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what time is it, red deer?

Time to listen to those affected by racism, advocate suggests

Feb 6, 2021 | 9:00 AM

My message to Central Albertans during the Black History Month is: an open mind is prerequisite to progress and innovation is key in unprecedented times.

We have been hard-hit by an extraordinary opportunity in COVID-19 pandemic. Amongst other challenges, insecurity and drug misuse and overdose have in recent times climbed higher in Central Alberta. Businesses have closed down, people are losing their jobs, poverty and (mental) health crises loom all around us.

Maybe an innovative approach is what we need to dig ourselves out of the sinkhole that we are all in right now. Is it time to listen to those whose voices have been silenced and kept buried for years? Or is it a time to bicker and claw at one another politically? Is it time to seek understanding or should we forge on in ignorance and dissidence?

I say: we need to swallow our ego, short-sightedness and small-mindedness, seek forgiveness and make reparations, sit at the table of brother & sisterhood and provide opportunities for the best of us: the best of talents, wit and grit from all ethnicities and backgrounds, because, like we like to say around here: all lives matter.

Black, Indigenous, and People of colour have brought so much progress to Central Alberta and maybe it is time to rethink how we “do business” and approach people who don’t ‘look like us’ with a bit more “compromise” and understanding, applying the same standard by which we would like to be assessed if we were to be in their situation.

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Now more than ever, we need all hands (and heads) on board. We have not heard from certain groups of people- their story, language, history, culture and lifestyle; maybe we haven’t heard enough. At this juncture in our common evolution as a city, we can borrow a leave from Chimamanda Adichie’s all time favourite TED talk on “the dangers of a single story” in 2009 (viewed more than 8 million times on YouTube).

Red Deer, is it time to leverage on the opportunity for introspective discourse and consideration that this pandemic has lately presented to us to “strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees”, to restore what was stolen in dignity and resource, and “to heal the broken-hearted”? Can we for once soliloquize ourselves out of this shameful past? Yes, “past” whether we like it or not, this (prevalent and pernicious situation of subtle discrimination) too shall pass. It may be us or the next generation but someone will move beyond it- we have a choice now to right history by rewriting it our way.

We do not assert, affirm and validate people by giving them crumb-prospects and placating them with pseudo-opportunities that only belittle and undermine their potentials. When we do, it does have a horrid stench of tokenism all over it. Another name for this is “exercise-in-futility” (I know about this well enough as a registered physiotherapist- speaking tongue in cheek). If we want real change and a blissful future for us and all of our children, we must be honest, thoughtful, deliberate and concerted.

However, we can choose this slightly tougher path or we can go on cavalierly playing possum and carrying on with a business-as-usual stride down the easy street. We must only remember the easier route to travel is not always the most rewarding and short-cuts often only lead to cul-de-sacs.

Happy Black History Month, Red Deer!

Sheyi Paul Olubowale is Afro-Canadian, a practising Physiotherapist, Health Services Management consultant and Business owner in Red Deer, AB where he has been resident with Motso his wife of 12 years and their 3 extraordinary young kids since 2007.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The views expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of rdnewsNOW or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group. Column suggestions and letters to the editor can be sent to news@rdnewsNOW.com.