The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Do We Need a Different Way to Talk About 'Black Excellence'?

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

With hashtags or even school programs called Black Excellence, a term that praises Black individuals for their accomplishments, is it time to have more conversation about the constructed and racialized societal expectations of what it means to be an exceptional Black person? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you've ever scrolled through social media, you may have come across the hashtag Black Excellence. The phrase emerged out of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and it's now a term used to amplify and celebrate the achievements of black people. It gained prominence during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. School programs are named after it. But question, does Black Excellence encourage Black people to sacrifice their mental health for the sake of societal expectations?

Can the term do more harm than good? To discuss, we've assembled a group of excellent Black individuals, starting with Nathan Andrews, associate professor in the Department of Political Science at McMaster University in Hamilton. He joins us on the line from Vancouver, BC. In the nation's capital, Gerald Grant, principal investigator and co-lead of the Black Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub and professor of information systems at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University. And with us here in the studio, Cheryl Thompson, Associate Professor in the School of Performance

at Toronto Metropolitan University, and Tracy Moore, host at City TV here in Toronto. And it's great to welcome you two here to our studio and to our friends and points beyond. Thanks for joining us tonight here on TVO. Tracy, you first. You do not hear people use the expression white excellence, but apparently black excellence is a thing.

Sure is. How come? Well, can we just start with the definition? I looked up a definition, and this is it. Black excellence is the embodiment of resilience through trauma, confrontation of adversity, and perseverance through struggles, while consistently pushing the boundaries of progress

to achieve our goals. Who wants to do that? As soon as I read that, that sounds to me so exhausting. And Doc, you know this experience, and I know this experience. And I'm sure the professors on the line know the experience as well. Black excellence was something I think

that was coined to uplift. And it has, in many ways, become a bit of a prison. It's exhausting to think that you have to look at our experience from a gaze from outside of our community. We need to actually put ourselves in front of this idea of excellence. I'm into black mediocrity. I want to be able to just live, get up, go to work, pay

my taxes, and not be penalized for that. OK, hold that thought. We're going to get back to black mediocrity. But first, more on black excellence. Do you relate to this? I completely relate to it. And I think, to your point, if you think about the 1960s, you needed something to aspire to, right?

Like, black excellence is aspirational, and that's great. But my question is, it doesn't, my statement rather, it doesn't leave room for mistakes. So now the black person has to be perfect in everything that they do. One little mistake, it's like you're personally flawed. You didn't make a mistake. Something's actually wrong with you because you're not excellent. Whereas I look around at colleagues who are not black, and they could be average.

They're allowed to be, you say. They're allowed to be average. Society lets them be. That is probably, or they could be great, or they could be poor. It doesn't matter, right? They could be the range of experiences. With us, we're held to such a standard that after a while it really does

feel like a prison that you're in. Nathan, how do you weigh in on this? So my perspective is similar actually. And I also think that there is the need for the celebration of excellence, right? So because black, especially in academia, black people have often been underrepresented. Their contributions have not been celebrated well enough. So I think that sort of concept or hashtag helps to celebrate those contributions. And to highlight

that, oh, these people are also contributing. But then the problem is that we live, the problem is the system that we live in that makes it worth bringing up such hashtags, right? Because ideally, we should be in a system where every contribution is celebrated. If people don't want to achieve anything at all, that should also be fine. But we live in a system where whiteness is the mainstream. And in such a system, white excellence is sort of considered to be the status quo. So for a black person, expected, a black person is

expected to do way more and to stand out and to be extraordinary. Right? So it's the sort of the notion of black exceptionalism that my colleagues have spoken to that makes it problematic. And it really conceals systemic barriers and pressures that we all face and sort of places us in a very unique position. And at the same time, it multiplies the institutional and societal expectations of Black people, that we need to do more. Look at this person, he's achieved all that. You can also do it. And then we forget about the systemic problems that would prevent every Black person or most Black people from achieving those specific goals.

