Johany Jutras/CFL.ca
Black History Month marks an important time in Canada and the United States to recognize, honour and celebrate the achievements and contributions of African-Americans throughout history. Saskatchewan Roughriders running back Jerome Messam writes about what this month means to him.
There were 45,000 of us in the SkyDome that morning, but it felt like twice that. Maybe three times that.
It was rocking, man. There was a buzz in that building like I’d never seen before. I was 13 years old, just a kid. To be honest, I liked basketball more than football at that point. I had no idea that day that I’d be back there as an athlete to suit up, to play on the field where one of the most inspirational people I’d ever see in my life was about to speak.
I’ll never forget the energy in that place. Forty-five thousand kids, just so amped to be there. I looked over at my teachers and some of them were crying. It was unbelievable. Then the music started. The drums, the dancing, the singing and chanting. Then Nelson Mandela rolled out onto the field in a golf cart, smiling and waving to everyone.
It was just the start of the school year, September, 1998. I went to Lake Vista public school in Oshawa — now it’s called Dr. CF Cannon — and our teachers had a letter writing contest. ‘Why would you want to meet Nelson Mandela?’ I won.
Messam played in two-straight Grey Cups with the Calgary Stampeders (Johany Jutras/CFL.ca)
I said that I’d heard about his story and that for me as a black youth I think that it’d be tremendous for my self-confidence to see a person that looks like me have such an impact on a world scale. They chose me and it was awesome. It was a life-altering experience, to say the least.
They called the event Mandela and the Children and on the news they called it the world’s largest classroom lesson. He talked about equality, and setting goals and striving for them. He said that the children of Canada had friends in the children of South Africa.
By now, you all know me. When I get to Regina this year for training camp, it’ll be my ninth season in the CFL. I grew up in the GTA: Oshawa, Brampton, Toronto. I live in Pickering now. Before the CFL, I played three years of college football in the U.S. I’ve seen some things. And every February, I think about my journey, about Black History Month and what it means to be a first-generation Canadian from a Jamaican family.
Let me tell you about my family. My parents both came to Canada from Jamaica when they were young. Their parents came ahead of them, took whatever jobs they could (my grandmother worked for 90 cents an hour when she got here in the 70s) and when they were able to, they had their kids sent over to them. My mom got here when she was nine. My dad got here when he was 12. It was tough for both of them, but my mom really struggled with life in a new country.
Canada preaches diversity and inclusion today, but it didn’t feel like that for her when she got here. She remembers people making fun of her accent and the way she spoke. She fought a lot in elementary school, I know it was tough for her. It was a little different for my dad. He grew up in Rexdale, a part of Etobicoke, just outside of Toronto. So there was a little more of our culture, some more black people there, which helped him adjust to a new country. He still dealt with things too, though, and he was an angry young man, into his adulthood.
It’s funny, all these years later when I remember it, but Nelson Mandela actually played a part in cooling my dad off. My dad read about him and what he went through in his life.
“I think about Nelson Mandela and about Michelle and Barack Obama a lot, about what their messages were and how they need to continue to grow and evolve in the future. We have to continue to teach our kids in what’s right. Teach love, teach compassion.”
My dad said, ‘If they can put this man in jail for 27 years for something he didn’t do, I don’t have it that bad.’ That changed him. He started to read about Mandela and he became very conscious and very aware of his place in society.
My dad took on this rebel freedom fighter mentality. I feel like a lot of his values were passed down to me. He’d always tell me about being conscious, to be aware of things. ‘Just because someone says they like you it doesn’t mean they do. It’s all about how they treat you in their actions.’ When I was growing up, my mom put a picture of Malcolm X in my room. There was a picture of Martin Luther King Jr next to it. I had to read books about those men.
We lived in Oshawa from the time I was in the third grade until eighth grade. It was predominantly white and you could say that the area I lived in wasn’t the most affluent. There were a lot of people in poverty — black, white or other — and a lot of people that weren’t educated, so I ran into racism a lot as a child.
