Black Excellence Gala Speech uOttawa 2022

 uOttawa

Black Exellence Gala

Key Note Speech, 2022

(10 minute read)

I had the honour of being asked by the University of Ottawa’s Black Student-Athlete Advocacy Council (BSAAC) to be the keynote speaker at the first ever University of Ottawa Black Excellence Gala. It was an amazing event, I feel privileged to have been a part of it. Here is what I said . . .

My grandmother died in April of 2019 and I have a lot of things in my house that were hers. One of which is a mug with the Jamaican coat of arms on it. On the coat of arms, it says “out of many, one people.” 

I’m not sure how old I was when I realized it wasn’t a Canadian Christmas tradition to have ackee and saltfish for breakfast. Probably around the same time I discovered rice and peas isn’t a traditional thanksgiving side dish, but I do remember how old I was the first time someone asked me “What are you?”

 I was lucky it happened late in my life. Maybe it happened before, but this was the time that stuck. And maybe because of the conversation with my father that followed it. 

You see, it was my father who I went to for most things. Him or my grandmother.  

My grandmother who left Jamaica at the age of 16. Who lied and said she was 18 to get into nursing school when she got to in England. Who had my father, and moved to Canada when he was 8. 

My father who was one of the only black kids in his high school. Who played hockey and track and listened to classical music and was a star trek fan. 

My father who met my mother, and had me, then adopted my little sister. Who lost my mother to cancer a year and a half after that adoption, when I was six and my sister was four. 

My grandmother was a huge influence, especially after that. 

And she always made the ackee and salt fish for Christmas morning. 

Maybe she was the one I should have gone to when a kid said “what are you?” but no. I went to my dad. 

I was sixteen years old when that conversation happened. Sixteen, can you imagine? I was sixteen years old when I learned I needed to explain my existence to other people. My parents did a good job of teaching me I was and could be anything.   

I guess that’s why, when I was sixteen years old and I came home from school and I said, “Dad, where am I from?”  he said “everywhere.”

You see my mother’s side are WASPs. White Anglo-Saxon protestants. But my maternal grandmother was born in New Zealand. 

My father side is Jamaican, but Paisley is a Scottish surname. My father’s grandmother was Jewish, and somewhere up there in my own grandmother’s family tree is a man from china. 

Out of many, One people. 

But at the time, I didn’t understand that. Not in the way I do now. Then, the answer “everywhere” didn’t make sense to me. So I asked a follow up. 

“Okay Dad,” I said. “Where are you from?”

Then my father said seven words that made me realize he wanted me to die a virgin. He said, “HannaH, I’m a child of the world.”

I couldn’t go to school and say that! Not then! A child of the world? Are you kidding me? That would be social suicide, and it wasn’t even that long ago. 

Maybe you can imagine me saying that and it making sense now, how we live now, in this world that we are trying to build. But then. . . 

Then I was the only bi-racial girl in my year. Then I still thought I was ugly, but really, I just wasn’t white, then I thought that I had to pick a side and I would never really fit into either. Then, I hadn’t fully absorbed what my parents, my grandmother, my mother in her short time with me, were trying to teach me. 

I have now. I know I am everything. I can be anything. And this is only possible because we stand on the shoulders of giants. Because of the people before me who did the work. And now it’s my turn. 

My father passed me the baton, the same one my grandmother had passed to him. To keep working. To keep pushing. 

That is the truest and greatest gift of the excellent black people who have influenced me, through history and in my own life. 

The gift of capacity. To me, in a word, Black Excellence is Capacity. To ability see that there is work to be done, and to do it. Even if it isn’t our job.

 So often we can look at history and see that it is black women who take the brunt of starting social change. Who have the capacity and the daring, to take the first steps in saying, this can be better, and I will make it so. 

And to inspire that capacity in those around them. 

 I touched on this earlier but I want to take a second to talk about my dad. 

My dad, who played hockey in the 70’s. Who ran track for U of T. Who went to teacher’s college at the age of 34. And who, before he retired, taught math, science, gym, drama, and chess at his school. 

This was my example of capacity and black excellence growing up. 

A black man in a world that told him he should be one thing. A man who looked back at the world and said “no.” He learned that from my grandmother. 

