It was late spring, early summer.  We went out to stroll.   I wore my favourite cream, shirt dress.

I completed the look with a straw hat. We walked slowly, taking in the sights.  The neighbourhood around the Legislative grounds was verdant with manicured lawns that needed no `don’t walk on the grass’ signage.  The grass screamed stay off of me and it commanded obeisance.  “Nigger go home!” He only had to shout it out once. I looked around to see who else was around that beautiful Sunday morning – so to decide if I should add embarrassment to the sentiments of the moment.   The words were jarring as they broke through the silence of the peaceful air around us.  “Nigger” was a word – a word I had hither-to encountered in books and movies about slavery in the United States of America. It sounded foreign – far removed from me and my personal pre and post-colonization experiences in the British colony of the Gold Coast which became Ghana – the first Sub-Saharan African country to attain “independence”.  

That was my personal moment of deflowering from the virginity of the belief that all the people of Canada were “nice” and welcoming.  The three or four young men in the truck that morning sped on, perhaps, oblivious of the fact that they had infused into shaping my view of the world they claim to own by using the “nigger-go-home” trope to teach me an important lesson – a lesson I needed if I were to survive this country and its dominant peoples, psychologically.

One Saturday night, I wore my black velvet culottes – my best at the time – and paired it with the beautiful shiny copper necklace with the big circular pendant and the cowboy hat earrings and bangle. We did not hesitate to venture into the night and by taxi we reached the downtown destination of the only night club we thought might be welcoming. Wrong! The music literally stopped. Everyone in the crowded space turned to look at us.  In such awkward moments, I always pretend people are staring because we are beautiful people dressed to the nines.  The people who are less fortunate need to stare at us and wonder from where we have come?  The air remained thick with something indescribable – impalpable. We ordered Coca Colas which we quaffed with nervousness and left as quickly as we could, back to the miserable student apartment in the atrium nicknamed “the Hub” on the University campus.  This was Edmonton, circa 1977-1978. 

Running Away

We hightailed it to Toronto as quickly as we could after that phase of schooling was done.  We figured Toronto was where our people were.  We settled in the St. Jamestown community and set about looking for work.  St. Jamestown was a fantastic location for us as newcomers to the city. Those days, every Black person one met on the street was a potential friend.  A casual greeting may reveal an accent. That revelation was often followed by a definite, “are you African”? An affirmative answer would lead to a guess of the region, country, city, tribe and clan.  We needed to connect.  We needed to belong. We needed a tribe that would count us in. 

In Toronto, we applied for positions for which we believed we were eminently qualified. We changed strategy when no one thought us qualified enough.  We were usually met with the excuse that the position was no longer available after we had been asked to come in for an interview or if we are lucky to be interviewed, with the other excuse that we were not the right fit for the particular position.  I was invited to interview at a Law Firm on Bay Street one afternoon.  We lived on the 29th Floor.  The elevator did not come up.  My wait period had eaten up my time allowance by the time I decided to go down 29 flights of stairs.  I did.  I flagged down a taxi with shaky hands and weakened legs. I made it to the interview with minutes to spare.  The gentleman who had invited me for the interview, subjected me to what appeared like an interview with me as the candidate for employment after direct questions regarding whether I had authored the résumé.  After what I considered to be an interview, he took me around the office and introduced me to his colleagues as the person whose résumé they had discussed.  Of course, I was hopeful.  At the end, he told me he would call me.  He never did and I knew why.  My résumé indicated prior education and work experience from my country of origin. Some of the rejections I received were attributed to a lack of Canadian experience.  In this case, I had some Canadian experience working part-time in a realtor’s office. But I was not given the courtesy of contact to inform me that I was not good enough. I had no choice than to believe that I was seen as not worthy of respect.

I thought our job search challenges unique until one of our new friends shared her experience with rejection in the sphere of employment.  She had dropped off a résumé in one of the towers on Bay Street.  One of those places where the reception faced the elevators.  She went back from the elevators to the reception to change the address on her résumé because she remembered she was changing residence the following week.  The receptionist searched high and low and could not find the résumé that she had dropped-off a few short minutes earlier.  She boldly walked around the receptionist’s desk to the paper bin and retrieved her crumpled-up résumé and envelope.  She placed it on the desk and straightened it up as best she could, changed the address, handed it back to the receptionist and left. We continue to recount this story at social gatherings.  We all have stories, but some stay etched in memory and, consciously or unconsciously, they form part of the back stories that drive our reactions and future interactions with dominant groups and systems in multicultural societies.

Employment

We were down to a month’s rent. The Bank refused us a loan, of course.  We did not have a credit history.  In our desperation, we lowered our expectations.  My partner sought work as a short order cook and, I, as a babysitter and house-cleaner for a stay-at-home mom on Cluny Drive in Rosedale, a position that was confirmed in less than half-a-day.  I took an advance on my $100 a week wage in order to pay fees at Woodsworth College, University of Toronto where I studied at night. I kept that job for a year. Damping-down one’s life ambitions because of obstacles manufactured by people with power using prejudice based on skin colour and place-of-origin amounts to unfair discrimination. Unfair discrimination yields lasting negative impacts on othered peoples and communities.

