Headmaster's Weekly Newsletter -- Week 23

Last year at this time, graduating student Aaliyah Arab-Smithexclaimed to me that Black History Month should be every month, that Black history should be a more universal and integral part of our curriculum and general knowledge. Her passion for the subject prompted me to invite her to speak at our Closing Day ceremonies last June. Recorded online at a time when the world was reeling from the images of George Floyd’s death, her address was picked up by Canada’s national media and seen coast to coast.  Her central message, “…whatever you do, don’t sit silent. Do something.” still resonates within me.

 

I am grateful for students like Mikaela Hinds and Melanie Bent (both Class of 2021) who, with others of course, have not sat silent. Yesterday’s Black History Month dress-down day allowed students to wear the t-shorts these girls had designed, ordered, and sold.  I wear their BLM t-shirt with great pride and honour.  We are all talking more, sharing more experiences, learning what it is like to have skin of a different colour.  This includes alumnus Daniel Roukema (Class of 1992) who spoke so openly at a recent KES Black Lives Matter webinar. This includes players on my men’s hockey team. It includes staff and students at our School. It also includes our boxing coach, Wayne Gordon.

 

Wayne is a great storyteller.  On our very first day he told us about George Dixon, a boxer born in 1870 in Africville, Nova Scotia, who became the first Canadian to win a world championship in boxing. The discrimination he faced led to his inventions: shadow boxing and the use of the heavy bag for hitting. The reason? No one would train with him because of his colour. He trained alone, no one would spar with him.  There is not a boxer today who does not use George Dixon’s techniques to train. Knowing his story allows us to honour him.

 

Every time we use a Canadian ten-dollar bill, we honour Viola Desmond’s courage when she challenged racial segregation in a Nova Scotian movie theatre. I appreciate that this is the first Canadian banknote without a prime minister or royal in its solo portrait. Viola’s is also the first solo portrait of a woman other than the Queen on our currency. That is cool.

 

Having been born in East Africa, having taught there for years, and having taken hundreds of students to Africa on service and leadership expeditions, I would have thought I would be more aware and knowledgeable of the experience of people of colour in Canada.  I am mortified by what I don’t know about how different life is for so many because of current Canadian attitudes and actions. Without doubt because I am white, and because I am male, I have been the recipient of systemic privilege throughout my life.

 

In Aaliyah’s address last June, she asked us to “See us, hear us, and respect us.” I hope that we can, more and more, every single day. Not just in February.