BlackTalk Podcast

In this episode of BlackTalk, Dr. Andy Knight and Samira Schultz are joined by Dr. Monetta Bailey for a conversation about race, ethnicity, immigrant status, crime, Critical Race Theory, public discourse, and institutional systems. The episode focuses on how Black, racialized, and immigrant youth are governed, represented, and positioned within institutions such as criminal justice, education, imm...

In this episode of BlackTalk, Dr. Andy Knight and Samira Schultz speak with Siv Ngesi about creativity, identity, visibility, and what it means to build a life and career in post-apartheid South Africa. The conversation explores how Siv’s work across acting, comedy, presenting, producing, performance, and public life reflects larger questions about overcoming, representation, and building somethin...

In this episode of BlackTalk, Dr. Andy Knight is joined by Dr. Handel Wright. Their conversation begins with a clear and necessary discussion of anti-Blackness: what it means, how it operates, and how it appears not only in individual encounters, but also through institutions, education, public life, and history. They also discuss the denial, erasure, and forgetting of Black presence in British Co...

In this episode of BlackTalk, Dr. Andy Knight and Samira Schultz speak with Dr. Bukola Salami, who is leading major national work on Black child and youth well-being, including the SSHRC-funded Transforming Black Lives partnership project, which focuses on how systems such as education, health, justice, child welfare, and immigration and settlement shape the lives of Black children and youth in Ca...

The new season of BlackTalk is here. This season, we centre Black children and youth, while also widening the lens to the histories, communities, and public lives that shape them. The first episodes of the new season drop on July 1st, Canada Day. Because Black history is Canadian history. Black voices are Canadian voices.

The new season of BlackTalk is here. This season, we centre Black children and youth, while also widening the lens to the histories, communities, and public lives that shape them. This season is connected to a SSHRC-funded research project led by Dr. Bukola Salami, titled Transforming the Lives of Black Children and Youth in Canada, bringing together scholars, community partners, and institutions...

BlackTalk host Dr. Andy Knight talks with Dr. Adekeye Adebajo of the University of Pretoria, and Lula Adam of the University of Alberta, discussing their experiences at the Pan-African Symposium held at the University of Alberta in February 2024. All three speakers reflect on the ideas presented in the symposium, especially ideas of intellectual reparations, African scholarship, the publishing gap...

BlackTalk producer Nicolás Arnáez chats with Dr. Andy Knight, creator and usual host of the BlackTalk podcast, and with multidisciplinary storyteller Brandon Wint, about the new Black Studies microcourse they have developed, "Black Canadians: History, Presence, and Anti-Racist Futures", soon to be available for the public to attend through Coursera. More course information will be found at the end...

Dr. Abi Williams is a scholar and international affairs practitioner who has held leadership positions in academia, think tanks, and the United Nations. He is Professor of the Practice of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and the Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University. He has also served as Director of the Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts Universi...

In this episode, Amb. Ward discusses his upbringing in Jamaica and his influences, his thoughts on colonial reparations and justice in the African continent and the Caribbean, and building democracies in post-colonial societies, among other topics. Ambassador Curtis Ward is an Attorney-at-Law and International Consultant, and former Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Jamaica to the...

Selwyn R. Cudjoe is currently a Professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College. He teaches courses on the African American literary tradition, African literature, black women writers, and Caribbean literature. A graduate of Fordham University where he received both a B.A. in English and an M.A. in American Literature, Professor Cudjoe also earned a Ph. D. in American Literature from Cornell Un...

Dr. Rhoda Reddock is a sociologist and development studies scholar with expertise in a range of areas including feminist and gender studies, and critical race and ethnic studies. With an academic career spanning many years she is a former deputy campus principal of the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine campus, and head of the Centre (now Institute) for Gender and Development Studies and...