I was interviewed for an administrative position with an international security systems company.  After the written test, panel interview, and, psychological testing, I was invited back to meet with the Director who told me that I did very well but that the position for which I had interviewed had been awarded to someone else.  He, however, offered me another position with lesser pay downtown, if I was interested.  I accepted the $75 a week position with benefits.  I was put in charge of personnel files and one slow day I pulled my own file.  I was happy that the Canadian High Commission, one of the employers I had used as reference, did confirm employment. The Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, the other employer, did not respond. The most interesting revelation was the comment on the last page of the psychological test to which I was subjected prior to hiring.  In red ink was the inscription: very good. esp. for someone who is …. The initial shock left me dry-mouthed. I filled-in the blanks – who is tall, beautiful, brilliant, human?  After all these years, I still feel pangs of pain from those words that are etched in my memory. In addition to those incidents, an older lady colleague who told me she used to occupy the lesser position in which I was placed, would tell me almost daily to go look for work “where my people were” – with the Provincial Government. She lived at the corner of Davenport and Bay, in a century-old townhouse that her parents left to her – an only child.  She took the Bay bus going south to get to work every day from the same bus stop as all the black people who alighted at 900 Bay Street. I figured out that was how she came to know where my people worked.  One younger lady colleague burst in one day to give me the news that the black population of the City of Toronto was burgeoning.  She feared the black population will soon overtake the white population.  How prophetic!  I told her with all the calmness I could command, that she should sensitize young white people to work hard to increase their population as I had no knowledge of other ways for them to compete with the uncontrolled population of black peoples.  Another young colleague, usually quiet and efficient, approached my desk to inform me that I needed braces as I had an overbite.  That is still true, but her teeth were in worse condition, visually, than my overbite.  She had double-decker teeth all over.  I said nothing because there was no need to call attention to her condition.

I worked with this company for a year.  In that short space of time,  in addition to other negative treatments, one of my boss’ friends who claimed he could not understand my accent  asked me: “What kind of a nut are you?”  I had had enough by then. I responded without thought of consequence: “A walnut!”  He hung up without another word and I prepared for a firing that did not happen. I interacted with people in that workplace who never complained about my accent. I had worked successfully for years with Canadians in my country of origin and never once did anyone complain about my accent being a barrier to communication.  Why did I have to endure all that in a position for which I had not applied but accepted out of the need to survive?  I left that workplace pregnant.  My colleagues organized a baby shower for me.  I was moved by the gesture.  I added that experience to my collection of back stories, for balance.

We moved to London, Ontario so my partner could complete an MBA to add to his M.Sc. from the University of Alberta.  His first job offer, after pounding the pavement in Toronto for a week, came from a “progressive Liberal” person.  After the interview, the progressive affirmed his encouragement that he would give him “a chance” with a job offer but that he cannot start him at the level of remuneration that his contemporaries were offered.  My partner asked my opinion.  I said, take the job.  They will pay to move us out of London, Ontario and bring us to Toronto, where our people are. At the time, London appeared devoid of Black peoples. Out there, we stood out – mostly, for negative attention.

The negative impact of the denial of equitable pay at the start of one’s employment continues through their working life. It relegates those “othered” through discriminatory income practices, based not on merit, but on race and all other attributes that accompany it to a lifetime of lagging behind. These discriminatory practices are illogical as the attributes used to select who is lesser were not acquired commercially by targeted groups. Skin colour, ethnic origin and place of origin are all accidents of birth and must not be used as indicators for an absence of good judgement.  The requirement is for all to attain qualifications and credentials from recognized institutions that do not offer lesser fees to the “othered”.  But, even when the “othered” perform better than those of the dominant group or present impressive qualifications and credentials that match those of the “dominants” they are rejected or are denied equitable remuneration. This contributes to entrenchment of negative relationship dynamics that feed conflict within pluralism as this practice exposes “othered” groups to lack.

I finally did get an entry level position with the Provincial Government, where my people were.  It was good until I made a misstep and applied for a lateral position that turned out to be worse than the position I had vacated because they made crafted the job description to sound better in the posting. The manager clearly had issues with me because I dared to complain about the discrepancy.  A couple of years later, he announced he was selling his small bungalow, I enquired about the asking price.  His response was a terse: “You can’t afford it.”  The consolation, for me, was that he was leaving town.  One less person who thought lesser of me for all that was different about me.

The new manager, the first woman to supervise me, told me that I had a chip on my shoulder.  The first time I had been thusly described.  I told her, if she sees it, she must have placed it there as no one else has seen that chip.

I resolved to speak my mind in order to not remain burdened. With that resolve, I killed all ambition and decided to remain an eternal underling.  By that determination, the only challenge left to manage was to speak my mind without getting fired.   

I was allowing people’s narrow-mindedness to change me. Were the changes in perspective positive, I would likely have not noticed.  I was learning lessons in human relations that I had missed within the multi-ethnic environment from which I had come.  I became aware that I needed strategies foreign to my experiences in order to positively manage the different kinds of relationship dynamics in my new environment. 

Along the way, I was assigned to positions where I was managed by “people of colour” who found me to be deserving of opportunity and allowed me to use my talents at lower rates of pay.  After 12 years, I was caught in the massive lay-offs during government’s doing more with less era.  With the support of one of the managers of colour, I secured a position at the Ontario Human Rights Commission.  A combination of factors propelled me to the realm of Mediation.  Many years of being at the receiving end of the spectre of “othering” turned me into a keen observer of human behaviour, especially, how the concept of dominance impacts conflict. I see conflict through multiple lenses.  I see the impact of culture and tradition on conflict from both ends – outside looking-in and inside, looking out.  I see how those in power positions treat those they consider to be lesser than themselves and how those who are treated as lesser than react to negative treatment based on a multiplicity of factors including negative historical relationship dynamics.