About GOLDEN HANDCUFFS and systemic racism

“Golden Handcuffs” is a generic term describing a wide range of compensation plans designed to incentivize top employees to stay with the company for the long term. Following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, a deluge of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) leaders were hired in waves by public agencies and private companies to assist in creating more sensitive and balanced workforces.
However, hamstrung by “Golden Handcuffs” and disillusioned that corporations’ talk of affecting change was just empty words, many DEI experts have disappeared three years after the racist killing inspired them.
I was one of those leaders. In May 2021, I joined the newly created anti-racism Bureau at the City of Montreal and started collecting a six-figure salary plus substantial benefits. I was tasked to help with leading the efforts to address racial and social profiling, particularly within the SPVM, the security services for the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) and the SIM (fire department).
During that year, I witnessed nothing but pushback by most managers, empty rhetoric about affecting change, as well as false promises about tackling racism by so called city leaders. In May 2021, the Bureau and I parted ways, freeing myself from those “Golden Handcuffs”.
But the City of Montreal is not unique.
In June 2020, after a racist video showing two students singing a slur-filled song targeting Black people was widely circulated online, the Lester B. Pearson School Board (LBPSB) unanimously vowed to tackle systemic racism and discrimination in its school system.
Immediately, the LBPSB promised the formation of a task force composed of school staff, students, commissioners and community representatives by Sept. 1. At the time, the Chair of the LBPSB made it clear that this one step was a small one, on a long road toward addressing systemic racism in society and in schools.
The Chair also blamed the school curriculum teachers were expected to follow in the province, which be believed failed to provide appropriate Black history in Quebec. The LBPSB Commissioner went one step further, urging other English school boards and French service centres to take on the challenge of addressing systemic racism.
So, the LBPSB created a Task Force on DEI. The task Force worked for a year and solicited and received testimonies from the public, including accounts from both students and parents who shared their challenges and difficulties in LBPSB schools.
In its report submitted in July 2021, mothers of Black sons who attended LBPSB schools, which have a predominantly white student body, said they felt their sons were being subjected to racism by teaching staff.
For example: “One boy told his mother that his teacher just doesn’t like him because he’s Black […] On one occasion in particular, the young man was suspended because the teacher said that she felt ‘threatened’ by him, however, the young man said that he didn’t do anything but ask why she was sending him down to the office.”
In all, over 100 recommendations were made in the report.
Interestingly enough, the task force identified four major “recurring themes” mainly focusing on “gender” rather than on anti-Black racism, which was the “catalyst” for the creation of the Task Force in the first place.
Professional development for teachers and staff was also identified in the report as being a key element of the work going forward.
Yet, in March 2021 during a virtual presentation to students and staff on the “N” word, a white teacher verbally assaulted the presenter. It remains unclear whether any disciplinary action was ever taken against that staff. Equally concerning, no implementation committee was ever formed to give life to those recommendations.
Hence, it is no surprise that anti-Black racism within the LBPSB continued unabated.
In February 2023, a Black mother came forward and reported that her 13-year-old son was the victim of racist insults and assaulted while participating in a hockey program at John Rennie High School in Pointe-Claire; She also said that the hockey program’s organizers failed to protect her son from racism and that they sanctioned him when he reacted to racial slurs and harassment.
She said she reached out to LBPSB officials about the incident and other alleged acts of racial harassment, but received only vague responses and no information on how to complain against racism, bullying and violence, or any offer for support from the school or school board. “It’s clear that anti-Black racism is not taken seriously by the authorities involved,” she says.
In late April 2023, the Red Coalition was mandated by two Black mothers whose’ sons have been bullied and assaulted by LBPSB employees, to assist them in seeking justice.
These are serious allegations of anti-Black racism, including acts of physical violence perpetrated by school personnel against their children attending Saint-Patrick’s Elementary School in Pincourt which is part of the LBPSB system.
On several occasions, the parents have reported these incidents to the school authorities including the school’s principal, teachers, as well as the LBPSB officials and higher-level administrators including school’s Ombudsman, but they have been dismissed as insignificant.
This is very disheartening, especially after so many of us were hopeful after George Floyd’s murder that organization leaders would be sensitized and committed to combat racism in all its forms. The grandiose gestures that so many made in the wake of that racist murder attest to the superficial and flippant understanding of structural racism, and the importance of intentional and rectifying anti-racist initiatives that make a real impact.
On Friday April 28th, the Red Coalition (RC) sent a letter to the LBPSB requesting an immediate meeting with its administration in order to discuss these serious racially sensitive matters. The RC has also engaged and requested the Quebec Ministry of Education and the Anti-Racism Minister to investigate these matters.
I have rid myself of those “Golden Handcuffs” for a reason: we can’t talk about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, where there is racism and discrimination! Stay tuned.