For a while when he was young, Stephen Dorsey never thought of himself as "the Black kid."
"I was just Stephen Dorsey," he said. "But as I got older, I realized that I’m actually a Black man and that’s how most of the world sees me, and as a result of that there’s been headwinds and I’ve experienced individual and systemic racism."
Dorsey spoke to CTV’s Your Morning on Tuesday about his new book, "Black And White: An Intimate, Multicultural Perspective On White Advantage And The Paths To Change."
It comes as Canada marks the start of Black History Month, with this year’s theme being, "February and Forever: Celebrating Black History today and every day."
Coming to xjmtzywa sort of awakening after the murder of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer in 2020 sparking protests around the world, Dorsey says he wanted to know what his place was in all of it and what he could bring to the table.
The end result was his book, which explores his own upbringing and the duality of being a biracial kid, born in Montreal to a white French-Canadian mother and Black American father and later growing up with a racist stepfather.
Along with examining white "advantage," as well as systemic racism and the Black Lives Matter movement in his book, Dorsey says there is a mythology in Canada that "all bad things" happen in the United States.
"Slavery was real here in Canada and many other things," he said, adding people need to educate themselves and take action to purposely move toward change, and that starts in the community.
"We’re seeing little signs here and there of progress, but we need much more and we need a lot of reform to get rid of systemic racism and inequality in this country."
Appearing on CTV News Channel on Tuesday, Roxanne Francis of Francis Psychotherapy in Ajax, Ont., says, when it comes to teaching diversity in the home, parents can focus on the contributions to society of different Canadians.
This can include reading books and watching TV shows and movies with diverse characters, getting toys that are representative of different communities and going to festivals that celebrate different traditions.
That exposure will help children develop a level of empathy, Francis says, and prevent kids from being shunned or called names in the classroom or on school playgrounds.
"We need to talk about different cultures, different ways of life, different food, festivities, and just let our children know that everyone’s important and everyone can contribute, and it’s important to have different people in our circles," Francis said.
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Students walk past Black History Month posters on the Boston College campus, Feb. 17, 2021, in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)
