Breaking Barriers Inside Black Communities

Last Thursday at St. Thomas University, an all-female panel considered how to let go of racial stereotypes, how to tackle sexism, and how decades of socially imposed racial struggle has been left out of the mainstream conversation in Canada and worldwide.

The panel featured Funke’ Aladejebi, a gender study and history professor at the University of New Brunswick, Canisia Lubrin, poet and writer, and Huda Hassan who is a journalist.

The panelist Funké Aladejebi said that our society needs to rethink traditional norms and values.

“If you think about the indigenous communities, if you think about African communities, they have had different ways of governing and creating policies and political unions that I think should be revisited”,  she added.

That re-evaluation that she mentioned is the first step to begin tackling not only insecurities inside the black community itself, but also global challenges on racism, xenophobia, and migration policies. That is the message the audience left with.

Dorcas Tshimenga, from the audience, said that the panel was very insightful. “Mental health is important for black women that aren’t always being strong, not always taking the responsibility to educate other people about black history or black lives”, she said.