Recently, the (non-Catholic) school board of Toronto decided to start a school that would have an “Afrocentric” curriculum. The ensuing storm of misunderstanding is deplorable.

“Did you hear about the new Black-only school?? Can you believe they are re-instituting segregation?” I’ve heard permutations of this comment several times over the last few months. The Toronto school board decision to open a school with an Afrocentric curriculum has been met with a lot of discussion. While healthy discussion and debate are important to any civic agenda, it’s equally important that the discussion be rooted in facts. Unfortunately, here in southern Ontario, too much of the conversation was about things that weren’t true, particularly the idea that the State was endorsing the re-introduction of segregation in the schools.

Let’s back up for a second. Why are we even thinking about Black-only schools or Blackcentric curricula? Because the Toronto public schools are failing Black youth on a terrifyingly large scale. 40% of Black youth will not graduate from high school in Canada’s largest school district. The number goes up to the mid-40s when we look at young Black men. Black Canadian youth continue to underperform in schools.

Fact: The average Black Canadian is better educated than the average white Canadian and the average Canadian in general.

Truth: Once the average Black Canadian is no longer foreign born, this will no longer be the case. Canada’s strict immigration laws have ensured that only a demographic with above-average education has gained entry to its borders. What we are seeing is that their children are failing to make it through Toronto’s education system.

In other words, something is going wrong here on Canadian soil. The national narrative of multiculturalism succeeds at storytelling and fails at producing positive outcomes for its Black youth, at least in Canada’s economic and cultural capital (sorry Montreal), Toronto.

There are a lot of reasons the school system is failing Black youth, to be sure. Certainly amongst them must be the fact that Black authors, literature that focuses on Blacks, and Black history (American, Canadian, West Indian, African, and English) are not taught in the schools. As discussed over a decade ago by George J. Sefa Dei, Black parents, Black educators, and Black youth have been desperate to get Black stories into the regular school curriculum. But it hasn’t really happened.

On top of all of this, Toronto is very diverse on paper and extremely ghettoized in reality. Well-educated immigrants are admitted to Canada, but they are often not able to get jobs in their line of work due to certification difficulties and other red tape. Immigrants of all colours face discrimination and are more likely to be living in under-privileged and under-funded neighbourhoods. Although the schools are all in the same city and should be benefiting from the same tax dollars, we all know that’s not exactly how it works. (Those of us from Los Angeles know that anyway.)

The end product? A 40% dropout rate that threatens to increase if we don’t do something, and quickly.

So the Toronto school board took radical action. They decided that part of the struggle to improve opportunities and outcomes for Black youth must involve teaching them in a classroom that allows who they are and where they come from to be part of the story that is told. The Afrocentric school is their experiment in an effort to empower Black youth by actively incorporating Black history and Black literature into the curriculum. But let us be clear: this is not intended to be a segregated school.

Some misinformed people think it will be a Black-only school. Others are maliciously misinforming others by not mentioning that the only way this school will be segregated is if Whites (and others) do not send their children to the school. Let me say that again: Whites will have to refuse to participate in one of Ontario’s first experiments with an integrated curriculum in order for this school to be segregated.

Why do I call it an integrated curriculum? Because for the first time it will include (hi)stories that are not just about White Canada and European history (and to the extent that they bother, the First Nations who pre-date Canada).  It will open the door for other histories, such as that of the Chinese who were brought to British Columbia on disgusting terms and treated atrociously. Or that of the Japanese who were interned during World War II, just like in the freedom-loving USA.

Indeed, this is not a segregated curriculum, and it does not discriminate against Whites. This is not reverse discrimination. Instead, it is a glorious challenge to a system that has been unchallenged for too long: one that tells little children of all colours that White was the only one that mattered in the story of peoples and civilizations. Youth will be empowered by knowing of their ancestor’s contributions to the world that was and the world that is. It will help them shape a vision of how they themselves can shape the world that will be.

Thanks to the publicity surrounding the school, we’ve also had an opportunity to learn more about some of Canada’s finest. Not long after the school was announced, a Barrie police officer sent an email to his colleagues insinuating that math classes at the new school would focus primarily on calculations about pimps, hos, bullets, and drug weights. They call it an isolated incident, but I’ve learned that people in Canada call every single fucking instance of racism an isolated incident.

It’s time for a classroom, a curriculum, and a school that tells the story of all of these so-called isolated incidents so that we can see them for the continuous problem that they are. It’s also time for the narrative of Black identity in Canada and the world to be framed not just as a narrative of oppression and injustice, but also as one of achievement and resistance in the face of brutality. From South Africa to London, from Haiti to New Orleans, from Los Angeles to Toronto, we have survived and in many ways, we have thrived, despite the efforts of whole continents to debase and subjugate us. That beautiful triumph is most certainly one for the history books.

Maybe the Afrocentric curriculum will not turn out to be the best way to reverse Toronto’s dizzying drop-out rates. But as a Black administrator at my university who holds a Master’s in Education said on a panel during Black history month earlier this year, “We’ve tried everything. I’m desperate. As a Black mother, I want my kids to know who they are, where they come from and where we can go. We have to try this because nothing else has worked.” I concur.