ICYMI – Gee: A party to celebrate a mistake

2025/07/22 Leave a comment

More on ill-advised naming decisions:

…Sankofa Square is the obscure new name for Yonge-Dundas Square, the one-acre public space at the corner of Yonge and Dundas streets, right across from the Eaton Centre. Sankofa Day, its organizers tell us, is another name for the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition.

In 2021, the city government decided to erase the name Dundas from the square bearing his name. It was a time when statues were being toppled and historical figures cancelled in the name of social justice. 

Henry Dundas was a leading British statesman of the Georgian era. His critics say he was responsible for delaying the end of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. His defenders say he was a sincere opponent of slavery who orchestrated a tactical delay in parliament to pave the way for eventual abolition.

City councillors brushed aside these complexities and voted to rename the square, though not the street (which would be too expensive). Various new names were kicked around. One suggestion was Lightfoot Square, after the iconic singer who played many times at Massey Hall around the corner. But, no, that would have been too easy.

Instead, the city struck a committee: the Recognition Review Community Advisory Committee, in fact. After what the group that runs the square calls “two years of careful work,” it announced its choice. Yonge-Dundas Square would become Sankofa Square. 

Torontonians were understandably bewildered. They still are. What or who is Sankofa? The square’s website explains that “Sankofa (SAHN-koh-fah) is a Twi word from the Akan Tribe of Ghana that loosely translates to, ‘go back and get it.’” The phrase “encourages learning from the past to inform the future.”

A-ha. Not surprisingly, the name has failed to catch on. Does anybody ever say, “Meet you at Sankofa Square?”

The name has no connection to Toronto or its history. Worse, after the name came out, critics pointed out that the Akan people themselves once kept and traded slaves. Awkward….

Source: A party to celebrate a mistake

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Lynn McDonald: Get the facts right before condemning the past

2023/03/15 Leave a comment

Worth noting:

The City of Toronto’s decision to rename Dundas Street probably helped the then Ryerson University administration to decide on its renaming — it was well along the way. The renaming forces at Ryerson, in turn, likely inspired a University of Toronto student to call for the renaming of Woodsworth College, founded in 1974 in honour of James Shaver Woodsworth on the centenary of his birth.

This proposed renaming, which appeared to go nowhere, appeared in a student newspaper, The Innis Herald. The 2020 opinion piece by Marloes Streppel denounced Woodsworth for his (supposed) support of residential schools and the “forced relocation of approximately 150,000 Indigenous children,” with their “severe neglect, sexual and physical abuse, and starvation.” Streppel’s op-ed, “James S. Woodsworth: A man to remember, never to glorify,” even had Woodsworth consider “cultural genocide” to be “satisfactory,” “from the white man’s standpoint.”

The trouble is that she based some of her remarks on an article by a different Woodsworth — Joseph Francis (J.F.) Woodsworth, principal of the Edmonton Residential School from 1925 to 1946. His article, “Problems of Indian Education in Canada,” appeared in a book, The North American Indian Today, 1939, which includes not a reference to J.S. Woodsworth, or Egerton Ryerson for that matter, in its 361 pages. Moreover, J.F. Woodsworth himself questioned the residential school system in his article:

“I have often been possessed of a sense of guilt in going into the Indian home or tepee and taking little children from that home, sometimes at bedtime hour, when the mother should be putting her child to rest for the night, and in rushing with my load of children into the night miles away, to put them into my school. It is true that they trusted me and were in a way willing for the children to go — but it was not essentially right. Yet the bulk of our Indian youth is at present in residential schools. These schools may be efficient, but we must not sacrifice the spirit and souls of these people, to say nothing of the joy of home and children, upon the altar of efficiency.”

Both Woodsworths were Methodist ministers, but had nothing else in common. J.S. Woodsworth was a leading advocate for welfare reform, the right of workers to unionize, and the first leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, later called the New Democratic Party. In the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike, he went to jail briefly for seditious libel, notably for quoting the Book of Isaiah: “They will build houses and inhabit them.” What a subversive housing policy!

Streppel went on to describe J.S. Woodsworth as “racist” for his book “Strangers Within Our Gates: or, coming Canadians,” 1909, for classifying people according to their “race and country of origin.” Given that the book is about immigrants, that would seem to be the point. It gives a sympathetic account of the difficulties non-British immigrants experience in Canada.

It is troubling to see a university student so inept at reference checking, but the president of Victoria University (University of Toronto), Dr. William Robins, was just as inaccurate in 2021 in calling for the renaming of Victoria University’s Ryerson residence and Ryerson scholarships. Robins had Ryerson proposing “residential schools,” a term he never used, “to “train students to become agricultural labourers.” Yet Ryerson’s proposal was for “industrial schools” to teach Indigenous youth who wanted to learn farming. He looked to their becoming “overseers of some of the largest farms in Canada,” or “industrious and prosperous farmers on their own account.” He also set out an academic program far beyond what “agricultural labourers” would require: English, arithmetic, elementary geometry, geography, general history, natural history, agricultural chemistry, writing, drawing, vocal music, religion, morals and book-keeping (for farm accounts). The summer program would have more reading and vocal music, with the natural history of the plants, vegetables, trees, birds and animals of the country, with its geography and history.

