With Hillary LeBlanc, a winner of Canadian Women’s Foundation’s inaugural 2024 Feminist Creator Prize. As an Acadian-Senegalese woman, Hillary has spent her career working in the non-profit sector, sharing stories of those in marginalized communities she herself has lived experience in. Hillary founded BlackLantic, a podcast bringing East Coast voices to the world. As a journalist, she has written for Narcity, CBC, ByBlacks, Addicted Magazine, and more. She produced her own radio series and hosted several red carpets. Hillary has received distinction from the House of Commons, was named Digital Innovator at the Black Business Professionals Network Youth Changemaker Awards, and was nominated for Youth Entrepreneur of the Year by the Black Business Initiative. She holds a degree in English from l’Université de Moncton.
A note about content: this episode addresses gender-based violence, mental health, and addiction.
Transcript
00:00:01 Andrea
Hello and welcome to Alright, Now What? I’m your host, Andrea Gunraj from the Canadian Women’s Foundation.
Gender equality and justice where we live, work, learn, and play is the goal. And it makes life better for everyone. This podcast is our chance to connect with insightful people and explore what it’ll take to get there in Canada.
The work of the Canadian Women’s Foundation and our partners takes place on traditional First Nations, Métis, and Inuit territories. We are grateful for the opportunity to meet and work on this land. However, we recognize that land acknowledgments are not enough. We need to pursue truth, reconciliation, decolonization, and allyship in an ongoing effort to make right with all our relations.
00:00:46 Andrea
In this episode, I’m interviewing Hillary LeBlanc, a winner of the Canadian Women’s Foundation’s inaugural 2024 Feminist Creator Prize.
As an Acadian-Senegalese woman, Hillary has spent her career working in the nonprofit sector, sharing stories of those in marginalized communities she herself has lived experience in. Hillary founded BlackLantic, a podcast bringing East Coast voices to the world.
As a journalist, she has written for Narcity, CBC, ByBlacks, Addicted Magazine, and more. She produced her own radio series and hosted several red carpets. Hillary has received distinction from the House of Commons, was named Digital Innovator at the Black Business Professionals Network Youth Changemaker Awards, and was nominated for Youth Entrepreneur of the Year by the Black Business Initiative. She holds a degree in English from l’Université de Moncton.
A note about content: this episode addresses gender-based violence, mental health, and addiction.
I start by asking Hillary to do the “gender equality changemaker quiz” we launched earlier this year as a part of our new Count Me In initiative for a gender equal Canada. Please check it out yourself at yescountmein.ca.
00:02:05 Hillary
Yeah, so from that survey, honestly, they were almost all divided in three, except for the Challenger. So, I got 30% for Creator, for Collaborator, for Connector, and then 7.69% for Challenger. And it doesn’t surprise me because when I was going through the answers, I felt like a lot of them applied.
I think I’m the type of person that—I love my network, collaborating, connecting, working with people on changemaking, on advocacy pieces, whether it’s giving people information, collating data, trying to mobilize people, and also recognizing that that looks different for everybody. So, I think as a journalist, I always try to approach things as meeting people where they’re at anyway, so it doesn’t surprise me that all of those were the, like, the trifecta for me.
Whereas I think for the Challenger—and I’m trying to remember exact questions that sort of I hesitated with those typical responses—but I do find them a bit, like, adverse to what some people might think as conflict. And so, I haven’t ever gone and walked an actual protest and I don’t know if that’s because of my own gender or because of my race and feeling that a lot of the in-person protests that we have, often people [are] doing counter violence there, despite the fact it’s supposed to be peaceful.
So, I would rather my personal protest be the articles, the flyers, the innovate, information sharing—more of a digital online protest on the screen, safe from my house, as opposed to being outside. And so, I think anything that maybe challenges something in that way, I’ll step back. But I think, I think I challenge things from a screen as opposed to in person.
But I’m not surprised about the connection and collaborating—all I do all day long is talk to people and about people, and it’s what I love.
00:03:58 Andrea
You know the thing about this quiz is that people sometimes think that changemaking only looks one way and you are a beautiful illustration that it can look like lots of different things. It can be behind the screen if you work it right, it can be telling stories, it can be listening to other people’s stories and finding a way to relate to that. So, I really appreciate. Thanks for sharing.
I’d love to hear you about just your core life lessons. I think you’re such a dynamic person and you’re in our family, our Canadian Women’s Foundation family, for lots of reasons, given what you do.
What lessons do you bring to your efforts to address gender inequality, build gender justice, and get to all those intersectional realities that you speak to?
00:04:40 Hillary
A lot of the lessons that I bring, for a slight amount of context, is being on welfare as a kid, racialized in a predominantly white community, my mother being older at 43 and now having had dementia for nine years, and also working in nonprofit spaces. And I think when you combine all of those pieces of a pie, I think it just brings a lot of compassion and empathy.
