| This thesis examines the experiences of 12 young Black women and men in a hostile tertiary educational environment in Toronto. I critically analyze the impact of racism and racial discrimination on the everyday lives of the Black students, and the fact of schools and university campuses as seemingly uncontested sites for the reproduction of racist power relations and even outright hatred. This is an ethnographic study that utilizes an anti-racist, Black feminist perspective---the perspective of the "strong-willed resister" (Collins, 2000, p.98)---able to locate the racialised participants of this study at the centre of the research as "producers of knowledge and not merely consumer". What is palpable from the students' narratives, presented in their own words, is the need for ongoing critique and confrontation of racial oppression in Canadian society.; The findings of this study provide clear evidence of the fact that despite the oppressive nature of Black life, the structured oppression that Black people face from early childhood in Canadian society, many still manage to succeed in the education system and become productive citizens contributing to overall societal development. Black women and men have managed and continue to manage to do intellectual work at all levels of society and many do this with a fierce commitment to "racial uplift". In fact, the desire to be engaged in self-reflection, self-improvement and community development work evidenced in the statements made by several of the young people interviewed for this study is commendable in view of the various economic and social oppressive forces they face in their own lives.; The young people are empowered to form coalitions with others in and outside their particular communities. They confirm the need for support from academic institutions, governments, community agencies and families to make it possible that they learn their histories so as to gain the knowledge and language to contest the racist attacks that are fully part of the culture of their everyday and which irrefutably permeates every aspect of Canadian society. |
