My Experience with Discrimination in Canada (1)

I had been living in Canada for 10 years when the BLM protests came in full swing in the summer of 2020. Every conversation was around the struggles of living in Canada as a black person. The number of white folks who leaned into me as the authority on the topic of racism based on my ‘lived experience’ more than quadrupled. Non-blacks especially whites seemed extremely humble over the next few months and were willing to sit at the feet of any black friend they were ‘fortunate’ to have accumulated over the years. They would listen with rapt attention to whatever opinion the blacks had to share as if it were divine utterances. 

I was often called upon to share my wealth of knowledge on racial injustices in Canada which obviously comes with my experience being black. 

“I haven’t experienced racism,” I always respond.

I would expect them to utter a sigh of relief or maybe an expression of joy that I hadn’t experienced this evil. However, I am always taken aback by their look of disappointment and sometimes pity. A look that says, how on earth did discrimination miss this one? He is either straight-up lying or more likely, a poor naive black kid. 

A concerned white lady once told me plainly, “You are wrong and sadly ignorant”. 

“You need to be aware of racism everywhere” she continued. 

“Simply being unaware of discrimination against you does not mean you haven't experienced racism”. She then went on to list possible racist scenarios to help jog my memory.

I will not rule out the possibility that I may indeed have been in racist situations and just didn’t know it at the time but what value would it have brought to me then or now to determine for certain that the encounter was a racist one? 

Also, I would like to add that my experience so far does not negate the experience of other people who have slammed head-on into racists. I believe that as far as there is hate (or said differently, dislike) in the world, there will be some hate specifically directed at every unique group. Some people dislike short people, skinny people, people with different political views, people of certain races, etc. 

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Early on in my career, I recall the moment I thought, here it is, I am dealing with a racist! It was my boss and I just could not get anything right. He talked down to me, it seemed that expectations from me were different from the other managers, and I wasn’t treated with respect. At first, I thought it was because I was the youngest and the most inexperienced on the leadership team but as time went on, a more likely reason started to brew in my head. This had nothing to do with me, he was simply a racist!

Luckily for me, just before I threw my hands up and settled in total racial conclusion, I got involved in a work conversation that might have saved me from a life of victimhood and perpetual racial conclusions. During our leadership team meeting a few minutes earlier, two of my peers got into an argument and our boss picked a side. The manager whose side was not picked came to vent to me.

“He can do no wrong as far as [the plant manager] is concerned,” the manager said, confiding in me. 

That was it! It hit me.

How had I not noticed this the entire time? He was the only other black manager on the team. All of my other peers were white. He was confident, vocal about his opinions, always prepared to respond to any question, quick to clarify why his team didn’t meet or seem to meet expectations and was generally always on the ball. 

I wasn’t like him. I was not oozing confidence during meetings. I wasn’t one to toot my own horn. I wasn’t often armed with answers to defend myself from peer attacks and I wasn’t jumping in on other departments’ business in public forums to offer suggestions on how to solve their problems. It was at that moment, that I realized that it was not about my colour it was my behaviour and my actions. I either needed to change my actions at work or suck it up. 

Actually, there was one other option. I could relieve myself of all responsibility by pointing my finger outside of myself and placing the blame on racism. In fact, society will support me in calling out the racism within itself. After all, it is my experience and no one has the right to invalidate my truth. If I conclude that my struggle was race-based discrimination, there is little to no conversation to be had. Most people will take it as that - discrimination. However, settling for that option would have deprived me of an opportunity to search myself. I would never identify or even realize that I had those weaknesses which is the first step to improvement and character growth. It is quite empowering to feel like I hold the game controller and I am not just a character in the game controlled by the whims of some other player.

Since that experience, I have not yet been in a situation where I felt discriminated against because of my race. When I have really negative encounters, I might think, what a d**k! What a guy! Such a self-centred idiot! The last thing that comes to my mind is such a racist!

I grew up in Nigeria where like anywhere else in the world, there are negative people who exhibit terrible behaviours directed at others. When I was hit with the effect of those behaviours, it was immediately clear that they were bad people and virtually anyone could identify them as such. In the same way, when I experience similar behaviours in Canada, I understand that they are just bad people. Okay, sometimes terribly disgusting nincompoops better describe them. But here’s the thing, I am not looking at their skin saying, “Well, those terrible actions came from a black person so he must be a terrible human”. If the same despicable action comes from a person with a different skin colour than mine, should that change? I think we have been primed to think that in the second scenario, skin colour actually means it has to be coming from a different place. This person is not just a bad person. They are much darker. They deserve a darker label.