While movements like Black Lives Matter are likely sparking new conversations about racism around the dinner table, for families of colour, the subject matter is nothing new.
Joel Brown, a Black man who moved to Regina from Detroit 25 years ago, has raised three kids here with his wife.
Recounting an incident when his son was berated at work with the N-word by a drunken restaurant patron, and times his daughter has been singled out at school, he says he’s seen first-hand that racism doesn’t target an age group.
“I think children do this inadvertently, but a friend said ‘yeah that’s her dad. And that’s even her real dad!'” Brown recalled. “Where did that ‘that’s even her real dad’ idea come from?”
Brown says he and his wife have always been proactive in talking to their children about racism.
“We’ve instilled a lot of pride into being Black, first and foremost,” he said. “And secondly, we’ve prepared them that unfortunately, they’re gonna meet some people out there — whether or not it’s because of something they’ve been taught — that are just gonna treat them differently.”
Brown said he’s also been very open with his kids about his own experiences with racism in Regina. He said he’s been thrown in the back of a police car after being the one to call police while working security, and was recently wrongly accused of theft by an employee at a Regina grocery store.
He said he’s always wanted to be realistic with his children in telling them that discrimination is simply unavoidable.
“I tell my children that, due to no fault of their own, they do need to work harder and they need to keep themselves out of those sketchy situations,” he said. “And if for some reason they are pulled over, or they are confronted, to always be respectful and never cause a scene because you never know what’s going to happen.”
Kerry Bellegarde-Opoonechaw, a Cree woman, called her experience raising her three kids in Regina’s North Central neighborhood a “success story.”
“Growing up, they had to encounter many things such as racism and gang initiation. They came for my son a couple of times,” she said. “I said to them, ‘you have to go through me, before you are taking my son to this life.'”
The ’60s Scoop survivor has also taken it upon herself to proactively educate and instill pride in her kids about their culture.
“I lost my culture and I had to find it. And it’s not like it just dropped into my lap. I had to go out and find it. And I educate my children this way,” she said.
Brown and Bellegarde-Opoonechaw echoed each other’s words in expressing the belief that awareness, education and conversation about issues like racism and inequality needs to occur between every parent and child before such problems can be solved.
“General kindness, love and compassion. Understanding and forgiveness — all of these are part of a healthy emotional person and that is what we need to teach our kids,” Bellegarde-Opoonechaw said.
“If you’re either teaching racism, or allowing it to happen — either way you’re part of the problem,” added Brown. “And until our children, and us as people, realize that, things will never change, in my opinion.”
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