High-profile U.S. cases of police brutality against Black people last year sparked protests around the world, exposing the degree of racial injustice that still exists even in “officially” diverse countries, Canada included. Social media put racism under an unrelenting spotlight. Political and legal institutions began to take action. Will all that be enough to eventually end anti-Black racism in Canada? Not according to Dhaman Kissoon, Law’89, a Toronto lawyer who has been teaching Racism and Canadian Legal Culture at Queen’s Law for 30 years.
“Suddenly, after George Floyd’s murder on our TVs and our phones, all these institutions were coming on board and doing things,” Kissoon says in his blunt way. “Where were they before? These issues may not have been as publicized as they are now, but they existed.”
Many past anti-Black racism protests by different groups have been single-issue driven, he explains; “their impacts were fleeting and then they disappeared. There was no real concerted effort before. I don’t think that will be the case with Black Lives Matter; it has grown stronger over its four years.”
In his course, Kissoon covers the use of law in particular moments of Canadian social history characterized by racism, including anti-Black racism. He starts with slavery in Canada, going back to the early 1600s and showing how laws were used to establish ownership of other human beings. “It is my argument that laws forbidding property ownership historically made Black people second-class citizens,” he explains. “Very, very few have ever been able to catch up to par because they have never been treated as full, first-class citizens; part of the reason clearly goes back to the days of slavery.”
Another of Kissoon’s topics is the destruction of Africville, a Black community (originally American-expelled Loyalists) outside of Halifax. “Africville existed, even thrived, from about 1800 to the 1970s, when people with titled ownership of desirable oceanside land next to the Bedford Basin were either forcefully removed or cajoled to move from the land,” he says. “The reason offered to these people was that it was in their best interest; when they moved to the Halifax city area, life would be better for them.” Watching a CBC documentary on Africville, he recalls hearing an elderly woman who had been forced out say, “We were never as happy as when we were living in Africville. Our young people never got into as much trouble as when we moved to Halifax.” Kissoon calls it “a complete misunderstanding and/or an ignorance of these people’s culture.”
Then his course syllabus jumps ahead to the present, including issues of racism in employment, health care, and the criminal justice system, especially in policing. During the pandemic, he points out, Canadian studies prove that poor people and visible minorities are getting the worst care and suffering the highest rates of COVID-19. Why does such injury and negligence persist? “Because,” says Kissoon, “there is no proper education about the issues we are dealing with. Year after year in my class, students say, ‘I didn’t know that slavery once existed in Canada’ or ‘I never heard about Africville.’ That’s what Black History Month aims to fix. Those are significant moments in Canadian history, but students are not learning about them until they are in second or third year of law school.”
He sees three main reasons why these racism issues are not properly addressed: a misunderstanding of the issues; thinking that the issues aren’t important enough; and a degree of impotence in dealing with them. “Canadians tend to respond after the fact,” he says, “so it’s good that Black Lives Matter has elevated many issues to the forefront. In general, Canada isn’t proactive; when there’s an incident, we rally as good guys and gals and say, ‘OK, this is what we’re going to do about that.’ The problem is, this is what we should have been doing the whole time. We are playing catch-up with racism, and by the time we are supposedly caught up, there’s another incident or issue to be addressed, so then we’re lagging behind again.”
When the Black Lives Matter movement first came to Canada in 2016, its members and their non-Black supporters were mistakenly viewed as a bunch of young, loud-mouthed kids trying to go viral. “Unfortunately, their message – that Canada’s Black people in many walks of life are being treated as second-class citizens, and that has to change – may have been missed simply because at that time they lacked the means or sophistication to present it in a manner that engaged the people with the power.” That is no longer true.
“The millions shocked by George Floyd’s cruel death last year realized that such evils must not continue,” he adds. “Yet they do. Week after week in the U.S. and Canada, we see videos of young Black men being violently attacked by police. Thankfully, we are also seeing more judges prepared to call out police officers and other decision-makers regarding issues of racism.” Though he can see committees currently at work on racism in juries and sentencing, in hospitals, in penal institutions, school boards, etc., Kissoon says it will remain far too little “until many more people come to grips with the seriousness of the problems we’re dealing with.”
While his course’s main topics have remained basically the same over the years, issues of the day often come to the forefront for discussion. Kissoon credits the media and social media for playing a major role in creating this greater awareness.
“Historically, people were able to ‘get away with murder’,” he says, “but more and more we are seeing cases like George Floyd’s come to light because someone recorded the cruelty and posted it for the world to see. More importantly, it was posted for the decision-makers to see, and that is what forced them to act.”
What else does Kissoon, who has won four Law Students’ Society awards for teaching excellence, find is needed to end anti-Black racism in Canadian legal culture? “The most disappointing issue, in my view, is the lack of awareness of the deep historical roots of racism in Canada,” he replies. “Schools should be encouraged, nay, forced, to teach this history. To paraphrase the adage, if we do not recognize historical errors, we are bound to repeat them. In this regard, Canada’s is one of the educational systems that is woefully lacking.”
By Lisa Graham