Markham Black Lives Matter: Student-organized protest planned June 13

‘People haven't been noticing or haven't taken the time to really notice’ anti-Black racism, says Grade 11 Sydeny Baxter

Yorkregion.com
June 12, 2020
Dina Al-Shibeeb

Grade 11 student Sydney Baxter from Markham District High School is organizing a Black Lives Matter protest Saturday, June 13.

The anti-racism protest starts at 2 p.m. at the front of Markville Mall and is scheduled to end at 5 p.m. at Millennium Square.

“Students are basically the future of Markham, and students are the ones with big bright ideas, so I want them to be at the very front,” Baxter, who is turning 17, told Torstar media.

The protest will also show that Markham cares for justice, she said.

“Me putting together this protest and everything that's happening right now, I feel like it's just a very, very important topic that people are just sort of getting a hint of. But what has been going on, has been going on for centuries and people haven't been noticing or haven't taken the time to really notice,” she said.

“Right now, during the pandemic, and everyone home ... they don't have a choice than to look at what's going on in our world and acknowledge that this is what's happening.”

While Baxter hasn’t experienced widespread anti-Black racism at her school, she has seen “fights happen over the N-word” between students, she said.

What Baxter wants to see is a more inclusive curriculum, showing more “Black inventors and politicians,” for example.

In her books, she want to see “Black people who made a change in Canada.”

As for the Black history month, the student said, “Black people are not Black for just one month.”