Where Do We Go From Here?
By: Dave D'Oyen
Tags: Advocacy, Justice, Canada, Trust, Community

Where Do We Go From Here?

Photo credit: Clive Sewell

For the second time, Justice Donald McLeod is being brought up on allegations of misconduct, prompted by a blog post as cited in the letter of complaint.¹ With the hearings underway, there was the disconcerting revelation of the surreptitious recording of a private conversation with Justice McLeod, to which other parties were deceptively added unbeknownst to him. The pyrrhic quest of those malefactors to entrap Justice McLeod was nothing short of insidious and unscrupulous. This is an unfortunate tale of treachery, treason and Trojan horses. Their actions have betrayed our trust and it cannot be taken lightly.

Trust is fragile; hard to earn and easily lost. It is even harder to build in a community as diverse as people of African descent. If we are to restore trust in the village, we must examine the destabilising elements in our community and root them out, for without trust, we have nothing.

Something is wrong when our actions are to malign ardent individuals who wish to be in genuine service of our people. While Justice McLeod finds himself the latest victim of this wretched disease, others in our community have been among the casualties. This cannot continue. The unintended consequence is a flight of capable individuals from community service because the risks of reputational damage and career suicide are too palpable. In this case, a possible removal of Brampton’s only Black judge from the bench. Many now find themselves asking, “If this could happen to a judge, could this happen to me?”

Across generations, there are agents in our community, whose feigned benevolence has in fact been ruinous. Consider those who conspired to defund the African Canadian Legal Clinic² and defame its then executive director, Margaret Parsons, known for her fearless and forthright character. In that process, we lost one of our very few longstanding, reputable institutions and hurt one of our staunchest defenders. More recently, the board of directors of Caribbean African Canadian Social Services found themselves playing defence against a petulant faction of the membership alleging conflicts of interest and incompetence. The impact of this destruction is that the most marginalised among us are often left without an avenue for assistance.

Upstarts such as Federation of Black Canadians³, BlackNorth Initiative⁴, Black Opportunity Fund⁵ and Foundation for Black Communities⁶ leave many feeling sceptical. We analyse them for their representation of the community — the Black bourgeoisie and the grassroots people; the power brokers who are well known in mainstream circles and the folks who are “in the trenches”. We assess their knowledge of the issues and record of advocacy. The critical question should be their primary motivation: self-aggrandisement and legacy or community development?

We say we are not a monolith yet take exception to those with fundamentally different values systems and their style of advocacy. We say we need people in all places but chastise and label as “compromised” persons working in the policing, child welfare and criminal justice systems. Those working in academia may think they are beyond reproach but colleges and universities are not without their own oppressive and racist practices, past and present. Who decides how and where we can advocate?

It behoves us to hold up the mirror to ourselves rather than readily point the finger at colonialism, white supremacy and internalised racism — the perennial objects of our admonishment. Such claims only serve to ingratiate our intellectual egos. This is classic “grudgeful an badmind” to borrow from Jamaican patois. It is high hypocrisy to demand accountability of persons who are not Black and demand nothing of ourselves.

The egregious violations of the sanctity of our space are tempting us to exact revenge, but our righteous indignation has no moral high ground when we too have been complicit by allowing these issues to fester. Fighting fire with fire will not advance our position. Take comfort in the Jamaican proverb “Todeh fi me an tomarrow fi you”.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated the many existing inequities. As societies prepare for life after the pandemic, there is a hope to build back better; a recognition that normalcy was not to everyone’s benefit but caused great suffering for many. How will we build back better after this saga? Who do we show up for and how do we show up? Where do we go from here? An honest conversation awaits us.