[united]

Sheri Forde wrote a moving piece today on growing up in a racist family in a racist town near Brooks, Alberta, to marrying and having a child with a black man.

https://medium.com/@sheriforde22/the...e-f14013310c16
The Wrong Side of the Fence
For those of you who have claimed that racism doesn’t live in Canada, here is my story:

“This land used to belong to John Ware. They called him “###### John”…but the times being what they are, we can’t use that word any more”. Those were the exact words that came out of my father’s mouth as he proudly parked his truck at the edge of the coulee of his newly purchased ranch in Southern Alberta. These jarring words were among the first spoken by my father to my future husband, Duane Forde. Yes, that Duane Forde — 12-year CFL veteran, national television commentator, owner of two university degrees, son of a high school principal…and a black man.

...

One day in eighth grade, my son was riding the school bus home when a couple of white kids in the seat in front of him were listening and singing along to rap music on an iPod. Every time the N word came up, they would point tauntingly at my son. We, as concerned parents, addressed this issue with the school’s administrators, who expressed how “unfortunate” it was and assured us that they would deal with it. Their version of “dealing with it” didn’t require the kids to acknowledge any wrongdoing, let alone apologize. Their version of dealing with it didn’t involve a detention, let alone a suspension. Their version of “dealing with it” didn’t include any loss of bus privileges whatsoever…at least not for the offending parties. My son, on the other hand — the victim in this case — was moved to a different bus that picked him up and dropped him off farther from our house.