{"id":32739,"date":"2023-03-09T19:11:52","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T00:11:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=32739"},"modified":"2023-03-09T19:11:54","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T00:11:54","slug":"black-history-month-programs-had-people-think-differently-about-moving-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/black-history-month-programs-had-people-think-differently-about-moving-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Black History Month programs had people \u201cthink differently\u201d about moving forward"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Aurora Black Community Association is looking back on another successful series of engaging Black History Month programs, but also looking forward on ways to continue the conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conjunction with several community groups, and the Town of Aurora, along the way, the Aurora Black Community Association (ABC) helped kick off Black History Month at the start of February with the raising of the Pan-African Flag at Town Hall. Further events included a Black History Month gala with keynote speaker Dr. Jean Augustine, a paint and poetry night, a Diversity on Ice afternoon, all before a special film screening last week at Cineplex Aurora, co-hosted by the Aurora Film Circuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSeeing so many people able to come out, enjoy, and work together is important,\u201d ABC founder and president Phiona Durrant tells The Auroran, adding the feedback she received from event attendees was particularly heartening. \u201cThey carry a ripple effect. Black History Month can be seen in so many ways: it can feel heavy, it can feel negative, it can feel bitter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This will be kept in mind as they move forward with the idea of Black History every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Durrant likens community engagement between the end of one February and the beginning of the next as the \u201cnotes\u201d that fall between the beginning and the ending of a song, and the momentum is there to keep the community humming along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA Black history event is not the change, it\u2019s the work we\u2019re doing in between to build collaborative relationships [and] the meetings we\u2019ve been having about measurable equity is what\u2019s really going to bring the real change we\u2019re looking for. It\u2019s good to have the notes, but it\u2019s the in-between pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can easily create something that is more diverse, but that should be used as a tool to see if equity is really happening. You can have maybe five per cent [of municipal staff be diverse] and then think, \u2018Okay, that isn\u2019t good enough because you need more\u2026\u2019 but that doesn\u2019t mean equity is happening. That doesn\u2019t mean people from diverse backgrounds, from different sexual orientations, from different skill sets, are really growing in that organization. Diversity on its own really does nothing for us. What is equity?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the next little while, Durrant says she will be reaching out to various organizations to ensure opportunities for Black youth, as well as brainstorming ways to get people to \u201cstop focusing on racism or think differently from how they focus on that because what it kind of does is have you constantly explaining over and over.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStop looking at what the barriers are, but look at what they can do to make a difference,\u201d she says. \u201cBarriers are always going to be there, that\u2019s a given, and I can\u2019t see a time where we\u2019re not going to be facing barriers\u2026but how do we get involved? Leaving the gala, part of what was beautiful coming from the community was, \u2018What can we do to help?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNobody teaches compassion, courage, confidence, active listening; we\u2019re not taught how to receive feedback, how to effectively confront. We\u2019re not taught how to have a difficult conversation. It\u2019s up to all of us to change our mindset and position ourselves and be intentional about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Aurora Black Community Association is looking back on another successful series of engaging Black History Month programs, but also looking forward on ways to continue the conversation. In conjunction with several community groups, and the Town of Aurora, along the way, the Aurora Black Community Association (ABC) helped kick off Black History Month at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/2023-03-09-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8w3","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 12:30:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}