Gerald, let me get your take on this notion of black excellence. What do you think? Well, being excellent is a good thing, right? Being excellent at your work and your craft is something that is good. But this idea, this exceptional idea of being of black excellence, I think, as my colleagues have said, is problematic in many ways. It can be psychologically damaging to people because I've seen black

young people especially who find that, you know, they might not have achieved the level that they're looking for, or that expectations that are on them to achieve, they feel like they have not done anything, that they're not good enough when they're doing really excellent work if we were to take it, you know, like everybody else. So I think I definitely feel that we need to be excellent in what we do to be our best selves. But this expectation of being exceptional to just gain half, to be twice as good for half the rewards as the saying goes, is not something that we should push too far.

Now as we continue our conversation, we also know how tough it is to get around this capital city of ours. So let me welcome Mitzi Hunter, who has just arrived. She's the president and CEO at the Canadian Women's Foundation. You know her, of course, as a former Ontario cabinet minister and I believe a board member here at TVO once upon a time. Six years. Six years here. Okay, Mitzi, great to see you again. of course, as a former Ontario cabinet minister and I believe a board member here at TVO once upon a time. Six years.

Six years here. Okay, Mitzi, great to see you again. Weigh in on this, if you would, from the standpoint of the following. I wonder if the lack of comfort I'm hearing around this literal and metaphorical table about black excellence is because there's somehow a view out there that it's so rare we have to put a label on it. Do you feel that from time to time? Not at this stage. When I think of black excellence, I think about who is it for? And oftentimes it's really an aspirational notion that is put out there.

And it does recognize that it's challenging. It's challenging to exist in society, to be a woman, to be a black woman, to be a black boy, a black man, because there are impressions that are put upon us that may not reflect the reality of who we are. Put upon you by whom? Society. Everybody else. There are biases.

I mean, many of them are well documented. Just look at policing. You know, it was recognized and reported. Anytime you look at disaggregated data of any kind, health, education, employment, whatever statistic, prison records, anything, you recognize that there are biases in the society that are disproportionately affecting people. And so the notion of black excellence is a counter to that. And you know, I think of young people and, you know, making sure that they feel that they can live in existing

in society and to live up to their full potential and to exist without barrier. Does part Tracey does part of your unhappiness or taking offense at this term relate to the thing I just mentioned in that there's this sense that black excellence is not commonplace enough in our society, and therefore we have to call it something and name it so that one can take pride? I think from our perspective, I understand

where the notion came from. We are not recognized in the wider society. And our achievements aren't recognized. And our inventors and our scientists and our doctors and our history and our legacies aren't recognized. So I understand where the notion of black excellence came from. And I'm sure it came from inside our community. Am I right? So if it comes from inside of our community,

it is something that was supposed to be aspirational, as both of you have mentioned, and something that's supposed to make us feel a sense of pride. You need the self-esteem, you need the pride in order for us to be able to go forward in life. But I think what it's become now is it's become something that feels almost like it is from the white gaze

looking at us. And if that is the situation, then we need out. Save it. We need out. What I'm saying is we need to come up with our own notions of what we feel are success. And they are not necessarily going to be Serena Williams and Simone Biles.

I should be able to get through life and achieve whatever I want to achieve or not much at all, and still be respected as an individual or not much at all and still be respected as an individual and not be harassed in the streets and be able to stand in the mall and maybe not spend any money without being chased out by a security guard. Like, we have to be able to move through life like other people can move through life. Well, that relates to excellence versus exceptionalism. Exactly.

And that's what I was going to say. The reality is black people are excellent. Take any field, right? You can see excellence in any field, any age, right? That's not the problem. Really, black excellence for me is like a code for black exceptionalism. So they take the exception, and now they

want to hold that person and say, this is the standard that now we're going gonna sort of measure every black person up against or conversely they say you're it's because you're so exceptional why you got here so you're like a different black person right like how did you do this as a black person you're so exceptional and it's like well I went to public school I had black parents and black friends. I did the same things that everyone else did, just like my white colleagues who are exceptional.

