Anti-Black racism alive and well on Manitoba campuses: student and professor

A Winnipeg student and professor are speaking out about anti-Black racism on campus here at home after aBlack law student in Ontario was partially banned from school for a fight he had with a white studentwho didn't face the same consequences.

Students, staff and faculty at some of Canada's largest universities say they have experienced anti-Black racism on campus, and that they were targeted if they spoke out about their treatment, an investigation byThe Fifth Estatehas found.

In one case, Jordan Afolabi, a law student at the University of Windsor, bumped into a white student at school, and it escalated to a fight.

Both students filed internal reports with the university'sOffice of Academic Integrity, but only Afolabi was banned from campus, with the exception of attending classes.

• WATCH |The Fifth Estate: "Black on Campus"on Thursday at 9 p.m. ET on CBC-TV or stream onCBC Gem.

Later, administration called campus security on Afolabi when he stopped by tocheck on the status of the report after his campus ban had lifted.

"It's terrible how common that sort of thing is,"KeeshaHarewood, anEnglish major at theUniversity of Winnipeg said on CBC Radio's Up to Speed on Monday.

AndManitoba campusesarenot exempt, she says.

Racism isn't always explicit like it is in Afolabi's case, saysPaul Lawrie, an associate professor of African-American history and associate dean of arts at the University of Winnipeg. It's systemic.

People participating in academia are"operating within a structure which is fundamentally predicated historically, socially andeconomically on the exclusion of Black people," he said onUp to Speed.

It can also look like being the onlyfaculty member of colour, or not reflecting the lived experiences of Black people incurricula.

For decades, Black people and allies have called for structural changes to be made. In the last year, though, those calls have grown louder through growth of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Those calls haven't been heeded in a meaningful way yet, Harewood and Lawrie say.

"What I've seenisan effort for universities to appear more conscientious, to appear more considerate, to appear more diverse, but the deep work that needs to be done hasn't been occurring," Harewood said.

That deep work tacklingthe structural inequitiesis the most difficult, Lawrie says.

"We need to look at the ways in which administration relates to Black students. We have to look at things such as supports, both financially and otherwise for Black students, retention and recruitment of Black faculty and ... continue to open up spaces at universities that allow Black excellence to flourish," he said.

But that work shouldn't be placed on the shoulders of Black students, staff and faculty.

"I think our leaders need to put new systems in place to hold our current systems accountable," Harewood said.

"We know what needs to be done ... but there's hesitation to confront the atrocities that are happening."

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.