there are clips out there if you're interested.

I'm actually going to be a regular writer for the OBJ now so I'll be writing a lot more on this topic, especially when it comes to Ottawa's business community. It's a big turning for Ottawa I think.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by kevinbottawa

Thanks for taking the time to read it. The feedback has been great. I've been on every platform lately talking about this. 1310 News, CFRA, CTV, CBC News Network. I haven't shared much here because it's such a touchy subject and like a lot of people, I don't always love self-promoting but there are clips out there if you're interested.

I'm actually going to be a regular writer for the OBJ now so I'll be writing a lot more on this topic, especially when it comes to Ottawa's business community. It's a big turning for Ottawa I think.

I'm curious where you rank racism in issues and challenges for black entrepreneurs in Ottawa?

Anything specific we should be fighting to get changed? US style rules preventing discrimination in credit or do we need stronger measures to equalize results something like quotas for black owned businesses in government procurement?

[Postmaster]

I heard you on CFRA the other day and the most thought-provoking comment to me was about the band-aids. I understand that J&J is planning to roll out band-aids in several different tones, which is nice to hear.

Many small changes like these will eventually lead to better understanding and acceptance of each other, and make people realise that even though we are all different on the outside, we are still one big team with everyone making a contribution in their own way.

[kwoldtimer]

And then there’s today’s report of DND investigating a 2016 (!) incident in which a supervisor put up a poster on an office fridge featuring the “n-word”.

I can’t even ...

[kevinbottawa]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

I'm curious where you rank racism in issues and challenges for black entrepreneurs in Ottawa?

Anything specific we should be fighting to get changed? US style rules preventing discrimination in credit or do we need stronger measures to equalize results something like quotas for black owned businesses in government procurement?

I don't see an issue facing black entrepreneurs in Ottawa that's bigger than racism; if not overt racism, it's prejudice, whether conscious or subsconscious. A lot of people still aren't comfortable around black people. But that's not just Ottawa, it's across Canada. Even in Toronto. You look at the boards of directors and management teams of major companies. They're mostly white. In some cases, it may not be racism. With certain opportunities, people hire from within their networks, so if people's networks are full of people that look like themselves they'll just hire or appoint the people they know. In other cases it's racism.

Here's an article that Donnovan Bennett from Sportsnet wrote about the challenges he faces as a black sports journalist in Canada.

https://www.sportsnet.ca/more/facing...ack-diversity/

Another issue for Black entrepreneurs is lack of capital within our community. We often have to go outside of our community to get the capital to invest in our businesses and that's tough. Most of the black entrepreneurs I know bootstrap because they don't believe they'll funding or they tried for years and couldn't get funded.

Another issue is when organizations, including the city, set aside money for diversity funding, that includes women, Indigenous, and other people of colour so the amount that ends up going to the black community is apparently small.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by kevinbottawa

I don't see an issue facing black entrepreneurs in Ottawa that's bigger than racism; if not overt racism, it's prejudice, whether conscious or subsconscious. A lot of people still aren't comfortable around black people. But that's not just Ottawa, it's across Canada. Even in Toronto. You look at the boards of directors and management teams of major companies. They're mostly white. In some cases, it may not be racism. With certain opportunities, people hire from within their networks, so if people's networks are full of people that look like themselves they'll just hire or appoint the people they know. In other cases it's racism.

When I worked at a big firm in Toronto before moving to Ottawa 15 years ago, the guy that hired me told me that his goal was to hire people like himself. He called it human nature. I don't think that he was thinking race, or had nefarious intent, as he was more referring to background, personality, world view etc. I remember not liking the comment at the time (it stuck with me), but I don't think I consciously connected it to race when he said it.

As you can imagine, the result was a firm full of upper middle class white guys (they were slumming it with me). Also, that guy and his cohort of similar minded individuals controlled hiring in the firm for probably two decades, so it's pretty clear why progress is slow.

[Truenorth00]

Say hi to Barrhaven Karen:

https://twitter.com/IceFresh2/status...516574725?s=20

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Say hi to Barrhaven Karen:

https://twitter.com/IceFresh2/status...516574725?s=20

We also have a School Trustee who called bylaw on a black teen who was playing basketball ALONE at the beginning of the lockdown.



Both the education Minister and the School Board are calling for her resignation, but of course, she won't do it.

https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/education-...sign-1.5015819
https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/school-boa...20board%20said.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

We also have a School Trustee who called bylaw on a black teen who was playing basketball ALONE at the beginning of the lockdown.



Both the education Minister and the School Board are calling for her resignation, but of course, she won't do it.

https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/education-...sign-1.5015819
https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/school-boa...20board%20said.

Well she kicked out a bunch of white kids l, who all agreed to leave, before that so explain how this is racism? An example of crazy Covid over-reaction as are most of these cases so I don’t mind her getting knocked down a peg but imho we should focus on the crazy structural racism the whole school board enables rather this kind of thing.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Well she kicked out a bunch of white kids l, who all agreed to leave, before that so explain how this is racism? An example of crazy Covid over-reaction as are most of these cases so I don’t mind her getting knocked down a peg but imho we should focus on the crazy structural racism the whole school board enables rather this kind of thing.

I did not hear about that. Source?

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I did not hear about that. Source?

‪https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...23ee0dacbc/‬

It also mentions the park was completely closed so she was in the right to kick him out. Assuming we think a school board trustee has any authority. His parents claim he was alone and I tend to agree this makes it very low risk except if another person comes afterward using the bench or fountain. But the rules are the rules. Meanwhile Americans were fined $1000 for hiking alone in Banff.

[acottawa]

I am pretty sure school board trustees are not law enforcement officers in Ontario. If she thought it was a problem she should have called bylaw, although others were apparently also using the park and she did not bother them.

I think the issue here is less the park closure and more the ridiculous threats she made, including threatening to get him kicked off the school basketball team.

It begs the question why school trustees still exist. All substantive decisions are made at Queen’s park anyway.