So this is where it gets into that tricky difference between excellence and exceptionalism. I want to be excellent. I don't want to be exceptional. I don't want to be this outlier. And I feel sometimes, especially in academia, the black person who wins awards and is always their name is everywhere, they become this unicorn.

They have no peer group. They have no one to talk to. They are literally marooned in their exceptionalism. And I don't think that's excellent because every black person, in my opinion, if we're going to thrive, if you take that original definition from the 1960s, why did it come out of the 1960s? Because there was so much collectivism. There was black community organizing, and they thought of themselves as a whole, and

everything was moving in unison. Now in my opinion, there is so much individualism that they want to pluck out the one black person and just see them as an individual, not as a community. opinion there is so much individualism that they want to pluck out the one black person and just see them as an individual, not as a community. Let me get Nathan to follow up in this regard and we're going to peel back the curtain of academia a bit here and find out about academic tokenism. How do you see it? What do you think of it?

Well, so that is a consensual aspect of black excellence. Because the idea of being a black icon, which my colleague was referring to, is like you are the exceptional case in a department. And for me, I'm a beneficiary of a cohort hire at McMaster, a black cohort hire. So I can speak to that later on, but I just want to say that that was a time when I entered the institution, I entered the department, and I felt like I was the only black professor. And so that way you

are, or in that department, not the whole school, of course, but you are the person that they go to for certain types of things. So you are the person they go to, they want to have a blackface, or they have some initiatives going on, and they want to show diversity, you are the person they will call upon. That feels tokenistic, right? In a way, and that really adds to the pressure that you experience as an academic. Because I mean, on top of all the work you have to do as an academic, public school to conference, teach,

you're not gonna get a teaching reduction because you are doing all these things as a token, as a black token, but they still expect you to, and they expect you to do it at a very exceptional or at a very excellent level and that becomes problematic. If there's a chance for me to just share a little bit of my experience. So in my own case, I grew up in Ghana, I had my higher education in Ghana until my early 20s before I came to Canada. So everything around me, everything I was aspiring to was black. Everyone that I saw that I wanted to be a proud person

was a black person. So it wasn't really an exceptional case. I came to Canada and I noticed it is really exceptional in a way because if you look at academia, even though you have high school people at that level, there's lots of black people, lots of people from all races. When they go up to the university level and beyond that to PhD, the number reduces.

And I think that's where this idea of excellence comes from, because the number has reduced. How come these people were able to make it through all the struggles and all the hindrances that would prevent people from getting there? And that's why when you get to that point, you become a token, because you seem to have thrived. And the definition that was shared earlier on,

you have made it through this whole system that would typically prevent you from getting that far. But that the notion of tokenism is a problem, and it causes a lot of mental health issues for people that are in these positions. Let me follow up with Gerald then. How should black excellence be reframed or reconsidered to make it more palatable?

Well, I don't know if we want to make black excellence more palatable in the sense that we've been talking about it. You know, when I started out, when I went to school to be where I am, I didn't think about this notion of Black excellence in the sense that we've been discussing it. I thought about it as a way as trying to achieve what I wanted to be as a person, as a, you know, for myself. I wanted to be an academic, to live the life of an academic just like everybody else who are academics. I didn't go there to be a black academic or anything like that. I wanted to be at one of the best schools in the world.

And that's what I did. And I think of myself that way. The challenge is though, is that you are made a token by those who are looking on because of many experiences I've had, you know, going to different schools or swan, you're not given the same opportunities, you're always, what should I say, the structures, the institutions that are around in academia are not there to help you to get along just like everybody else. And you have to be treated, you're treated really as the exception. One thing I'd like to say is that this is an issue that is relevant to here. Just this last week, I was in the Caribbean at a conference of excellent black people talking about AI. And I didn't, this whole notion of exceptionalism was not there.

