For people of color, being discriminated against is rarely an isolated incident. The people we spoke with — addressing a variety of issues, from microaggressions to hate speech — illustrated with their testimonies these early childhood encounters with racism.
The school, breeding ground for discrimination
Schaël Marcéus, a 26-year-old young man of Haitian origin, recalls in detail an incident he experienced at the age of 8. “The movie Winnie the Pooh had just been released, and I had a Tigger figurine. I took it to the daycare center,” he said. “I was with an educator and I said to her, “Look Hélène, it's you.” And I did a pirouette, figure in hand,” he recalls. Schaël recalls that the day went quite normally. “When my parents picked me up, the teacher asked to talk to them in her office. She asked them about what I was watching on TV, asked them if they were watching me and if I was watching programs that were not appropriate for my age.” It was a popular program of the time that raised this concern. “The week before, there was a character in an episode who was a voodoo master,” explains Schaël. The teacher thought I was practicing voodoo. I still remember the fear in his eyes.”
Elvira Kamara, a 35-year-old Afropolite Ivorian, had a similar experience, having become the target of her teacher at the age of 11. “I had just arrived in France and I was the only black person in my class,” she said. “The titular teacher, a sister, had to show up in front of the whole class because, according to her, I was from Africa. She was shocked at the quality of my French,” she recalls. Elvira is the only student who had to present herself in this way to all her classmates.
For Elizabeth Tran, a 32-year-old Montreal native, the first experience of racism dates back to elementary school. She was seven. “I brought Vietnamese food for dinner. A kid asked me what was that called. I did not know the translation of the name of the dish. They laughed at me saying I didn't know what I was eating.”
Yara El-Soueidi, a 29-year-old Lebanese-Quebec woman, was confronted with racism from another student in Secondary 4, in a private school in Montreal. “It was at the time of the crisis of reasonable accommodations,” she says. I was packing up my stuff, and someone threw something at me.” The attacker was a boy in his class. “It was a fairly heavy metal object. It could have hurt me, she explains. I turned around and asked him why he did it. He told me that because of “people like me”, people could no longer do what they used to do, and that they were forced to be like us.” Young Yara did not fully understand what her comrade was saying — what she said to him. “He told me that I was not a Québecois, that I was only a 'dirty Arab'.”
For Zaynab, who is 27, several incidents also occurred in elementary school. “Children have already told me that my skin is black because my mother pooped on me when giving birth to me,” she reports. On two occasions, the discriminatory behavior of students was not sanctioned by school staff. “A boy called me a dirty nigger on the school bus.
I saw red. I threw myself at him. Obviously I was the one who got in trouble, even though the boy was older and taller than me, and I couldn't have hurt him.”
The scenario is repeated in high school. “We had to go out and I told the boy in front of me to respect the instructions and get in line.” To get any response, Zaynab was punched violently in the face. “Guess who got in trouble,” she concludes.
The stranger who attacks the child
Sephora, a 35-year-old non-binary black woman, experienced a traumatic situation after leaving school when she was 9. At the time of the assault, she was taking the bus with her father. “I had my backpack, I was wearing my school uniform,” she recalls. “A seat became available next to a lady on the bus. I came to sit down and she put her hand against my chest to stop me. She pushed me to the side to pull away and said, “No, not you.” Then she motioned to a stranger, a white lady who was further away, to come and sit down.” Sephora's father reacted immediately.
“I looked at my father, who started shouting: “I saw what you did, madam! You're racist, that's not right, you don't do that to a child.”” Nobody intervened. Arriving at their destination, Sephora and her father got off the bus. “Nobody explained to me what had just happened, that the incident I had just experienced was racist and that I had done nothing wrong,” she laments. I have never forgotten that.”
Naadei Lyonnais, who is Black, grew up in Rouyn-Noranda. She recalls an incident that happened a week after she arrived in this city. She was six at the time. “I was walking with my mom and a car stopped in the middle of the street,” she says. The passengers were staring at us as they pointed at us; their eyes were widened by surprise. Surely they didn't want us any harm.
It was probably the first time they saw a black person, but at the age of six it made a big impression on me.”
Dealing with racism from childhood
At a very young age, Naadei developed a defense mechanism against discrimination against her. “At six years old, after several incidents, I decided that I simply would not see racism, that I would not think about it, that I would not assume that it existed, that I would not tell my parents about it, that I would not tell my parents about it,” she said. “I would just erase that idea from my mind, I would reject it. the concept. That's why, when I experienced discrimination, I chose to think that I was not loved personally, for no particular reason,” she explains. She says she made this choice when she realized early on that racism was everywhere, even among the people she loves, including her friends and family. “I knew right away that if I paid attention to it, I would feel sad, frustrated, or worse, hate. So to protect myself and be happy, I decided to block it all.”
