Canada would love for you to believe that it’s an old country with old country values. But the truth is that Canada the country was founded outside the parameters of the original Indigenous founders, under the umbrella of Fundamentalist Christianity.
The Roman Catholic Church estimated Indigenous culture by stealing their children and declaring war on the Indigenous people who founded Kanata, long before our people came here.
I am fully aware that I am the descendant of Colonizers. But I am also aware that Black people, Asian people, Jewish people, and a variety of Disabled and LGBTQ2S+ folk helped make this country great, but we don’t acknowledge that enough
One of my favorite shows is The Social. They provide a wide variety of hosts from Disabled folks to Black folks, LGBTQ2S+IA Folks and so many others in between. They really do make an effort I believe thanks in huge part to the hosts and their values, to be diverse and inclusive, but it’s not enough.
It’s not that they aren’t trying enough, it’s that a single show with a diverse cast, is not enough when it’s the most widely watched talk show in Canada. We need more, we can’t depend on the cast of The Social to do the work alone.
CTV Has a wide variety of Black, disabled, and “other” hosts they could have chosen from, but given the climate in Canada right now, Mary Berg was a smart choice. I’m not saying she was the right choice mind you, but from a business standpoint, she makes sense.
She has a calm, (beautifully so) demeanor about her, which means she’s unlikely to “Activate” the audience, she’s young but experienced, she’s powerful but soft-spoken, and most importantly my friends, she’s white.
Yup.
Canada is a very white-focused country, and that’s why you generally don’t see a lot of folks of color running for power, also being highlighted in mainstream media, unless they’ve done something wrong.
Marci Ien was a host on The Social and I loved seeing her face day after day because I didn’t grow up seeing Black women in Canada on television. That wasn’t something that happened often unless they were in trouble.
So to see Marci Ien doing her thing week after week, it felt pretty special to see someone for the first time in my life, looking like me, talking about issues that matter to women like myself, felt pretty special.
Then Marci Ien made the bold and brave choice to enter politics, and against all odds she won, and is now a Minister in the House of Parliament.
She speaks on racial issues, gender politics, and all kinds of women issues that affect Black women across the country and I really appreciate that, but to see her on television? That was something I will never forget.
This is why Mary Berg being on television during the daytime when so many children are at home with their parents, is disconcerting. We as children grow up watching what our parents watch, especially when we’re young during the daytime television hours.
Can you imagine what it might feel like to see a Black woman, an Indigenous woman, or an Indian woman, hosting a nationally aired television show, across the country during the daylight hours? No of course not. Lily Singh got a nightly show which was cancelled just after the Covid pandemic era.
We in Canada do not celebrate women of color and their accomplishments enough, and while I appreciate the cast, crew, producers, and writers efforts over at The Social, I stand by stance that they need help. They need support, they need to know that their allyship work isn’t being done in vain.
They have a large audience made up of Black women, but you’d never know that when you catch snippets of views from their studio audience, and I think that’s because Black women in this country don’t feel welcome in those spaces.
I think not seeing ourselves on television is a big part of why Black women in this country don’t feel comfortable in certain spaces and I don’t think it’s okay. Too many of us go missing, get raped, abused, and traumatized by the racism and abuse we live in in this country, for us not to have a daily or even weekly voice, on national television.
There has to be one nonproblematic, inspiring, challenging, strongminded, Black woman out there in this country, who deserves to be on television, but you’d never know that when you notice that you only ever see Black women on television before the sun comes up.
Yes, CTV has a wide variety of women of color, specifically Black, Indigenous, Disabled, Jewish, and Asian, women on their rosters that could have taken the place of Sandy Rinaldo and Marilyn Denis. But the most powerful thing about Mary Berg in spite of all her talent which is massive, she is the safe, Canadian, White choice.
As per usual.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
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If you’d like to read more of Devon’s work, check them out in the following publications.
Mary Berg Photo Credit: Ernesto Di Stefano / George Pimentel Photography
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 
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