We were a whole bunch of people in the space talking about artificial intelligence and its impact on the South. And it was just such an excellent feeling. It was such a great place to be without feeling like you're a token. I would say that excellence is built in community. And I think someone referenced that already, with the mentoring and all around support. And I think that's what we need to start looking more to,

building networks that will uplift our excellent work. Can I just add to that just quickly? Because I think one of the things you have to understand that will uplift our excellent work. I want to say- Can I just add to that just quickly? Sure. Because I think one of the things you have to understand in terms of the, if we're talking about academia, I mean it starts in grad school, right? Like when you, if you're a black PhD student in Canada, you're probably the only one in that program.

Maybe there's someone else, but they're doing something different. So you're already kind of set up to feel a little tokenized. The moment you enter grads, undergrad is different, right? And I'm just a quick story. I remember when I have a PhD from McGill University. That's not bad. That's not bad. When I walked that graduation stage, the crowd gasped.

Come on. There was a noticeable gasp because there were so many graduates, and I was the only black one. And they were just shocked. Like, I think it was just a complete shock. Like, McGill is producing this because they've never seen it before. I was the only PhD.

What year was that? That was 2015. That's not that long ago. That's not that long ago. Okay. And I was the only one. So I think that's part of the issue too. I want to take Mitzi Hunter down memory lane here for a little bit and that is when you were at the cabinet table in

Kathleen Wynne's government were you the only black face at the table? Yes, I was the well no no I wasn't the only black face at the cabinet table because Michael Coteau was my colleague I was the only black woman and you know, I'm not surprised at the experience that you've had because if you go back to universities in this country, at one point they weren't accepting black students in programs in medicine and law. And that's why we now have the Scarborough Charter, which 54 universities and colleges have signed on to, to correct those wrongs of the past and to even the playing field

because it was so uneven. My follow-up question for you was, and I'm going to date myself a bit here, but I do remember covering Alvin Kerling swearing in as the first black cabinet minister in Ontario history almost 40 years ago. And I remember talking to him years later, and he said, I had a headache every day I showed up for work in the first year that I was a cabinet minister because I felt so much pressure not to disappoint

the members of my broader community. And I'm wondering whether you felt that same thing at the cabinet table, that pressure to be excellent. I didn't because Alvin Kerling had been there, Marianne Chambers, Margaret Bast. You know, I grew up in Scarborough. Zanina Konde. Zanina Konde. I grew up in Scarborough where I saw Alvin Kerling, Dr. Alvin Kerling. I, you know, met with Dr. Jean Augustine. I had the opportunity to really touch those incredible role models.

And that's why I hold the premise that, you know, what are we talking about Black excellence for? I believe it is for that generation that is coming up because they need to see it to be it. And it's a very important concept. Our history that is real has created uneven playing fields. I'm sure you know that Lenard Braithwaite was the person who called out the discrimination built into the education system and saying that we don't need segregated laws on our books because that is the history of education in Ontario. And so there is a reason why we have to hold these new archetypes

and create new realities and aspirations. And yes, it is exhausting and it's a weight that we carry, but there's a reason because there's a future generation that is looking to us. Tracy, you're one of the... Oh, sorry, you wanted to say something. I was actually going to say I felt all the pressure. I felt it every single day from the minute I walked in to start hosting CityLine. It was prevalent.

It was in front of me. It was in my head. It was almost debilitating. I had to intentionally shut it off every day because I was the only black presence in that room. None of the camera crews, none of the producers, none of the audience. It was me.

And I felt my community, the hope they had put in me to carry out this role, I really did not feel there was any room for error. Now, did that come from outside or inside? Both. Both. I mean, I am raised by hardworking Jamaican immigrants. My dad took one sick day, and I think it was before I

was born in 1975. So as a mechanical engineer, he went to work every day. My mom as well, 30 plus years working in hospitals. And so the work ethic is it's in there and there is no such thing as not showing up. And so for me, that's the internal struggle I had, but externally, I felt like I had to represent. Like this was a very big deal for people

to be doing lifestyle television. And you did. I did. You did. But the barriers I had to deal with, for sure. I did it. I did it, honey. And I'm so happy I did it. And I'm very proud of my record.