Maricar-Kristine Montes, a 27-year-old woman born in Quebec and of Filipino origin, also remembers the events that marked the daily life of her childhood. She recalls witnessing discrimination against her parents, including the way they were sometimes treated in stores. “I was very young, but it was very visible,” she says. Since we were not from here, I understood that these were things I should expect. We always kept our heads down, or else we acted as if nothing had happened.” When her family settled in the suburbs of Montreal, Maricar was six. She quickly became the target of derogatory remarks from her classmates, which was not the case when she went to school in Côte-des-Neiges.
“Students were constantly joking about blacks, Asians, Latinos, and Muslims. Anything that was different from them was okay to make fun of.” In high school, she railed against a particularly disgusting comment for the first time. “A student told me that I didn't need to go to college, because I was going to end up working at Thaï Express.” Instead of speaking out against such behavior, she was instead told, “That's not what he wanted.” say”, “You're too sensitive” and “Come on, that was funny!” “Nobody tried to reassure me.” We were content to defend it,” she regrets.
Preventing racism at an early stage
When you see the difficulties that racialized children can experience, you understand the urgency to act. The artist Joyce N'sana knows something about it. A musician and mother of two children aged seven and eight, she is a member of Afro Youth Library, a collective that promotes children's books with racialized characters and anti-racist books for children. “People started to consult the page because it contains books written by racialized authors. But we don't want only racialized or diverse parents to join; this initiative is also for other parents. Everyone needs to feel concerned about the problem in order to raise children who are anti-racist,” she said. One of the contributors to the page is in fact a white man from Quebec. “It also counts enormously for parents to realize that this is not only a page for racialized people. It's for everyone, because fighting racism doesn't just happen through one community, it goes through all communities.”
According to Ms. N'sana, schools lack anti-racism structures. “We just tell ourselves that the children are teasing each other, and that it will pass. When they experience it on a daily basis and there is no structure, or parents who are sufficiently aware of this issue to educate children, it does not happen,” she believes. The artist, who is also a childhood educator, started discussing the subject with children at an early age. “People are not born racist, they become racist. These are behaviors and intolerances that are reproduced because they have been observed somewhere. Children are just repeating what they see, so it's important to start educating children at a very young age on these topics,” she explains. And when it comes to children, it's often easier than you think. “People wonder how they're going to do it, because these are complex topics. But if you explain them to the little ones, you correct them, that's enough for them to understand.”
You have to start with very simple things and speak their language. “My children and I have had our share of incidents,” she confides. My son came back from school one day saying, “I want you to cut my hair.” Inspired by his mother, he then wore locs. “But when he got to school, his friends told him that it wasn't pretty, that it was poop. “I want to cut them off,” he said again.” Joyce and her son had a discussion on the subject, and the son calmed down. Unfortunately, a few days later, the remarks came back again, and the boy himself went to get the scissors to cut his hair. Her brother also had to deal with difficult situations at school. “My first one was called 'Chinese',” she reports. I told him: “You know where you come from, you know who you are, you know that your dad is a Quebecer, you know that your mom is a Congolese, you know that you are mixed.” When he came up with this story crying, I said to him, “Remember what we said? At school, only two of you — your brother and you — have a different skin color. Maybe others have never seen this before. Maybe all your friends at school know about “diversity” are Chinese people. But you have a mouth, you are able to explain to them. Do you have the same skin color as someone from China? So explain to him, to your friend,” she says.
Her boy followed his mother's advice in his own way, not without her explaining to him that Chinese people should be treated with respect, like everyone else, and that one should not hurt another friend. Ms. N'sana also believes that reading can greatly help children understand the society in which they live. “In a book, you can transmit a lot of things,” she summarizes. Since the current circumstances. A selection of anti-racist books for children has also been created dFinally, it recalls something of great importance. “We target children, but above all, we must talk to them because they are the ones who can educate children. If parents are not educated, they cannot talk to their children about this issue. Structures such as schools, libraries, daycares, childcare centers, childcare centers should be able to set up programs and initiatives to make parents and children aware of the issues of racism and diversity.”
And you, what was your first personal experience with racism? What are you doing to fight it?