Canada's "black month"

Today in Canada we start our month of remembering the "black communities" of Canada, together with the history of blacks in Canada.

Yes we here in Canada do have black people. The main two centers being Halifax and Toronto.

Many blacks fled the USA in the "civil war" years and ended up in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

We have about 231 thousand blacks from Jamaica, and about 37 thousand blacks from Somalia.

Canada is issuing a postage stamp to honor one man ... John (forgot his last name) - a black cowboy from southern Alberta.

For a number of years in the past, the two communities of blacks (Jamaica and Somalia) did not mix or even get along. The children of the two counties have often literally fought each other in street fights. Thanks to the mothers on both sides, bringing both black groups together in friendship meetings, this sad fighting situation has in the main now disappeared.

I had an interesting and educational lesson when living in southern Florida for 3 and 1/2 years. back in the early 1990s.

There was the blacks of Jamaica and the USA blacks - both from of course Africa originally. But the blacks from Jamaica wanted nothing to do with the blacks of the USA. The Jamaican blacks stayed in their communities and did not mix with USA blacks. A "cultural" difference - the Jamaican blacks came from a country that was run for decades by the British. And the British did some very good things - education and a respect for hard work and make something of your life.

I attended the black Jamaican Church of God, Seventh Day - independent of Denver or any other organization of the Church of God, Seventh Day.

One interesting story: One Sabbath afternoon (the Jamaican church went all day long) in sharing this and that, one very black man (as black as coal) stood up and told us this story:

As you know I work in construction with a white man. One day another white man came to work with the two of us. The two white guys got talking about the "not so good" statistical facts of the blacks of the USA and crime. After a while the new white fellow said to the other white guy, "We better stop talking about this for our friend here is black." To which the other white man replied, "No, he's not black, he's Jamaican."

And that is/was the situation of the Jamaican blacks towards the USA blacks and the white fellows as they looked at the blacks from Jamaica - "No they're not black, they're Jamaicans."

I hope the USA blacks have made some large progress in the right directions since those early years of the 1990s when I was among the black population of southern Florida.

Oh and by the way, those blacks from Jamaica .... those Sabbath observing blacks .... they sure loved the Sabbath and just being together in worship and praise and Bible study ALL SABBATH LONG from about 9:30 am. till supper time. It was a wonderful experience.
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