The year 2024 will mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of Woodsworth College. Might we hope for a real celebration there, and the continued running of Dundas streetcars? The one Dundas name I would like to see removed — and it would not be costly — is Dundas Square. It should be renamed “Ryerson Square,” which could not happen until people realize how they were hoodwinked into blaming Ryerson for what others did in the residential school system. He supported rather the voluntary, bilingual schools Indigenous leaders and parents wanted. He was honoured by an Ojibway chief, who called him “brother” and gave him an Ojibway name. Dundas Square is close to where Canada’s first teacher training college stood, established by Ryerson, the founder also of free public education in Canada, when it was a revolutionary idea.

Source: Lynn McDonald: Get the facts right before condemning the past

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Kerr: Renaming Dundas Street, or other landmarks, won’t help Black people

2020/06/25 Leave a comment

Agree. The symbolic is easier than the substantive, where the focus should be:

Would renaming COVID-19 make it less deadly? You know the answer.

But what about Dundas Street? Renaming it might “correct” a historical wrong – but would doing so make the underlying issue of systemic racism go away?

More than 14,000 people have signed a petition to rename the major arterial road named after Henry Dundas, a Scottish politician who obstructed the abolition of slavery in the late 18th century. The effort is serious enough that the city of Toronto will form a working group to examine the issue.

But the events that galvanized this movement to rename Dundas Street, along with other landmarks in Canada, are exactly why renaming efforts shouldn’t happen, at least not right away. We are still reckoning with racism and the many forms it takes, from workplace discrimination to police brutality, as seen in the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. These killings have ignited protests and important conversations. Toronto’s board of health just declared anti-Black racism a public health crisis.

There are bold proposals in the zeitgeist to fix things: defund the police, give descendants of African slaves reparations, hire more Black people in leadership roles. Like them or not, these ideas would actually do something to change Black people’s lives. Renaming Dundas Street won’t.

Andrew Lochhead, who started the petition, argues that this is not an either-or situation. We can rename the street and implement policy to address systemic racism.

“I don’t want the issue of renaming streets to necessarily overtake that conversation, because I think they’re inextricably linked,” Mr. Lochhead told me over the phone.

“While I understand it’s a largely symbolic gesture … it’s not outside of investing in communities, it’s not disconnected from other causes like defunding the police.”

There is a connection, but until city councils can freeze time and print money, there is always a question of what to prioritize. With COVID-19 putting significant pressure on municipal budgets, the only option is to be pragmatic and focus on implementing policies that will have a tangible impact on Black lives. One way to do this is to give Black voices the authority to make change.

“Black people have been warning about police brutality for decades … it’s not the folks who were perpetuating the system who are going to lead,” Cheryll Case, an urban planner based in Toronto told me. Ms. Case wants to see the city hire a Black consultant to audit its planning process.

“The issue in planning is that it is not confronting privilege, nor is it confronting discrimination. And by ignoring those topics, you actually further deepen the wounds of discrimination and subjugation.”

In a city gasping for more affordable housing, Ms. Case suggests creating an incentive for developers that would defer certain costs if they build affordable units. According to Toronto’s 2016 census, Black people make up 9 per cent of the population, but account for 13 per cent of the residents of low-income neighbourhoods.

The Parliamentary Black Caucus made the need for better policy clear in a recent statement.

“This is not a time for further discussion – the Afro-Canadian community has spoken for many years and is no longer interested in continued consultation,” it read.

“Black Canadians are in a state of crisis: it is time to act. Words and symbolic gestures, while important, are not enough.”

The Caucus proposes that the government ban racial profiling from the RCMP, invest in Black heritage organizations and increase the number of government procurement contracts for Black-owned businesses.

These ideas look pretty on paper, but it might not be easy to turn them into laws, which is why political resources must be focused on policy, not symbolism. The true cost of renaming Dundas Street is all the time, effort and money that could have been spent helping Black communities in more tangible ways.

What about the financial costs? Mr. Lochhead told me he hasn’t “taken the time to look into” the price of renaming Dundas Street. I don’t know how much it will cost either, but last year, Toronto spent just under $2-million to change the names of two arts centres under its purview. In the city of Toronto, Dundas Street stretches from Etobicoke in the west end, all the way to the Beaches neighbourhood in the east end, and features some of the city’s busiest shopping districts. The cost of changing the street’s signage is going to add up, and those dollars are better spent elsewhere.

Every breath politicians waste on a renaming debate should be spent discussing how to combat racism in schools, or how to address discriminatory fare enforcement officers on the TTC. If Dundas Street or other roads in Toronto are renamed, but Black people are still being harassed on the streetcar routes that traverse them, what has really changed?

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-renaming-dundas-street-or-other-landmarks-wont-help-black-people/

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