A group of Montreal West Island residents gathered at a Valois Park in Pointe Claire park Sunday to address a problem they say is still pervasive in that part of the city and elsewhere.
Their aim is to keep the conversation going about racism.
Among them was 14 year-old Nicolas Melnikov who said he only found out about slavery in Canada recently and it made him upset.
“There was (African) enslavement here in Canada since 1628, I think,” he stated as he tried to recall the exact year.
In fact the earliest recorded evidence of enslaved Africans was 1629.
The teen said that discovery and also finding out about Indian Residential Schools is why he and his sister Sofia Maria, 11, took part in an event. They want to help raise public awareness about the history of racism in this country.
“I think it’ll spread the word and make people realize that different things are going,” she said, “and we’re not learning about it in our history books.”
The annual West Island ‘Take a Knee’ event started three years ago following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in the United States.
It also came after a series of anti-Black racist incidents in the West Island in the summer of 2020.
On top of that, the same summer a report slammed the City of Montreal for turning a bling eye to systemic racism. Since then the city has since taken several steps to address the problem.
Still, event co-organizer Allison Saunders explained they decided to do the event again this year after hearing things from residents that bothered her.
“That Black Lives Matter isn’t important or necessary in the West Island because we don’t have those kinds of problems here,” she said.
Saunders argued that racism in the part of the city looks different and isn’t always overt.
“It’s more in the biases that we have about the people in our communities, about the children we teach in our classes about our children’s friends,” she noted, adding that many are living the results of systemic racism while others don’t realize it.
The event Sunday, she said, is meant to keep the conversation going.
“It’s easy for people to do things once and then forget their importance or significance,” she pointed out.
That’s partly how the Melnikov siblings felt when they started learning about racism – they wanted to act.
“I was disappointed and I wanted to tell all my friends,” said Sofia-Maria
She, her brother and the organizers plan to continue speaking out and building bridges. The Melnikov siblings want to host another event later this year focusing on Indigenous issues.
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