{"id":18823,"date":"2019-02-25T09:33:03","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T14:33:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/?p=18823"},"modified":"2024-07-03T19:50:57","modified_gmt":"2024-07-03T23:50:57","slug":"daniel-mcneil-writes-about-when-and-why-a-canadian-state-recognizes-black-activists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/2019\/daniel-mcneil-writes-about-when-and-why-a-canadian-state-recognizes-black-activists\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel McNeil writes about when and why a Canadian state recognizes Black activists"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\n\n
\n
\n
\n

\n Daniel McNeil writes about when and why a Canadian state recognizes Black activists\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n
\"Daniel<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Conversation recently published an article by Professor Daniel McNeil<\/a> on Black History\/Futures Month. Below is a short excerpt with the full article, “Black Activists: Quiet and gentle Canadians?<\/a>” available online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1971, the Yale professor Robin Winks wrote that Black Canadians wanted \u201cnothing more than to be accepted as quiet Canadians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In The Blacks in Canada<\/em><\/a>, Winks claimed that Black Canadians were \u201cunlikely to organize militant, noisy, pushy protests.\u201d He considered Daniel Hill, the first full-time director of the Ontario Human Rights Commission in 1962, to be an exemplary model of quiet leadership.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hill returned the compliment by praising Winks\u2019 history of Blacks in Canada as a powerful tool in his campaigns against serious discrimination in housing, education and employment.<\/a> Hill\u2019s study of human rights in Canada for the Canadian Labour Congress in 1977 also denounced \u201caspiring leaders\u201d in militant organizations who did not propose what he considered to be constructive action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet whereas Winks was a rather unabashed elitist who had little time for \u201csimple minds<\/a>,\u201d Hill translated the work he gleaned from \u201cobscure historical journals\u201d<\/a> into popular histories. He would work closely with his friend Alan Borovoy, the longtime general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, who defined his anti-racist campaigns against \u201cineffectual intellectuals with no concept of action.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hill and Borovoy may be described as Canadian \u201cshy elitists.\u201d They were uncomfortable with anything that they considered too elitist or radical for Canadian tastes. Yet they also encouraged the public to celebrate and defer to prominent, \u201crespectable\u201d figures in elite institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since we have not ended our dependence on shy elitism, there remains an understandable interest in celebrating Black men and women who have achieved recognition from the Canadian state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, we also need to recognize that Black Canadians are not problems when they do not conform to the model of a quiet leader. They are people who confront the problem of shy elitism in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider some of the challenges faced by the politician, social worker, human rights advocate and academic Rosemary Brown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Conversation recently published an article by Professor Daniel McNeil on Black History\/Futures Month. Below is a short excerpt with the full article, “Black Activists: Quiet and gentle Canadians?” available online. In 1971, the Yale professor Robin Winks wrote that Black Canadians wanted \u201cnothing more than to be accepted as quiet Canadians. In The Blacks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-news"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18823"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18831,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18823\/revisions\/18831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}