Vancouver missing Black ‘ethnoburbs’: experts
Posted February 7, 2023 9:19 pm.
Last Updated February 10, 2023 12:18 pm.
Ethnoburbs are neighbourhoods where a specific racial minority group makes up the majority of the population, and experts say Vancouver doesn’t have anything like that for Black people.
UBC Senior Anti-Racism Advisor Dr. Handel Kashope Wright says Vancouver, and most of British Columbia is missing out on these areas, while many other major Canadian cities are not.
“Any major Canadian city you go to you can find Black ethnoburbs, maybe more than one or two. But in Vancouver, there are none,” he explained.
Dr. June Francis leads the Hogan’s Alley Society. She says that area could have been Vancouver’s Black ethnoburb had it not been for racist redevelopment policies in the 1970’s pushing out Black residents.
“The fragmentation that came as a result of this intentional dispersement and displacement of the black community has had long term impact on the black community here,” said Francis.
Wright says community organizations pick up the rest of the slack, some creating community events outside of Vancouver.
“Black people do come together, but we have to be inventive. One of the unique characteristics of Blackness in B.C., or just the Greater Vancouver area, is that a lot of Blackness is in fact online,” said Wright.
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Moges Seblehiwot is organizing a Black history month event in Burnaby.
“We are trying to put something of value for the mosaic of British Columbia,” he said. “We are celebrating the victory of Adwa, which happened in 1896 in March in Ethiopia. It is the first Black victory against the colonialism power.”
Francis says Surrey has become more of a hub for Black people in recent years since it’s more affordable, but Vancouver is trying to bring the community back.
“We now have an MOU with the City of Vancouver to return the Hogan’s Alley block to the stewardship of the Black community, where the intent there is to create a Black presence in Vancouver, I think that’s going to have a tremendous impact,’ she explained.