Prof Gina Awoko Higginbottom was appointed in 2015 as the Mary Seacole Professor of Ethnicity and Community Health at the University of Nottingham – the first nurse of Black and Minority Ethnic origin (BME) to hold a professorial role in a Russell Group university in England and is now Emeritus Professor. Dr. Higginbottom is formerly a Canada Research Chair in Ethnicity and Health (now renewed) fo...

We're back for the third season of BlackTalk, and we are excited to kick off with Professor Rinaldo Walcott! Dr. Walcott is Professor and Chair in the Department of Africana and American Studies at the University of Buffalo; there he is also the Carl V. Granger Chair in Africana and American Studies. Rinaldo’s research focuses on the cultural expression of Black life with an interest in the transn...

The Honourable Kojo Yankah has had a career which spans the world of journalism, government, and education. He served as editor of Ghana’s most widely circulated newspaper, the Daily Graphic, which led to his appointment as the Director of the Ghana Institute of Journalism. In the 1992 Ghanian parliamentary election, he won the seat for Agona East Constituency, which led to service in various mini...

Dr. Clinton Hutton a professor, author, researcher, and artist. Through his research, he has made many significant contributions to the areas of Afro-Caribbean thought, Africana political philosophy, Caribbean political philosophy, and African-Caribbean spirituality, including Rastafari. His writing tackles salient topics such as the Haitian Revolution and the Morant Bay Rebellion. He’s won numero...

Dr. Afua Cooper is a multi-award-winning speaker, scholar, historian, author, poet, performer, and cultural commentator for equity, diversity, and inclusion strategies within organizations worldwide. She was presented with the Nova Scotia Human Rights Award in 2015 from the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, she served as Halifax’s seventh Poet Laureate, and she won the Portia White Prize, Nova...

Yona Knight-Wisdom is an Olympian and rising Jamaican athlete in the fiercely competitive, and technical sport of diving. Yona began his diving journey in 2004 at the City of Leeds Diving Club and quickly rose through the ranks to achieve a top five finish at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. From there, it was onto the Olympics, where he became the first male diver in history to represent Jamaica at t...

Miriam Zinter is a Black woman who can easily be mistaken as a White woman. As a result of her appearance, she’s had a unique experience in observing racist attitudes. Miriam began her career as a community organizer, following this, she served as the Executive Director of a not-for-profit neighborhood organization. Recently, she served as the senior housing programmer for the City of Rochester, N...

Dr. Tony Fields is one of Canada’s leading figures in oncology, and now serves as MacEwan University's first Chancellor. He is the former president of the National Cancer Institute of Canada, and he has served on the boards of the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Breast Cancer Research Alliance, the Canadian Oncology Society, and the Canadian Association of Provincial Cancer Agencies. Dr. Fie...

BlackTALK launches season two with actress Olunike Adeliyi, star of CBC’s The Porter. In this candid conversation we learn about Olunike’s backstory, and how it informed her approach to her work. From her debut in theater, to her premier roles in the popular Canadian crime drama Flashpoint, and the historically significant CBC drama The Porter, we trace the path that led to her current success and...

Eight minutes and forty-six seconds

On this episode of BlackTalk, we explore the historical economic links of slavery with Vice- Chancellor of The University of the West Indies and global activist, Sir Hilary Beckles. He shares a disturbingly frank look at the British colonial practices of the Black slave code. These practices were institutionalized and legitimized in order to commoditize Black people as labour and assets. Sir Hilar...

On this episode of BlackTalk, we’re joined by academic, author and journalist, Dr. Cecil Foster. Dr. Foster weaves his own story of arriving in Canada from Barbados in the 1960s into the larger historical patterns of racism that Black people experience immigrating to Canada. He shares the struggle of being isolated as the only Black journalist in the newsroom and being held back from opportunities...

On this episode of BlackTalk our guest is University of Alberta associate professor in the faculty of nursing, Dr. Bukola Salami. Dr. Salami shares the impact racism had on her parents’ careers and in her own career where she has been constantly underestimated. She talks about the importance of mentoring and why she is investing her time as a mentor to young Black students. We also cover the healt...