To deny yourself the pleasure of my company

Yesterday a dear friend brought something that happened a year ago that I was totally unaware of to my attention

Picture three women standing together at the YMCA in Halifax. Two of them are describing a black woman as beautiful and using that descriptor to draw the third woman's attention to her gloriousness and this third woman saying something to the effect of "how can you call a black woman beautiful?"

I was the black woman in question and I had a delayed reaction when I heard the story last night. I initially laughed it off and pushed it away out of sight but like a balloon string it dangled just within sight. And I had to tug it back down to pop its swollen misshapen bulge of racism, prejudice and my hurt.

Now I am usually more of a live and let live sort of person. In the past I have let a lot of wrongs just roll off my back, water off a duck's back. This year I have decided is the one where I reclaim my voice and speak up.
I was at the YMCA Halifax on Bayers Road because I had offered my very limited free time as a law graduate student to file taxes on behalf of those who couldn't afford to pay to get it done or who were for various reasons unable to file personally.

As I sit here typing these words and sipping my Tim Horton's medium coffee double double (google if you need a breakdown) the tiny part of me, the ghost of Nenyo's past is asking the bigger part of me if I'm not overreacting by taking this to my blog, to what is potentially the whole world. This is the reality of the Canadian dream for dark-skinned immigrants. To shake the table or not to shake the table.

From the application process to even get to this country, whether for educational (https://studentimmigration.ca/four-in-10-international-students-turned-away-by-canadian-immigration/) or direct immigration purposes it appears as if there are extra hurdles in place for black immigrants than they are for lighter skinned ones. You can do a quick google search to verify.

I'm tired of being considered less than or dumb because I am a darker skinned black woman. Everyday I thank God for the fact that I grew up in a majority Black Country where I was surrounded by great representations of black excellence. I was fortunate to grow up seeing representations of myself on television, on the radio, on public stages around me. I was blessed to have a dad who ensured that I grew up with a voice I wasn't afraid to use to assert my personhood and claim space.

I am finding that living in Canada, a country with great external public relations so much so that people outside are surprised when you tell tales of your everyday reality. When you tell tales of the shameful treatment of the indigenous people and the black loyalists, the African Nova Scotians of today, you are met with doubt. I have a lot more to say on the African Nova Scotian topic but not today and not all of it is flattering. Hopefully, I feel inspired to pick up that thread another day.

This is wrong.

The words of Sisonke Msimang fit neatly within this post -

"So, because I have been raised to believe I am the centre of the universe, America [Canada] does not threaten who I am. It makes me a soldier in a way I may not otherwise have been."