But I don't want my kids to feel that amount of pressure while they are going through life. I think it is a beautiful thing when you can sit back and have the space to rest, to daydream, to really think about where you want to spend your time and energy on this planet Earth. And I think that that, to me, is the true wealth. That to me is true excellence. That to me is you have arrived when you have the opportunity to sit back and really imagine

and dream what you would like your reality to be like, rather than having this pressure internally and externally to constantly be at the top. Let me put that to Cheryl. When you got that gasp, when you went up on stage to get your degree and you got that gasp, I wonder if there was a part of you that thought, I'm going to show these folks.

Did you feel that pressure? No. There was a part of me like,, I'm going to show these folks. Did you feel that pressure? No. There was a part of me like, oh my goodness, get me off this stage. I'm surrounded by a white audience. Like, I just felt so. But you have to understand, I had spent five years

in a program where I knew I was the only black person. They just saw that for the first time and had that reaction. I had to live in that existence. And so for me, I feel so much of what you're saying, because as a black academic, sometimes it does feel like that. There's so much pressure to always be sort of black and intellectual and always be this thing. And the reality is that I always remind my black students, remember, you're human first.

So just lean into that. Like you have the same insecurities, problems, challenges as everyone else sitting in the room. But the dean of the law school at your university is a black woman, right? You're not by yourself anymore. Oh, no. Come on.

We can't. We can't. I mean, I don't know, no. We can't. We can't. I mean, I don't know that person. We've never met. And that's just one person in a completely different field. And so what I'm saying to you is I'm talking about people that are in your network.

And like, who's in your network? Are people going to know you? People that you went through the process with. For example, I have white colleagues. They went to grad school just like me, they are still friends with those people they went to grad school with, because they're like a cohort together. And you are not.

I just have me. Yeah. Right? And I have the new colleagues that I met, and so I've, and I've built my own networks, I'm not, this is not a sob story, like I've built my own networks, I'm only pointing out is that when you are the only one,

and I think I'm speaking to a lot of people who understand this feeling, the only one bears a lot of pressure to be perfect, and you can internalize that need to be perfect. And then your whole life ends up not being very well, self-care, sleep, taking care of yourself, and realizing that you actually don't have to be perfect. If you get through the struggle, which I did, you will meet other people and they

will be able to relate to you and you can grow. So that's really the positive spin to what I'm saying. Gerald, I see you trying to get in. No, I just wanted, you know, my first job back in Canada was at McGill teaching at the business school. I stayed there for a year and a lot of the issues that we're raising here might be connected to why I'm not there. But I was the only one, of course, in the whole faculty, so I know what it feels like. What I would say though is that what I've tried to do is to build networks, and I think Cheryl, you started to talk about that, is to build networks across the world. So I still have a great cohort from my days at the London School of Economics. In actual fact, we created a conference that we run every year with my colleagues who are not all, you know, they're not black necessarily, but some of them people of color from different parts of the world.

And we deliberately focus on bringing our conference to places like South Africa, like South America, to all of these places to build networks and to give people opportunity. And here in Canada, I'm now leading the Black Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub. One of the things that I've done, because I realized that I was not going to, there was no one to replace me when I retire in my business school per se, right, or in the community overall in business schools across Canada. And therefore in our programs we've built in that graduate students, every project that we fund must have a black graduate student or undergraduate student as part of that process to build that cohort of people

who can then come up through the ranks. Because if they're not there right now in undergrad, they won't be there 10 years from now. And so we have to start building that network. And that's what I've been trying to do all my lives across academia, both here and across the world where I have lots of activity going on. Let me get Mitzi Hunter to follow up on that.

I think I wanted to say the importance of disaggregated data is important in Canada. It's something that we don't have and we don't really measure. The Prosperity Project put out the zero scorecard report that looks at the corporate world and in terms of women and how women are progressing. And it turns out that when you look at black indigenous women, it's less than a percentage. It's actually 0.8% of corporate leaders, board level, C-suite level that are black or that are indigenous.