And I should add that because of my mother’s illness, I ended up having addiction issues for four years and I’m about to be five-years sober. And so, I recognize that in all of these things, no one is stereotypically what we think that someone should look like. Everyone’s journey is different. But I also recognize that a lot of the hurdles that I had—a lack of community, lack of safe spaces—is because of my race and because of my gender.
A lot of the traumas that I experienced get brushed aside when it’s like, oh, you’re a woman, it’s natural to experience those things, you shouldn’t be surprised that if you were drinking that XY and Z happened to you. And I don’t think that those things are fair. And I do think in 2024, we’re in a place where we are questioning all of those things and statements. But I try to approach everything that everyone deserves equal opportunity.
One of my favorite sentences in therapy is that everyone deserves euphoria and you don’t get to decide what that looks like. Whether it’s someone who’s struggling and they’re finding it through numbing through a substance. Whether it’s, you know, being someone online who’s looking, maybe for a bit of attention. However you’re finding your joy is valid, and we don’t get to decide what that looks like.
And so, for me, in terms of gender equality, racial equity, all of these spaces, I just want everyone to have a place in terms of their rights, in terms of their voice, in terms of justice.
And I do think with social media, we’re at a place where everyone’s got a place, but now everyone’s being judged for it, because there’s also no one policing the violence and the abuse that people are getting online for just existing in their space, whether it is posting a TikTok video and then being bullied for their appearance or existence, or it’s sharing their opinion, and I do believe in advocating for devil’s advocate at times and thinking that if you’re in a siloed space where all you hear is one narrative, you’re not necessarily getting the whole picture on any topic.
And so, to constantly be fighting online about race, about queerness, about any of these—I want to say hot button topics even though it’s just people’s existences—when that becomes a fight, I don’t think that that’s fair because we should be able to just coexist online and share our opinions without everything being an attack on the other person’s personhood that is reading the information.
And so, I think when we’re women trying to exist in a society that is still for some reason trying to make us feel small or inadequate, or taking our rights actively away, depending on what side of our current border you are on, I think that we’re allowed to be upset about that and we’re allowed to be online about that and we are allowed to say our opinions and we shouldn’t get backlash for that when it is intrinsically linked to our personhood and our existence.
So, I try to approach everything like you’re allowed to have an opinion and say what you want to say. And if you’re not hurting anybody, I think that your opinion is valid.
00:07:56 Andrea
You made me think about something though, when you’re talking about not judging somebody’s joy or euphoria. Where do you get your joy and euphoria?
00:08:06 Hillary
I think the horrible thing is I get it from doing this work and so that’s why I work all of the time because I’m never resting.
I definitely get it from fashion and self-expression and writing. But yesterday I was having a really hard day for example and I’m currently working on a project data collecting about the renaming of Yonge-Dundas Square to Sankofa Square, and I was having a very bad day and I go outside and we’re speaking to this one person who believes that the name change is because of a certain thing and I’m able to educate this person on the realities of the name change and all of these things and come away with, like, this amazing interview. And that brings me joy—the education part.
But then the storytelling and getting someone to understand why something’s happening, and then this person had an amazing insight into what could make that space more accessible, more inviting, include more communities, include more BIPOC communities, and I might not have expected that from the onset of that conversation, given where it started. And by the end, it ended up being one of the best conversations I had yesterday, and so, for me, that brings me joy, like a common understanding.
And I’m very obsessed with how humans are human and why we’re human, ranging from like life to death and the small things that interconnect all of us. And so, I get really excited when we’re able to coexist in beautiful ways and when things are not a constant argument, given all of the political climates and things going on in the world. When two people can look at a tree and they see the same tree, but they see different beautiful things about that tree.
I like to think that that’s going on everywhere in the world and we just don’t know it. And that brings me, like, solace and comfort in times where there is a lot of, unfortunately, despair.
00:09:47 Andrea
Finding the connective tissue between humans and then moving towards justice and liberation from that connective tissue. That’s beautiful.
You’re a Feminist Creator Prize winning journalist, activist, cat mom. I love to get a sense of how you use the tools that are available to you, the tools that bring you joy, and that you can’t stop using to spark change for gender equality.
00:10:14 Hillary
I currently co-host and run a Black specific podcast in the East Coast, and we don’t discriminate on who we speak to but we make sure that it’s equitable in the sense that we’re talking to women, gender nonconforming people, men about their experience.
I will say some of my favorite episodes though about gender have been around both the dark-skinned women and light-skinned women experience because I do feel that those are intrinsically different.
