February 15, 2026 Reflection

Having shared a bit about three amazing women who are not only part Canada’s bIack history but the present and future of Canada and having heard from Marcus about the music that tells the stories in another way, I want to tell you about someone who names the challenge of Black History Month. I struggle with this time and Dr. Christopher Taylor named far more eloquently and personally why as a white well intentioned liberal lady, I find it difficult.
As I spun down the rabbit hole of resources for the month, I came across a podcast by Dr. Christopher S. Taylor. He is an associate professor in the Department of History and the Arts First program at the University of Waterloo and is the Associate Vice-President, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and anti-Racism. And to be clear he is black. In 2023 he dropped a podcast titled “My Beef with Black History Month” (The Curve Podcast, Feb. 23, 2023). On his podcast he explained why he doesn’t participate as a speaker during the month. He feels like in doing so he is being requested to ‘perform his blackness for white people to consume,’ and that Black History month can feel performative, and virtue signalling. That set me back on my heels and confirmed for me the discomfort I feel.  

I feel uncomfortable asking black people to speak this month because I do feel like I am asking them to, if not perform, explain to me their often painful reality. Years ago, I asked Dawn Pemberton to speak to the congregation I was serving at the time to talk to us about ‘growing up black in Vancouver’. After she spoke when I saw how very much that cost her, how obviously painful it was for her to offer witness to her experience of being black in Vancouver, I felt shame, and I still do, although she assures me I can be over it. I don’t know how to ask black people to share their stories without risking asking them to share publicly the most vulnerable, personal and painful experiences, and that feels to me to be in danger of asking them to, as Dr. Taylor put it, ‘‘perform their blackness for white people to consume.’ I feel like I am in danger of being performative. I always think of God saying she doesn’t want a cultic sacrifice or a rote ritual as an offering but ‘a broken and contrite heart’, and I’m not sure that’s what I and we always bring to these moments, moments in black History Month, land acknowledgments, Orange Shirt Day. 

To be clear, I am only speaking for myself. I know at Mount Seymour you put great intentionality into not only this service but in learning about and honouring the history and reality of First Nations peoples. I am sharing my discomfort, what I see can be a danger in some of these events when they become so regular that we don’t really pay attention. I felt emboldened to speak about it when I listened to Dr. Taylor speak about his experience as a black man. And when I shared his podcast with a friend who is black they told me, full disclosure, they book themselves up and out of the month of February so they don’t have to speak because it is exhausting. Ask me some other month she said, any other month to spread it out. 

Dr. Taylor went on to say, “People rush to book speakers in January, looking for ways to not feel anti-black, to be seen to be ‘doing something’.” He says that the events can be exploitive; exploiting and extracting black labour. Indeed, Black History Month can be a way of containing conversations about blacks or people of colour in general to one month, one program, one worship, one tv special. It is contained so we don’t have to contend with racism all year, it is contained to one month rather than embedded in all education and conversations about who is missing from the table. Who wasn’t counted at the banquet with Jesus.

Rather than one short month (when you think about it Black History Month is contained in the shortest month of the year!) Taylor argues, there needs to be year-round action and commitment towards ending colonialism and racism. So that in February rather than just talking ‘about’ racism maybe what we do is announce what step, program, initiative or policy we are enacting to combat racism and colonialism. That in February we hold ourselves accountable to what we committed to rather than ticking off one hour in one month to consider the history of Blacks in Canada. For that matter, Taylor says, we should also be acknowledging Black present and black future. 

His podcast ends with “We need to relook and rethink why we do [mark Black History Month], for what purpose and for whom. If we can’t articulate the benefits of it, the rationale, that doesn’t fall into virtue signalling, performative exploitative trap maybe we need to ask ourselves if this might be more of a problem than a benefit.” 

To be clear, he doesn’t argue against Black History Month, nor am I. But he does name how it can be an instrument of minimizing and even trivializing the enormous gifts and deep embeddedness of black people in our history, our present and key to our future. And we are called to be better than that.
Here is a video to introduce you to Chinazam Igwe, a young woman who is part of Canada’s black present and future. You will hear from her again at the end of our service, in the Commissioning.

Amen