On July 5, #BlackLivesCDNSyllabus began trending on Twitter in Canada, a hashtag with reading recommendations “to educate people about anti-black racism and realities in the Canadian state,” wrote Monique Woroniak in Canadian Art (Woroniak compiled the syllabus into the above Storify). The hashtag shows that there is a documented history of Canadian artists and academics writing about the realities of oppression and multiculturalism.
Dr. Cassandra Lord, Assistant Professor of Sexuality Studies in the Women and Gender Studies Program, opened up her collection of scholarly articles for the hashtag. In an interview with Canadian Art, she discussed how how black Canadians are perceived in the country's art world. "[T]he Canadian visual art landscape remains starkly white, and when black Canadian artists are portrayed they are usually set apart from other black artists as an anomaly." She said she hopes to make the articles readily accessible to "non-academics" soon.
The hashtag is in part a response to the debate on Canadian racism that has seized the country since the Toronto chapter blocked the city's annual Pride Parade and demanded a number of changes to the event and its organization.