Inuvik residents march for Black Lives Matter and ask for change

More than 70 Inuvik, N.W.T., residents marched in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement on Friday.

Solidarity marches have happened across the North over the past week. Organizers, demonstrators and supporters of the movement decry police brutality against Black and Indigenous people. 

Minerva Ward carried a poster with the image of Botham Jean, the young man was killed in 2018 by an off-duty Dallas Police officer in his own apartment. 

"Botham is a St. Lucian just like me," Ward said. "I actually know his parents very well." 

Ward said she didn't want her statements to be about "the police, Botham Jean or George Floyd ... I want to talk about Canada."

"While I probably wouldn't be called the N-word to my face in Canada, the racism that exists in Canada is far more deadly," she said.  "Where people smile to your face and undermine you behind your back because of the colour of your skin." 

Ward has lived in Inuvik for about two years working for the Government of the Northwest Territories.

She said she's tired of "token gestures," and wants to see real action coming from the federal and territorial governments.

"Where are the Black people in the GNWT [government of the Northwest Territories]?" she asked.

Ward said she has yet to hear a statement from the territorial government on Black Lives Matter.

"Where is the statement from our cabinet from the Northwest Territories and the GNWT? I challenge them."

"Sorry if I make you uncomfortable but this conversation is uncomfortable and I challenge everyone to have these uncomfortable conversations," Ward said.

Gwich'in Elder Sarah Jerome also spoke about her own experiences with racism, and said "she was here today for their late parents and grandparents … for everything we've gone through since John A. Macdonald started the residential schools in Canada."

She was in residential school for 12 years.

Jerome said she used to have anger and "anybody with light skin I hated because of the residential school and how we were treated."

She said that started to change in 2008 when she went to a Truth and Reconciliation meeting in Vancouver.

"A very distinguished First Nations leader got up and she said to us, 'change your story.' I needed to hear that," said Jerome. "I had to forgive."

Jerome said when she walks down the street "as soon as I see a non-Aboriginal coming, they don't see me. They walk right past me."

Jerome said Black lives matter, and that Indigenous people have gone through similar atrocities that Black people have faced.

The Fort McPherson elder has had a distinguished career that defies easy categorization: a teacher and a principal, a cultural support worker for former residential school students, the assistant superintendent of the Beaufort Delta Education Council and the first official languages commissioner for the Northwest Territories.

She spoke about how she had to prove her worth as an educator and that she could do the job because of the colour of her skin.

"For us First Nations, we have to work even harder. Always proving ourselves."

Julie Donohue-Kpolugbo also spoke about having to prove her worth as a Black woman.

"You may not know that to be Black and successful by my own definition requires me to work harder and longer to get equal respect or at all."

She thanked those who are listening and learning, and allies to the Black community.

Donohue-Kpolugbo also thanked her Indigenous friends and said "that unless we stand together united nothing is ever going to change."

"I make the pledge here to you today my Indigenous friends to continue to listen, learn and do better in action to continue to work toward systemic change in the areas of marginalization of the Indigenous populations and I'd ask you to do the same."  

About four or five police officers joined the march, some in uniform and some in civilian attire.