This podcast I’m very privileged to do it because I am mixed-race because I sound like a white person and I grew up in a white province, New Brunswick, and I think that the white people of that province were listening to us and, you know, giving us speaking engagements, inviting us to work with their organizations, because we might not be a stereotypical immigrant sounding Black person, for lack of a better phrase.
We are—both me and my business partner—very approachable and I think that that has helped share these stories. But then in hearing about these women’s perspectives, it’s very obvious that, you know, being a mixed-race person is almost its—it is its own unique identity compared to someone who is much darker, who faces a different level of racism, barriers, just interactions on the daily compared to what I’ve experienced and trying to rectify what in both of those are OK and how can we work together.
So that’s some of my favourite, you know, specific gender equality work that I’ve done with that podcast.
But I often find myself, as someone who has spoken out about my sobriety, the sexual assaults that I’ve experienced, I find myself often at the helm of writing articles about people who have that experience and it is a honour and a very traumatizing experience to write about things that I’ve lived through, but I appreciate that I have that lived experience and I’m going to write about those things with the utmost care and gentleness and try to do as much mental health first aid as I can when we’re approaching these conversations in terms of checking in during the conversation etc.
And then outside of that, I think when we’re dealing with fashion or being in shared spaces—I find myself often in a lot of galas or events that are sharing, that are raising funds for the community, and I’d like to think that as a journalist who is a social activist, I am actually there for the cause.
I’m looking at amplifying, “who are you raising the money for? Where is the money going to?” And I know for some people, it is an event and it is an outing and that is totally OK. But as someone who has a lot of these lived experiences, I do like to look at who is being impacted by this money and how can we tell that person’s story so that more people do want to come to this event, as opposed to some people who are maybe just seeing gowns and want to go out, because I think both are very valid but it’s very important to understand why we’re doing the work that we’re doing.
So, if I’m on social media sharing that I’ve been somewhere, I do like to share the reasons why, how it ties into my experience, my blackness, my womanhood, my childhood, whatever the case may be, and I try to give back as much as I can.
And then with fashion, I try to work with like as many Canadian sustainable of-race designers so that I’m wearing and representing my morals and my ethos literally on the clothes on my back, which is not always easy. It’s very hard in a fast fashion world, but I do try.
00:13:39 Andrea
I think a lot of people who listen will relate to this idea of getting involved in charities and community work, but it’s not just the experience that you’re looking to glean from. You’re looking to give back. You’re looking to be a part of change, a movement.
I do want to pivot and ask you this—you’ve shared so kindly and carefully your experience with dealing with addiction, dealing with substances. I think this is an under spoken topic for all of us in gender equality work. Sometimes we don’t speak to this experience that women and gender-diverse people come to, so they’re unseen in their relationships, in their dynamics with—with concerns around substance use and all the different things that bring them to that place, sometimes coping.
Share with us a little bit more what you’ve discovered in terms of your work on this issue. What are things that are underheard when it comes to the intersection between gender equality and justice, mental health, substance use, needs, and what we do to better support people who are underseen in these experiences.
00:14:49 Hillary
For me, I found it very difficult to even find support groups that were gender focused, and then also race focused.
So, in America there is a group called the Black Girl Sober Club and they actually don’t discriminate in terms of geography. So, I did join and support them. It was on the day that Roe v. Wade was overturned that I joined this American female Black sober conversation, and it was oddly heartwarming to see Black women come together in a way that I had never experienced in Canada. And it was something that I’ve continued to seek and search, and also try to build, because there was just so much candor and so much understanding that what had just happened was going to impact them the most and their friends and their family and their community. And it was a level of anger that I don’t think we see enough in Canada to actually make change happen.
That being said, I still like—through all my sober supports, there were few racialized women. And I think that there’s—I think, for women, there’s an amount of shame that comes with we’re supposed to handle it all, we’re supposed to be able to be mom, daughter, best friend, also, you know, the skirt is both short enough and long enough, and we’re coming across as kind while being a certain amount of stern. All of those tropes. And so, you’re supposed to be able to handle a glass of wine every single night and still be a mom and you’re just coping.
The amount of memorabilia or merch that I’ve seen that says like, oh “I’m a wine mom,” and now even I’ve heard people asking to have a gravitation towards “I’m a weed mom.” And I’m like, why can’t we just be moms? I know I’m not one, but I don’t—I have a hard time understanding with the coping of a bad day with a substance versus community, conversation, your partner, your support system. And I’m not saying that the glass of wine is bad. I’m saying that once it becomes a codependency and it’s a numbing tool and there’s a fine line to once you get to that point, then it’s a problem. So, the introduction of it at all, I think is difficult.
