Black Youth in Their Communities in Canada

By: Ramla Hassan

Are black youth in Canada involved in their communities?

Being black in Canada can be tiring; there is a lot going on, from anti-black racism and in domains of social, economic, cultural and civic life in Canada. Being a youth and black can be very hard. Not only are youth not taken seriously by adults, but the racism is something they also have to deal with on a day to day basis. Despite all the negative things that are said being a black youth, I think that black youth are involved in their communities.

At Downsview Secondary school in Toronto, a student-led conference called Black Brilliance was established, and their goal is to help black youth aim for high goals in their education, and defy stereotypes that have been created about them. These discussions are student-led, and the topics they speak about are topics that many black youth speak about. Examples of some topics are black politics, racism, or how the media portrays black people. Students from 10 different schools participate in this conference and find it very empowering and moving. In my opinion, I think that since black students are leading the conference, they are taking the initiative to bring topics that affect them daily to the light, and are making them aware to their peers from other schools. A student from C.W Jeffery’s reported, There are different ways of handling our anger inside and countering racism. This shows that black students are bring awareness to topics of that their community faces and they are involved in educating their communities as much as they can.

 In this past year, police brutality against black people in the U.S and Canada has increased drastically. When Jermaine Carby was shot by the Peel police, the frustration of the black Torontonians reached its boiling point, and there were protests against the police. A majority of the people were youth. People think that majorities of black youth are just trouble makers, but there is more to them. Black youth are educated, beautiful and are amazing at anything if they put their mind to.

References

Gordon, A. (2016). Black students join forces to aim high, follow their dreams | Toronto Star. Retrieved December 16, 2016, from https://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/education/2016/11/24/black-students-join-forces-to-aim-high-follow-their-dreams.html

Morgan, A. (2015). The suffocating experience of being black in Canada | Toronto Star. Retrieved December 16, 2016, from https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2015/07/31/the-suffocating-experience-of-being-black-in-canada.html