“Panthers or Thieves”: Racialized Knowledge and the Regulation of Africville

Abstract

This essay addresses the multiple and interlocking ways in which the criminalization and racialization of the poor, Black community of Africville, Nova Scotia, contributed centrally to its destruction by the City of Halifax during the 1960s. The essay examines a variety of dominant sources, including urban planning studies, academic projects, media reports, and city-commissioned documents that together comprise a body of racialized knowledge about Africville and Black communities in general in this era. This body of knowledge, the author argues, employs discourses of racial inferiority, criminality, and social deviance of the poor, to construct the community as a slum in need of removal.

Stories from within a Yorkville Experience

“…Black communities have been bulldozed and torn down to build new neighbourhoods that appeal more to white community members (Nelson, 2011). The homes, religious and cultural centers of these Black communities become displaced and these individuals and families are offered no type of compensation or assistance with relocating (Nelson, 2011). The dominant white discourses that were historically created to label Black communities are used as a way of beautifying of Black neighbourhoods by the destruction of Black neighbourhoods (Nelson , 2011).…”

“…The homes, religious and cultural centers of these Black communities become displaced and these individuals and families are offered no type of compensation or assistance with relocating (Nelson, 2011). The dominant white discourses that were historically created to label Black communities are used as a way of beautifying of Black neighbourhoods by the destruction of Black neighbourhoods (Nelson , 2011). These neighbourhoods are referred to as colonial projects, as a way of using systemic racism to label specific bodies and move them from neighbourhoods in order to be more attractive to the dominant culture (Nelson, 2011).…”

Stories from within a Yorkville Experience

“…The underlying assumption of gentrification is that neighbourhoods that are gentrified are reshaped into 'safer' neighbourhoods. Black bodies are labeled with negative stereotypes that are attached to criminalization, and brown bodies are associated with stereotypes of terror (Nelson, 2011), (Ahmed, 2007). White neighbourhoods are socially constructed as 'safer', and the stereotypes and fears associated with racialized bodies are connected to the social construction of class and race (Boterman, 2013).…”

“…Dominant actors in society regulate poor, racialized communities (Nelson, 2011). Dominant white discourses pertaining to Black communities have been a barrier towards the mobility of Black communities (Nelson, 2011). Young Black men are stigmatized and heavily policed, while low income neighbourhoods are populated by a significant number of immigrants, who potentially are experiencing unemployment, poverty, limited access to education and other resources, and labeled negatively through the media (James, 2012).…”

“…Historically, Black communities have been discriminated against in the labour market and been labeled as the other through residential segregation (Griffiths, 2013). Racism and poverty are interconnected and dependent on one and other (Nelson, 2011). Black bodies have been historically labeled by white bodies as poverty, deviance, and criminality (Nelson, 2011).…”