One-day conference aims to create a forum for dialogue and strategy
One-day conference aims to create a forum for dialogue and
strategy
On this first day of Black History Month, McGill University’s
Social Equity and Diversity Education Office is pleased to announce
it will host a one-day conference, Black Histories, Black
Futures on Saturday, Feb. 12.
Filmmakers, professionals from the public and private sectors,
community workers, scholars, students, and artists will convene in
Montreal for a series of workshops, panel discussions, forums and
film screenings that aim to highlight the diversity and complex
realities of Montreal’s and Canada’s Black communities.
WHAT: One-day conference: Black Histories, Black
Futures
WHEN: Saturday, February 12, 2011, 9:00 AM – 7:00 PM
(Registration begins at 8:00 AM)
WHERE: Bronfman Building, 1001, Sherbrooke St. West,
Montreal
Johanne Magliore of Québec’s Commission des droits de la
personne et de la jeunesse will deliver the conference’s opening
keynote, during which she will discuss the commission’s public
consultation on racial profiling.
There will be panel discussions addressing issues such as
discrimination, empowerment through community work, and health
issues in the Black community, as well as workshops on poetry and
poetic identity, and on the role of Black professionals as
story-tellers. The conference will also feature the screening of
two films: Shadeism, which addresses the discrimination that exists
between lighter-skinned and darker-skinned members of the same
community, and Beyond Labels, a 2009 film that examines what it
means to be Black and gay in the UK.
The closing plenary, Remembering the Sir George Williams Affair:
Black Montreal from the Sixties to present, will revisit an
important turning point in Montreal’s Black community and in Canada
that profoundly shapes the present. This panel has been organized
by the Alfie Roberts Institute.
Montreal’s Black communities include a range of cultures,
ethnicities, languages, geographies and histories, and members of
these communities have been present in Montreal throughout its
development as an urban centre. The Black Histories, Black Futures
conference aims to strengthen growing relationships with Montreal’s
Black communities by creating a forum for dialogue and
strategy.
For more information and a full schedule: http://www.mcgill.ca/equity_diversity/black_histories/