I didn’t know of — hadn’t even heard of, the Jim Crow Laws until I stumbled across the audio version of Richard Wright’s Black Boy. I understood what segregation and discrimination was. What I didn’t know, or understand, was the extent to which racism had been legislated. Normalized even. I was in my mid-thirties. Teaching about Jim Crow laws was not part of the average Canadian history curriculum. At least not in my day.

My understanding of Black history and Black experience has been largely through books. Through authors like Alex Hailey, Toni Morrison, Walter Mosely, Lawrence Hill, Hannah Crafts, and a jumbled variety of novels, stories and essays I have educated myself. I still really know nothing.

Recently I read (via audiobook) Ibram X. Kendi’s How To Be An AntiRacist. It’s not your average ‘how to’ book. What impressed me was the author’s honesty about the scale of racism that exists within all of us. He considers his own degree of racism and through his own admissions, forced me to examine the same in myself. Uncomfortable, but worth it. 

Jesse Lipscombe is a Canadian actor who had an experience a few years ago that set him on a path to address and call out racism through the #makeitawkward movement. Check out his Ted Talk. It’s warm, entertaining and inspiring. Worth it.

Stay safe everyone.

Anne Milne is an every Sunday blogger.  Facebook or Twitter.