But I do think that there is this ease in our community to write things off as, oh, this is supposed to be fine, in the same way that for me I’ve advocated for this idea that, oh, your drinking and your drug use was a phase, it’s something you’re supposed to go through in your youth. It’s a shock that I—like I’ve had it said to me that it was a shock that I had not gone through all of that sooner because I started drinking at 21, as opposed to 16, and I should be thankful that I waited five years to go through this. And I find that so baffling that we expect people to have an issue with some substances at a certain point in their life. That we—I’ll say in North America, because I think the lines are similar in the United States as well—that we expect our handling of substances to go poorly at some point in our collective society, and that’s supposed to be OK.
And so, I think that all of that is extremely bizarre. But in the few, like, the groups that I went to, the few racialized women in my experience in the therapies I went to, they felt that they were supposed to find community in church or in specific spaces, and they were shamed and shunned from that and then did not know where to go from there.
And I think everyone that I’ve experienced and like anecdotally has said that, like, you don’t feel like you’re necessarily ready for rehab if you’re able to have the cognizant thought process of, “I know I need to change, I know I need to stop” and you just want to be able to grasp it. And so, to go from, I’m going to my church community group and I’m talking about what I’m consuming, to then being told, what you’re doing is too much for our group and you need actual help. It feels like rock bottom, but you’re so shocked that you’re at that point that you don’t go and get the help.
With my—outside of all the journalistic work, my day job is actually supporting the Canadian Association of Community Health Centers—and a lot of these community health centers deal with people with these issues and it’s in a lot of different areas. It’s the same thing of, I went to go find community, I was told my issue is too vast, too large, too problematic, and I was turned away. But I was not turned to a resource. And so, there are so many women that are just looking for support and sort of aimlessly scrolling the web, not able to find anything.
I had to go through four different supports before I found someone that I could speak to about my sexual assault because it wasn’t fresh and I wasn’t a youth when it happened. And I was turned away by three different places before I got there.
People are—women are experiencing that, whether it comes to sexual assault, whether it comes to substance use, whether it comes to racial injustice and equity that’s happening across the board, and with the current state of—not going to get too political—the current state of health infrastructure and the way that community health centers are being bogged down with the run off that hospitals can’t focus on, women, racialized women, queer people are not the priority because the funding is not there and the infrastructure isn’t there.
So, we continue to just aimlessly look for community and it’s not being found and it’s not being built because there’s no funding.
00:19:59 Andrea
Hillary, I think you’re speaking to something that’s underspoken and I just, I always get attracted to the underspoken and you just gave us such a good, just background on that and I appreciate that.
Wrapping up because you have shared so much with us. I’d love to just get a sense of one powerful take away. Given all this, we’re looking forward to International Day of the Girl. Something that you can help our listeners, takeaways so that they can become a better gender equality change maker no matter who they are or where they are.
00:20:31 Hillary
For me, it’s something that I shared every time I’ve done gender specific talks at schools and for anyone younger, I think it’s just the element of being comfortable in your own skin.
So much of my issues stemmed from, like, genuinely hating my blackness, hating that I was existing, hating circumstances I was existing in, and just wanting to no longer exist.
But I think for anyone who is trying to support the people that feel that way, it’s trying to ask the right questions to identify that someone is going through that.
And so, I recently did like a BIPOC girl sharing circle, and I had never done one before, I didn’t really know where to start, and in just sharing my lived experience of being told I was an Oreo and making myself feel smaller for being mixed race, saying racist things to myself to fit in in the white community that I was in. Three of the eight girls immediately were like “I’ve done that, I’ve said those exact words, I’ve done those exact things.” And there is about a 15-year age gap between us in the same community and you think things have evolved and things have advanced and they have not.
Often people think that we’re past a place where these things can occur, and we’re simply not, and I think people need to still engage with community and ask the right questions and ask if people are simply OK, because a lot of people simply are not OK.
And then again sort of what I said at the beginning—allowing people to have their own opinions and not vilify them for existing and having those opinions as long as it is not causing direct harm to anyone and trying to come to people’s support when those things are happening.
I assume that a lot of the people listening to this podcast are on the side of they will not be the people causing harm on social media, but they can certainly offer support when they see that happening or check in with that person or even, as much as it’s sometimes time-consuming and a bit painful, being the fact checker on Facebook can end a lot of arguments if you’re the person who can simply Google and say, “actually these are the realities that are occurring. You’re allowed to have your opinion, but this first person who is speaking in this way is also not wrong, because this is what’s actually happening in the community.”
And I often find myself being that person considering I’m the daughter of someone who’s Muslim and have everything that I’ve gone through with so many things happening in the world. I try to be the person to be like, “actually, there’s nothing wrong with this group or this community. No, they are not full of hate. No one is doing these things.” Like Google is free, but media is biased and so try to do the best that we can looking on the Internet and supporting one another, just being there for one another
00:23:03 Andrea
Alright, Now What?
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