Black History

[benzozw4]

Because my suburban city is going through a major change of "color" and I hear here and there stuff I don't like from people I wouldn't expect such stupidities, I've decided to talk about Canadian Black History, which of course is closely related to African-American. I'm pretty excited about it, I don't know much, but there is a unit in the

Comments

[benzozw4]

Yes Qc is very white. Montreal Island is the exception and I can't count how many schools I have substituted where I was clearly the visible minority, though some of them had so many ethnic groups that you couldn't find any majority.

The few colored students of my school used to mingle with white and it was the best way that everyone was accepting each other, now there are still few; from 2 blacks out of 2k to 40 blacks, 40 latino, 10 arabs. There is nothing to fuss about right? Well, I've heard a colleague saying that there were too many colored teachers -10 out of 150, but most importantly a principal who can't accept the different styles of teaching that haitian or arabs have and a few have been harassed, or given negative reports which means they can't work in my school board anymore. Yes they teach differently, but I think it was a big plus to have strict men in front of our teens who, too often, lack a solid parental figure with clear rules.
I had the chance to have my "office"-a desk in a depot- right beside someone who got a negative report and I thought he was doing a great job.

sorry, i get heated when it comes to that topic, so back to students, now they have a critic numbers to hang in clique and they don't mix anymore, it is just a hinch that prejudices might prevail, I have nothing solid but just another example: I have decided to teach black history and I have a colleague that I appreciate much, but she told me that she was not comfortable to teach that because she had left Mtl City because it was too colored....
Last year, there was a Muslim sub who nobody talked to her because of her scarf on her head...

I consider Quebecers as xenophobic, and I remember well when I finished studying at Concordia Uni (Anglo therefore multiethnic) a professor told me that their graduates had a reputation to be more open to diversity, and I was very surprised thinking that anybody becoming a teacher had to be very open to differences. One more proof of me being naive but I don't mind being called naive, it keeps my faith that those misfits teens I deal with everyday will become decent adults, well most of them.

[raven_feathers]

i think places that are traditionally majority white have a really hard time transitioning to a more multiethnic population. i bet it would be the same in VT if we had a steady influx of persons of colour. i know in my high school of 1600 students, there was one black kid and five asian (three east asian, two indian). and that was it. i don't know how those kids fared, i know that the two kids who were vietnamese didn't mix with the other students, they were refugees and their english was poor, but the others seemed to integrate seamlessly. i wonder if it was really as seamless as it looked or if they had to work hard to assimilate for their own peace.