That was the first time I was called n—–. The first time I was told to go back to my country. I didn’t get that. Why would someone say that? Why wouldn’t they like me? I still don’t get that.
I think racism is something that’s taught. It’s not natural. My wife and I have a one-year-old little girl, Jaia. And I know that if you put two babies together from different walks from life, different cultures, it won’t matter. They’ll play together, it is what it is. Those behaviours, those thoughts, they don’t just come. They’re put there.
For me, I saw my parents have friends that were white, black, Asian, whatever, whatever. I never really understood why someone wouldn’t like me for being black.
I probably didn’t realize it at the time, but being in Toronto kind of made me take multiculturalism for granted. There’s racism here, there’s racism everywhere, but there’s more acceptance here than anything else. Living in Brampton, I didn’t really notice racism that much in high school. Not against me, anyway. There were all these cultures around us and we just kind of enjoyed them.
There’s Italian Day, Jamaican Day, you kind of embrace all the cultures. Here, growing up my parents always spoke patois, they always cooked Jamaican food, there are Jamaican restaurants everywhere. If I wanted to have Indian food, Asian food, I could taste different cultures, see different cultures, they were right there in my face. I loved that.
In 2016, Messam was named the league’s Most Outstanding Canadian (Johany Jutras/CFL.ca)
It wasn’t like that when I went to college. I did my first two years of school, JUCO, at the North Dakota State College of Science in Wahpeton. I got there in 2005. It was different. It was pretty rural.
I’ll never forget, this one time I walked into a supermarket there called the Hy-Vee, and this kid looked at me, maybe a three-year-old. He looked at me and looked at his mom and looked at me again and he said, ‘Chocolate, Mommy?’ Speaking to more kids at my school, some of them had never seen black people until they got to college. And that’s not on them, it’s just because the town they grew up in, they never had to interact, or see people different from them. That was such a culture shock for me.
After North Dakota, I went to Graceland University in Iowa, close to the border with Missouri. So again, mid-America, a lot of farms, a lot of corn, and not much integration, really.
I was at Graceland in 2006 when we had a guest speaker come to the campus. It was Michelle Obama. I didn’t know it when I went to hear her speak, but she and her husband would have a huge effect on me; even if I didn’t really know who they were yet.
Change. Change was the big thing. She talked about empowering women, equality for all races and how much America needed a change in the right direction. He was just starting on his campaign. I just remember her humility and how she took the time to talk with everybody. I just thought she was a great human and that her husband must be a great guy and that’s when I started to pay attention. Barack Obama winning that election was huge for me. It made me feel like I could run the world, like I could do anything.
I worry about the direction they’re headed in in the States. I know Americans might read this and I don’t want them to get the wrong idea. America’s been great to me. But I think, when wasn’t it great, you know? When my wife was pregnant with Jaia, I wondered a lot about what kind of world she’d come into. What it might look like in 20 years when she’s grown.
Ideally — ideally now — it’d be a place where we don’t have to worry about discrimination, profiling, racism, and everybody’s just out for the betterment of mankind. Putting all of our resources into technology that can help us sustain the planet for longer. Cut pollution, help farming. Where there’s education for everybody that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. I think if we had that the world would be a much better place.
I think about Nelson Mandela and about Michelle and Barack Obama a lot, about what their messages were and how they need to continue to grow and evolve in the future. We have to continue to teach our kids in what’s right. Teach love, teach compassion. Empower your kids with the knowledge to succeed later. I think that’s what we’re going to do for Jaia and I think she’s going to be well loved. I think she’s going to become a very well-rounded young woman and hopefully if she does have to encounter things like racism or bigotry, or whatever in her future she’ll know how to handle it. It’s not because of anything except that individual and how they feel.
It’s 2018 and there’s still a lot more work to be done. The sooner we realize that the human race is the only race that we should be trying to run, instead of one race versus another, we’ll be better off.
