Black History Month originated in the 1920s to teach Black students about their history, which had been left out of the narrative of American history. While Black history should be taught all year round, Black History Month designates a time of year for us to recognize the accomplishments of Black activists, scholars, artists, and changemakers who have shaped our world as we know it.
In the last year, as the dual viruses of COVID-19 and racism took lives and further increased socio-economic inequities, people mobilized, speaking out against police violence and calling for support of Black businesses and to hold institutions accountable for promoting white supremacy.
This year, Oxfam Canada is celebrating Black History Month in Canada by featuring the stories and reflections of Black Canadian women who are creating change in their communities by leading the fight against racism and oppression, each in different ways. People include Paige Galette, Larissa Crawford, and Melissa Taylor.
Paige Galette is an activist, community organizer and co-founder of Northern Voices Rising. She has been spreading her message of anti-racism for years, notably through her work within the Canadian labour movement.
Galette believes that everyone can practice anti-oppression and anti-racism in their own lives by being willing, able, and committed to change.
“I think the COVID perspective has brought a lot of reflection for people…When we make things our priority, change can happen. And change can happen quite rapidly. For anybody who wants to get involved in the anti-racist movement and says I don't know how, I don't know why, I'd say think of COVID! Ask yourself are you really willing and able and ready to make it your priority? If so, you can make that change and you can make it within a couple of months.”
The full interview can be found at https://www.oxfam.ca/blog/paige-galette-confronting-racism-from-the-workplace-to-the-campground
Larissa Crawford is a published Indigenous and anti-racism researcher, climate change activist. She is passionate about tackling climate change, anti-racism advocacy, and challenging the Western education system.
When asked about how climate change and anti-racism work interconnect, Larissa replies by stating that "tackling racism requires us to tackle climate change". The root causes, she says, are one and the same. If you look at where our understanding of race comes from and when it began to become "scientifically" proven that we were separate and unequal races, no longer one human race but separate races, it came in the early 16th century, which coincided with the birth of modern
colonialism and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. At this time you were seeing colonizing nations, travelling out, exploring and then settling on Indigenous lands around the world ... in the interest of extracting natural resources. In the interest of dispossessing Indigenous peoples from their lands. You see these colonizers stealing Indigenous peoples from Africa, bringing them to their colonies and exploiting their labour under this capitalist system, in the interest of extracting resources. These practices of colonialism and capitalism have led to the climate change that we see today.
The full interview can be found at https://www.oxfam.ca/story/larissa-crawford-racial-justice-is-climate-justice/
Melissa Taylor is an anti-oppressive social worker, psychotherapist and the founder of Black Healing TO, a fundraising initiative aiming to subsidize therapy and other healing practices for Afro-Indigenous and Black residents of Ontario.
Her work focuses on post-traumatic slave syndrome and intergenerational trauma. In her personal experience, she shares that her ancestors were part of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and landed in Jamaica, lived in Jamaica, survived slavery, survived being in the place of fighting for independence and breaking free from the British colony. And all of those experiences has impacted how her ancestors and her current living ancestors have orientated themselves around family, orientated themselves around work, orientated themselves around the Earth, the planet and politics.
“Often as humans, when we feel uncomfortable and we don't know how to place an experience, our stress response can come out of line. That may look like fight, flight or flee the situation all together. The very same thing happens with racism.” - Melissa Taylor
The full interview can be found at