I’m sure we have all faced a version of that. The societal expectation that we are only one thing. That we can be only one thing. That if you’re are jock your stupid or if you’re well-spoken you “sound white.” 

My grandmother, who was a nurse in the late fifties, rejected that premise. My father, who was the first male teacher in the Toronto district school board to take paternity leave for adoption, rejected that premise, and so do I.  

I learned this through their actions, their capacity, and their excellence.

As a biracial 6’1, opinionated woman, I didn’t really have a choice but to reject the status quo, but I was one of the only kids in my high school who was playing sports, in the drama program, and the music program.

I do just as many things now, as I did then. Maybe more. While playing professional basketball, I started to write. My third fantasy novel will be coming out in May. I am a personal trainer, but I was also in a musical this year. .  . or I was until Omicron threw us all for a loop. I still coach a little bit of basketball when I can, and I have a YouTube channel.

I refuse to be put into a box. I refuse to swim in my lane, because the women of colour before me broke this trail, and gave me the privileges I have now. 

They fought for my right to be seen as a person, to cast a vote, to be counted. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Those giants passed me the baton to pass on to the next generation. 

I will not waste my opportunity to create change. 

I know that space was made for me here, by the black women of the University of Ottawa who came before. I hope that in my time with the gee-gees, I did the same. That I left something for others to build on. And now I am passing that baton to you. To run with it, and to leave this University better than you found it, even if it’s only in small ways.

Now I am going to say something a little controversial. And if you know me at all, you know that I LOOOOVE to be controversial. In fact, I thrive on conflict. I think that conflict and resolution, with good and thoughtful communication, is how we in this room can and will change the world, but I digress… the controversial thing I’m going to say. The thing that has been made controversial in the last few years, ready? Here is it. 

I am a patriot. I am so fiercely in love with this country, and as we all know, somethings the things we love are not perfect. Sometimes, they are far from it. I believe that being patriotic is loving your country enough to see the flaws, to see the injustices, to see the problems, to love it anyways, and find a way to have the capacity to work to make it better. 

 After the recent events here in Ottawa, we can so easily see that there is a cognitive dissonance in a portion of our population. Almost like people are trying not to see what is right in front of their eyes because that makes the feel uncomfortable. 

Despite that, this is my Canada, one where I have the privilege of walking five minutes to a polling station, in election time. One where we can openly show our displeasure of the government. One where last week in the house of commons, amidst all the current issues of protests, a liberal MP stood up and said “this year’s [Government of Canada] theme is ‘February and Forever: Celebrating Black History today and every day”.” She said, “We need to remember that Black history is Canadian history.” 

And of course, she was right. 

I believe that there are enough of us with the capacity to try, here in Canada, that though the progress is slower than we would like, slower than it should be, it is happening. Things are changing. And it’s our job now to make as much headway as we can, sprinting with the baton, before we pass it off to the next generation. 

So? How do I keep running? How can I dare to reach the excellence of my forbearers? To carry on their legacy? To sprint ahead this baton that was passed from my grandmother to my father to me? 

My grandmother, who once told me about a rope line she wasn’t allowed to cross at a dance party after she arrived on a ship that crossed the Atlantic. Who took a trip with me the summer before she died and touched the pacific. Who would have been so, so proud to see her prime minister kneel at a black lives matter march, because though we have the privilege of pointing at that, calling it performative activism and say it isn’t enough, it would have meant something to her. 

I keep running by being everything the giants before wanted me to have the choice to be. 

So.

I was a pro baller. I’m a coach and a gaming YouTuber. I’m a writer, and I will forever be a big-time geek. I am black, and I am white, but first, I am Canadian. Sometimes I read comic books, and sometimes I watch baseball. I am an activist, and I am a conversationalist. I am a feminist, and I love men. I am an atheist, and I love faith. I am descended of justice warriors. I am a pacifist. I am a fighter. 

I am all of these things, and I am none of them. I reject the status quo and I eat the patriarchy for breakfast. I am a bridge between people who I truly believe can understand each other if we all have the will to try.

I hope I can carry on my family legacy of excellence and I commit to doing the work that needs to be done, to carry the baton even if I only know how to do it in small ways. 

And I hope that the people I interact with will carry it with me. 

Because if we can do that, if we can find the capacity to try, though we are many, we can be one people.