In July 2020, over 50 Black Canadian entertainment professionals signed an open letter to Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Heritage, asking the federal government to work together to eliminate the unacknowledged anti-Black racism in the Canadian screen industries.⁴

The letter stated that projects by Black writers, showrunners, directors and producers are systemically under-financed and under-supported, adding that Canadian funding for inclusion and diversity has gone disproportionately to film and TV projects by women and Indigenous creators. The letter led to the creation of the Black Screen Office in Fall 2020.

Black participants in this research project shared their experiences of anti-Black racism in the industry, which were not as widely discussed at the time of the focus groups in February and March 2020. However, their experiences and stories foretold the sentiments in the open letter. 

“Indigenous people and their stories are given space, but Black people and their stories and their bodies are not.” 

With a proportionally smaller Black community in Vancouver, compared to say, Toronto or Montreal, participants also expressed feeling particularly isolated in the local industry, and being gaslit and invalidated by their non-Black colleagues when asking for the racism or discrimination they experienced to be acknowledged and addressed. One participant attributed this systemic denial to Vancouverites’ perceptions of themselves as polite and progressive.

“Many times I have been the only Black woman in the room or in space. I didn't even know half the time, growing up, all the interactions were violent and racist. Because they were so insidious and microaggressions where they weren’t in your face, but they still made me uncomfortable. I find that is a problem, in this industry especially, when you feel like you’re screaming at people that its a problem and everyone's like, Is it though? I find that you have to prove it is a problem and prove these horrible experiences for them to even care about it.”

“Recently I worked on a commercial, and the first AD said the N-word.” 

Participants also talked about the stereotyping they faced and how other people’s perceptions of Blackness made them feel boxed in and denied their own individuality. 

“When I started doing auditions, I remember being utterly confused and disappointed in what was given or what my options were. When they asked me, Could you talk more ‘urban,’ I remember not knowing what that meant. I was ten years old at the time, and I told my mom that I don't know, I don't relate to these scripts.”

The oppressive nature of colourism, the privileging of light skin over dark, was a barrier Black participants felt from both inside and outside their community.  

“Now that they want people of colour, but if you’re mixed with white, they want you more. To me, that’s really not fair.” 

“I even find now, even within the Black community, it’s really hard to see because people are like, It's getting better, but it's getting better for one kind of person. No one’s thinking dark-skinned Black women are full and complex human beings.”