Dispatches from the Prairies.
A thread
1/ A little over a week ago, I tweeted some of my experiences as a Black woman on the Prairies. I have been Black on the Prairies for 20 years. Here, blackness is considered foreign, an oddity in the landscape, at best a question mark.
A thread
1/ A little over a week ago, I tweeted some of my experiences as a Black woman on the Prairies. I have been Black on the Prairies for 20 years. Here, blackness is considered foreign, an oddity in the landscape, at best a question mark.
Although the black presence dates from more than a 100 years ago, with the first black pioneers migrating from the U.S. in search of a better life, Black bodies, Black histories, Black Life, Black experiences are mostly unaccounted for here.
Simply put, blackness is often marked with silence and absence from the public discourse. So, it has been quite a few couple of weeks to see hundreds of Black people from across the province along with people from other communities on the streets chanting #BlackLivesMatter
On New Years Eve, I was at a house party in Saskatoon and a man in his early forties came up to me. He sat on the chair next to the couch I was sitting on. He looked at me dead in the eyes. “You are the first Black woman I have ever spoken to."
I blanked. I was stunned, but not surprised. This, after all, are the Canadian Prairies. In some parts of 21st century Canada, a man had never spoken to a black woman.
“I am a Saskatchewan farmer. I am from the north,” he added. It rang like a justification.
“I am a Saskatchewan farmer. I am from the north,” he added. It rang like a justification.
The thought of it was absurd. I laughed nervously. Then he thanked me. I, in turn, thanked him. I am not sure why we thanked each other. Even in flesh, I was still an idea in his mind.
7/ So, seeing hundreds of Black people on the streets in Sask week after week for #BlackLivesMatter has the significant impact of marking & accounting for Black Life, Black people here ... in the headlines, in the public discourse.
8/ That is no small feat. It will go in the history books. This is huge. Let me tell you in this part of Canada. When I was covering the protests earlier this week in #yxe, I spoke to a Black woman. I asked her what this moment meant to her.
9/ She started crying and answered : "I feel empowered. I didn’t think people cared or people saw me." This is deep.
10/ More than anything & most significantly, Black people is Saskatchewan get to see each other... beyond the fact that other people start noticing them. #skpoli #BlackLivesMatter
11/ That is part of the historical moment of this. This is how the #GeorgeFloydProtests drawing millions of people on the streets around the world and the global #BlackLivesMatter movement is localized in Saskatchewan. This is its impact. This is its echo here. #skpoli #canpoli
