Dr. Warren Clarke has spent much of his academic and professional career helping Black youth overcome social barriers in educational institutions and in the Ontario judicial system.
That’s what led him to start his Barbershop Talk Series, a safe space for Black men and boys to share and explore ways to support Black young men and boys, and their families, while they embark on the school year.
“The program recognizes the importance of paying attention to Black men and boys who encounter anti-Blackness and gender biases in formal learning institutions, which complicate their ways of learning,” said Richmond Opoku-Prempeh, who is working under the mentorship of Clarke at the University of Manitoba.
The series will be coming to Aurora’s C.R.E.A.M Barbershop on Aug. 21. Troy Crossfield, Naeem Al-Amry, and Ryyan Koleric will be the featured speakers at the talk.
“This event will encourage our Black community and non-Black communities to speak with one another while creating a space to appreciate and learn about our vulnerabilities,” a news release for the event said. “The ask from everyone is to establish and maintain solidarity among people in our communities with those of different races, ethnicities, sexualities, gender, ages and any social characteristics a person subscribes with.”
The Barbershop Talks Series is meant to engage the community to talk, but also to encourage people to listen to one another and to raise awareness from within the Black Canadian community about the negative perceptions that work against Black men and boys.
“Although it should be true that all young Canadians of different racial, gender, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds benefit from the Canadian education system equally, certain youth face systemic and institutional barriers in formal learning that have long-term impacts on their academic, personal, and social growth,” a news release for the event said.
A 2021 Canadian study on low-income Black young men and boys revealed that many of these youth drop out of secondary school or barely complete high school due to the stereotypical understandings of these young people's masculinity, coupled with their race, according to the news release.
“Young Black boys who enter the Canadian formal education system at the elementary level, leading into post-secondary learning, encounter anti-Blackness, which at times is coupled with classism and gender biases from many educators, making their lived experiences in Canadian education institutions difficult,” said the news release. “Many who finish high school have faced so many disruptions to their learning due to the anti-Blackness and gender biases that they leave high school with low comprehension levels.”
Part of the reason the series takes place in barbershops is because of the special relationship many Black men have with their barbers. Other barbershop’s collaborating on the series are Winnipeg’s Freshair Boutique and Windsor’s Hayder Barbershop.
“Community barbershops have a long-standing history of being a haven for many Black men to feel a sense of respectability in a safe environment,” said the news release.
The two-hour talk in Aurora will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Monday and be available both via Zoom and in person. Register for the talk here.
