6 minute read
FEATURE
Confronting Anti-Black Racism
The Activism of Delores Mullings
BY NICOLE BROOKS DE GIER
Delores Mullings is not here to be your friend, hold your hand or placate your guilt. The Memorial University social work professor and anti-Black racism activist has a bubbly and warm demeanour, but doesn’t mince words when she speaks about transforming institutions rooted in colonialism. This includes the field of social work, in which she holds a doctoral degree.
“Social work is complicit in the concrete death, and the death of the spirit and soul of racialized people,” said Mullings. “The traditional field of social work has implemented policy and practice that help to create the annihilation of our Black and Indigenous families by destroying children and youth’s connections with their families, elders and communities.”
Mullings continues, “Social workers support police, who have targeted, scrutinized, imprisoned and executed Black children and youth, particularly boys, and, as a result, have done major harm.”
Historically speaking, Nova Scotia has one of the largest Black communities in Canada with 53 African Nova Scotian communities across the province. Yet, despite having first arrived on Nova Scotian soil over 400 years ago, Mullings stresses that African Nova Scotians’ contribution to Canada remains mostly unrecognized.
“We have no belonging, we’re not seen as authentic Canadians,” said Mullings.
The direct consequence of arriving in North America as enslaved people is that the systems and institutions established by colonialists were not established to serve, improve or empower Black people. “Being Black has been weaponized,” Mulling explained, “and our destruction has been systematic and deliberate.”
To transform these areas into inclusive spaces, Mullings says the answer is definitive: “Stop promoting white people.”
“[White] people are afraid of what will happen to their power,” said Mullings, “but you don’t lose your power, by sharing it. You will only lose your power if you’ve been misusing your power – if you’ve used and kept your power by exploiting it.”
Mullings says that radical employment equity and consistently applied strategic planning are required to dismantle existing colonial structure and install racially and culturally diverse perspectives, faces and bodies.
When creating these strategic plans, Mullings stresses that they need to be flexible with clear milestone markers so objectives can be adjusted as organizations achieve their goals of recruiting, hiring, training, mentoring, and promoting people of colour.
“People who have the lived experience of colonization, slavery and racism, and every person’s lived experience with racism is unique, these voices can add a rich array to leadership tables to guide decision making and policy making to transform institutions. These plans should be created and applied across all institutions from [small not-for-profits] to government leadership.”
The plan that Mullings presents sounds straight-forward, uncomplicated and easy to implement. But she knows firsthand the nearly insurmountable opposition these ideas will face by many white people (in positions of power or not), and the violence and vitriol Black-Indigenous-people-of-colour will encounter when, or – realistically – if institutions attempt to implement them.
“Generally speaking” Mullings said, “white people don’t have a vested interest in improving and dismantling racism. When you have no lived experience of racism outside of white privilege, it’s very difficult to understand what being Black, Indigenous and racialized means.”
Empathy does not exist in colonialism. Mullings says colonization teaches self-preservation, and for the colonizers to not care about the plight of their victims, but to only look out for themselves.
This is why when white people are asked to make space in business, academia, government – in collective society – for Black people that they often respond with fear, anger or resentment.
Mullings put it simply, “White people are not fragile, they’re racist.”
Yet, she says, white people already have the tools and knowledge to dismantle the collective institutions rooted in systemic racism and they simply must “want” to make the change.
She likens the eradication of anti-Black racism, to the roll-out and adherence to the public health guidelines for the novel coronavirus pandemic.
“If you’re really committed, it doesn’t take long. We saw that this summer,” Mullings said, in an analogy that speaks to Atlantic Canada being called one of the safest places to live during the summer of 2020. Its provinces quickly took to following the strict hygiene and safety precautions that nearly eliminated the viral infection in the area.
“The same attitude can be applied to anti-Black racism.”
It is inarguable that there are white people who know that racism is wrong; however, Mullings points out, that although some white people may understand the pain and implications of hundreds of years of racism and white privilege, they will never understand the true pain and trauma experienced by Black people.
“Their understanding is often voyeuristic,” Mullings said, “while the pain of being Black runs in your blood – it is generational. The term anti-Black racism was coined to acknowledge and centre the specific experiences of Black people and the way Black people have been victimized, scrutinized, criminalized and murdered and so on because of their blackness.”
Mullings posits that the leadership work of abolishing antiBlack racism and racism must be reserved for those who have experienced its effects first-hand. The idea that it is more palatable for white people to learn and understand the repercussions of centuries of colonialism and their role in furthering racist ideology from a white person, explains Mullings, is rooted unironically, in racism.
“Institutions will pay thousands of dollars to hear white people theorize anti-Black racism and racism to massive audiences of students, administrators, government officials or colleagues, but won’t pay a Black speaker who has being doing the very same work for years, or hire more Black, Indigenous and racialized people within the leadership ranks of their organizations,” Mullings said.
Mullings’ rhetoric is learned and unapologetic and her ask is simple: give Black-indigenous-people-of-colour the privilege to take up space and enable white people to accept their role in maintaining the status quo.
So no, Delores Mullings is not here to be your friend, hold your hand, or placate your guilt.
NICOLE BROOKS DE GIER is a communications consultant, business owner, and freelance writer living in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. She’s also the very proud mother of Audrey and Cameron. Nicole has provided strategic communications and public relations advice to several governments, government agencies, and businesses for the past 12 years. Nicole is a feminist and a member of the African Nova Scotian community. Her website is EmptyScribblerPR.com.
Dr. Delores Mullings will deliver a keynote address at Challenging our Social Justice Lens, the NSCSW annual conference in May 2021. To register, please visit nscswconference.org.
Dr. Delores Mullings
Photo by Martin Brown