And if we're not looking at, one of the challenges in that scorecard is that there is no pipeline. So there's no putting forward that next generation of managers, directors, and leaders that can take on those roles. And so unless we are measuring and tracking and really being intentional about promotion, then that does not happen. And it's not because the talent is not there. It's because the talent needs to be sought out and there needs to be a space of belonging and inclusion at all stratas in order for people to feel that they are included. How do you fix that? Well, I mean you can be intentional. You know, just as our professor rightly said, you can actually require it, open

space, have training, promotion, and support. And one of the things about our topic today about Black excellence is, you know, society needs to accept that it is there, it exists. People of all backgrounds are very talented and want to contribute. The opportunities to do so need to be created. Those doors need to be opened up. People need to be, in terms of where they're recruited from, sought out, given the opportunity, told about the opportunity so that they

can compete fairly for it. But I think the question is, you know, is excellence something that you have to come innately, you know, inhabiting? Or is it something that you can develop? Like, a pipeline is really that you're going to develop the talent. And I think often, black people black people were not given that room.

It's like you're not going to be excellent when you just finished university. You know, you just got, you just started. So there's things to learn, but I feel like that's where this thing has this grip where even at that young age, you have to aspire to a level that is, you know, someone's been working 10 years to aspire to, and you're supposed to graduate and already be there. It's such an unrealistic bar. Double standard. Complete double standard.

You're someone who spends some time on social media, right, Tracy? Quite a bit, yes. Okay. Do you ever on X use the hashtag black excellence? No, I don't think I ever do. First of all, I'm not on X. I got off of that app. That app does not work for me.

But I would say on Instagram or TikTok or Facebook, no, I would never hashtag black excellence. And it's not because I'm not, I am excellent. We all are. You know, like I see excellence all the time. I see it in elementary school. I see it on sports fields. I see it at the gym.

I see black excellence everywhere. My parents are my absolute idols. And it's not because they are Fortune 500 CEOs. It is the way they approach living and what they have brought to my sister and I, a sense of contentment and gratitude that I think is a beautiful thing to aspire to. But you see, the things I'm talking about, they're difficult to quantify.

And that's why black excellence to me, I have this a bit of a pull and attention with. So no, I don't hashtag anything black excellence. I'm a black woman in the world and I'm living. Nice. That's what I am doing. I am living, I am loving, I am enjoying, I am resting, I'm living. Nice. That's what I am doing. I like that. I am living. I am loving. I am enjoying. I am resting. I'm alive.

That's it. That's all that's expected of me. Can I say, you sure are. You sure are. Right on. Right on. Nathan Andrews, can I get you to weigh in on that? That's funny.

So I was going to make an initial point about how the way we're talking, I think some immigrant parents are probably sitting at home saying, what are they talking about? I mean, we want our kids to be excellent. We want them to win awards. We want them to be great and to be recognized by society because they've lived it and they know that, especially if you're a first generation academic, I grew up in a family. I'm the only person to have gotten a PhD in my family even till date. So there's a lot of pressure on my shoulders and you know if you have immigrant parents you know that they will push you to do that. The challenge though is that the pressure

is coming from internal and external but then we don't we celebrate excellence as an individualistic thing. I mean that's what my colleagues have been saying so far. We should think of excellence as communal and begin to think about the communities that make these people excellent. And how do we recognize these communities that make these people excellent? So I mean, if you think about communities, you can begin to celebrate things such as black joy, black love, black hope, all of those. I mean, those can be hashtags. And I do use the black excellence hashtag occasion I used just last week, actually. Because I think it's important to keep it in context,

to understand that, yes, if someone is excellent and they are also Black, it needs to be celebrated. But that doesn't mean we should hold Black people to a different threshold. One example, McMaster did this cohort hire and they have a program called Thrive. And the idea is to build a community for the new Black scholars that have come into the institution, but I've been some of the people

that exist already. I think it's about 15 to 20 new scholars that they hired in the past two to three years. And that has been great because you get to be part of a community. You don't feel like an icon by yourself. You don't feel isolated. but you do feel like being part of a bigger community that is striving for change and transformation in academic spaces. So such a program is important and is a way to build community even though, even in the same time as we celebrate in, you know, individual achievements. Cheryl, I want to follow up with you on something that Mitzi said a little while ago, and that was she said she didn't feel those pressure headaches at the cabinet table because there had been others that came before her.

