TORONTO -- Durham Region’s top officials are saying sorry after receiving backlash for a Black History Month ‘scavenger hunt’ planned for employees.
According to photos of the activity which surfaced online Wednesday afternoon, the challenge encourages employees to “dance to a Reggae song,” “cook an African meal,” or “have a conversation with a Black employee.”
Durham Regional Chair and CEO John Henry, along with Chief Administrative Officer Elaine Baxter-Trahair, issued a joint statement Thursday morning saying the internal challenge “was a mistake.”
“We are sorry,” reads the first sentence of the statement.
“As part of Durham Region’s Black History Month initiatives, an internal challenge activity for Durham Region staff was a mistake.
It has caused harm to our Black employees and community—damaging the inclusive culture that we are trying to build. We take responsibility and we are committed to doing better.”
They go on to say that Durham Region typically celebrates Black History Month with in-person events but due to COVID-19 they “attempted to engage more employees in Black History Month virtually.”
“We made missteps with this virtual challenge. We will ensure the remaining activities for Black History Month are both respectful and educational. We will do better,” reads the statement.
In an interview with CTV News Toronto on Thursday, Henry said this incident proves that more needs to be done to address systemic anti-Black racism within the community.
"As the chair of the region, I found out about it, ultimately I'm responsible for all of this and I say I'm sorry and going forward I give you my commitment that we will do better within this organization to address all the issues," he said.
The apology comes after the activity received overwhelming criticism online for being insensitive and insulting towards the Black community.
The Region of Durham initially responded to the activity Wednesday afternoon by calling it a “mistake,” but did not apologize for it.
“Through engaging with the community and Regional staff we acknowledge that mistakes will be made while addressing anti-Black racism. This challenge activity is one of them. We continue to learn and strive to do better,” read a statement on Twitter.
As the challenge continued to garner more backlash online, Durham Region tweeted again saying the activity “wasn’t clear” and that they are “sorry.”
“We recognize that missteps were made with this virtual challenge. For that we apologize, and we will continue to do better,” read the tweet posted Wednesday evening.
Toronto-based activist and journalist Desmond Cole first posted a photo of the challenge on his Twitter page.
He told CTV News Toronto that learning about Durham Region’s activity was not surprising.
“When I shared this [on Twitter], my responses from Black people were a mixture of disgust, ridicule, and disappointment—but nobody was surprised,” he said.
“And these are the conditions that Black people have to work in everyday; conditions where people would think an activity like this is appropriate and even maybe honouring us as Black people. It’s disappointing—we make a lot of jokes and we laugh and it’s so sad to see this carelessness at the Durham Regional government,” he added.
Former MP for Whitby and Durham Region resident Celina Caesar-Chavannes told CP24 Wednesday night that the activity and the initial response that followed were a “slap in the face” to Black community members and employees.
“This is the problem when you do not have representatives from communities within your region, within your staff component, and you put something out that is so offensive, so juvenile, so insulting to the Black community. It does nothing to advance anti-Black racism, because you have no concept of what anti-Black racism is,” she said.
On Feb. 1, Durham Region kicked off Black History Month celebrations with the theme “Together We Rise Durham.”
The month-long virtual festivity will feature videos and messages that “highlight the proud history” of the Black community in Durham Region.
-With files from CTV News Toronto’s Phil Tsekouras
