BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY
Settlements
Although many Black Canadians live in integrated communities, there have also been a number of notable Black communities, both as unique settlements and as Black-dominated neighbourhoods in urban centres.
The most famous and historically documented Black settlement in Canadian history is the community of Africville, a district located at the northern end of peninsular Halifax, Nova Scotia, which was demolished in the 1960s to facilitate the urban expansion of the city. Similarly, the Hogan's Alley neighbourhood in Vancouver was largely demolished in 1970, with only a single small laneway in Strathcona remaining.
The Wilberforce Colony in Ontario was also a historically Black settlement, which evolved demographically as Black settlers moved away and eventually became the Irish-dominated village of Lucan. A small group of Black settlers were also the original inhabitants of Saltspring Island.
Other notable Black settlements include North Preston in Nova Scotia, Priceville, Shanty Bay and parts of Chatham-Kent in Ontario such as South Buxton and Dresden, theMaidstone/Eldon area in Saskatchewan[50] and Amber Valley in Alberta. North Preston currently has the highest concentration of Black Canadians in Canada, many of whom are descendants of Africville residents.
One of the most famous Black-dominated urban neighbourhoods in Canada is Montreal's Little Burgundy, regarded as the spiritual home of Canadian jazz due to its association with many of Canada's most influential early jazz musicians. In present-day Montreal, Little Burgundy and the boroughs of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, LaSalle,Pierrefonds-Roxboro, and Montréal-Nord have large Black populations, the latter of which has a large Haitian population.
In Toronto, many Blacks settled in St. John's Ward, a district which was located in the city's core.[51][52] Others preferred to live in York Township, on the outskirts of the city. By 1850, there were more than a dozen Black businesses along King Street;[51] the modern-day equivalent is Little Jamaica along Eglinton Avenue, which contains one of the largest concentrations of Black businesses in Canada.[53]
Several urban neighbourhoods in Toronto, including Jane and Finch, Rexdale, Malvern, Weston, St. James Town, and Lawrence Heights, are popularly associated with Black Canadians, although all are much more racially diverse than is commonly believed. The Toronto suburbs of Brampton and Ajax also have sizable Black populations, which have migrated outward from Toronto over the past decade. (Ajax has the highest percentage of Blacks of any municipality of 5,000 or more in Canada, with 16%.) The Greater Toronto Area is home to a highly educated middle to upper middle class Black population who continue to migrate out of the city limits, into surrounding suburbs.[54]
Culture
Media representation of Blacks in Canada has increased significantly in recent years, with television series such as Drop the Beat, Lord Have Mercy! and Da Kink in My Hairfocusing principally on Black characters and communities.
The films of Clement Virgo, Sudz Sutherland and Charles Officer have been among the most prominent depictions of Black Canadians on the big screen. Notable films have included Sutherland's Love, Sex and Eating the Bones, Officer's Nurse.Fighter.Boy and Virgo's Rude and Love Come Down.
In literature, the most prominent and famous Black Canadian writers have been Josiah Henson, George Elliott Clarke, Austin Clarke, Lawrence Hill, Dionne Brand and Dany Laferrière, although numerous emerging writers have gained attention in the 1990s and 2000s.
Since the late 19th century, Black Canadians have made significant contributions to the culture of sports, starting with the founding of the Coloured Hockey League in Nova Scotia.[55] In North America's four major professional sports leagues, several Black Canadians have had successful careers, including Ferguson Jenkins (Baseball Hall of Famemember), Grant Fuhr (Hockey Hall of Fame member), Jarome Iginla, and Jamaal Magloire. In athletics, Harry Jerome, Ben Johnson, and Donovan Bailey were Canada's most prominent Black sprinters.
The largest and most famous Black Canadian cultural event is the Scotiabank Toronto Caribbean Carnival (also known as Caribana), an annual festival of Caribbean Canadian culture in Toronto which typically attracts at least a million participants each year.[56] The festival incorporates the diversities that exist among the Canadians of African and Caribbean descent.
Black Canadians have had a major influence on Canadian music, helping pioneer many genres including Canadian hip hop, Canadian blues, Canadian jazz, R&B, Caribbean music, pop music and classical music.[57] Some of the earliest musical influences include Robert Nathaniel Dett, Portia White, Oscar Peterson and Charlie Biddle.[citation needed]Some Black Canadian musicians have enjoyed mainstream worldwide appeal in various genres, such as Dan Hill, Drake, Glenn Lewis, Tamia, Deborah Cox, Melanie Fiona, andKardinal Offishall.
While African American culture is a significant influence on its Canadian counterpart, many African and Caribbean Canadians reject the suggestion that their own culture is not distinctive.[5] In his first major hit single "BaKardi Slang", rapper Kardinal Offishall performed a lyric about Toronto's distinctive Black Canadian slang:
| “ | We don't say 'you know what I'm sayin', T dot says 'ya dun know' We don't say 'hey that's the breaks', we say 'yo, a so it go' We don't say 'you get one chance', We say 'you better rip the show'... Y'all talking about 'cuttin and hittin skins', We talkin bout 'beat dat face'... You cats is steady saying 'word', My cats is steady yellin 'zeen'... So when we singin about the girls we singin about the 'gyal dem' Y'all talkin about 'say that one more time', We talkin about 'yo, come again' Y'all talkin about 'that nigga's a punk', We talkin about 'that yout's a fosse'... A shoe is called a 'crep', A big party is a 'fete' Ya'll takin about 'watch where you goin!', We talkin about 'mind where you step!' | ” |
Because the visibility of distinctively Black Canadian cultural output is still a relatively recent phenomenon, academic, critical and sociological analysis of Black Canadian literature, music, television and film tends to focus on the ways in which cultural creators are actively engaging the process of creating a cultural space for themselves which is distinct from both mainstream Canadian culture and African American culture.[5] For example, virtually all of the Black-themed television series which have been produced in Canada to date have been ensemble cast comedy or drama series centred around the creation and/or expansion of a Black-oriented cultural or community institution.[5]
Racism
In a 2013 survey of 80 countries by the World Values Survey, Canada ranked among the most racially tolerant societies in the world.[58] Nevertheless, according to Statistics Canada's "Ethnic Diversity Survey", released in September 2003, when asked about the five-year period from 1998 to 2002 nearly one-third (32%) of respondents who identified as black reported that they had been subjected to some form of racial discrimination or unfair treatment 'sometimes' or 'often'.[59]
Throughout the years, many high profile cases of racism against Black Canadians have occurred in Nova Scotia giving it the title of "The Mississippi of the North".[60][61] The province in Atlantic Canada continues to battle racism with an annual march to end racism against people of African descent.[62][63]
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