The notion of having role models, how important is that to this conversation we're having? First of all, I do hashtag black excellence. You're allowed. You're allowed to be out there. Role models are everything. I see myself as a role model. Of course. I went to McGill. I see myself as a role model. Of course. I went to McGill.

I have a PhD. That's a big deal. Do your students see you that way? Yes, they do. They do. They often do. And I take that seriously. And I want to, so for me, part of black excellence

that I would love is mentorship. Like, I think mentorship is so important. It kind of speaks to what you're saying, right? It's like, that's how you build the pipeline. If you, like, paying it forward. All of those old school things that my parents also brought me up thinking about is that if you succeed then you're supposed to help other people succeed, right? And I fully believe in that. However, sometimes in academia, you know, it just happens. I mean it's happened to me where you go to a conference and you've read someone's work, like, you know,

they were so fundamental in your learning and then you meet them and you're like, oh. So you have this like cringiness that maybe they're not who you thought they were kind of thing. So I always say to any young person who's looking for the role model, understand that they're also human

and you can like their work and separate it from maybe the person that maybe you realize They don't really we're not the same type of person but their work can stand up and I think one of the things that I Love about being an academic is that everything I do is legacy Every article is really legacy because when I'm gone that article is still searchable Yeah, when I write that book that book will still be read. So I take that legacy mindset very seriously. That's why I am productive. That's why I am excellent. I'm not thinking about the adoration so much as 20 years from now when there's a black student who doesn't

know me, they don't even know who I am, they can still find my work and engage with it. And I think that's, to me, that's the community part that was mentioned. That's the mentorship. That's the excellence that takes it out of one person and thinks about the generational ways that you can build wealth. Because I also think that's wealth.

Yeah. Less than two minutes to go, and I want to put this to Mitzi. Just as you had role models to help you on your journey through Queens Park. You do understand that for young teenage black girls or young black girls in their 20s, you're their role model, right? Your experience at Queens Park may help open a door for them at some point in the future.

How does that feel to you? I welcome it. You know, I attended my high school 60th anniversary at Winston Churchill Collegiate, which has the Leonard Braithwaite program. It's a black excellence school. It's in Scarborough. It's in Scarborough. I went to Cedar Brae, just putting it out there. That's okay.

Did that make you enemies? No, we're friends. Scar's OK. That's OK. Does that make you enemies? No, we're friends. No, we're friends. We're friends. Totally, totally. And it's incredibly important that we show up for the younger generation. And what I love about our conversation today is just the diversity of what I see as excellent voices

in their professions, in their craft, what they do. And what I want for the next generation is that they can grow up and see themselves without barrier or hindrance and choose their path. And that's really important, that they see themselves as belonging in whatever part of society and that they're not excluded. And so if that requires me to be out there and to put myself out there

and to break through barriers, you know, the first black woman to run, to lead a party in Ontario or the first black woman to be Minister of Education, I'm not going to be the last because I know that others who look like me are just as capable of taking on these roles. Sometimes you do just have to see someone else doing it to recognize your own potential. That line is really true isn't it? If you can see it you can be it. You can, yes. That's a beautiful place to leave this discussion. Mr. Director, can I get a five-shot of all our guests please? I want to thank Nathan Andrews from McMaster University,

Gerald Grant from Carleton University, Mitzi Hunter, Canadian Women's Foundation, the former Ontario Minister of Education, Tracy Moore, City TV host, Cheryl Thompson, Toronto Metropolitan University. Great to have all of you on TVO tonight. Thanks so much. Thanks, Steve. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.