Seven decades ago, I grew up on a British (South American) sugar cane plantation and attended a Canadian Mission primary school that was opposed by the plantation owners.
Because educated people could form labour unions and fight for better wages and working conditions.
We lived in row houses (or logies) once occupied by African slaves, while the foreign white managers lived in nicely painted houses with manicured lawns in a gated compounded.
The road to my school was partially paved only to the manager's compound for their vehicles, then muddy and slippery the remaining way to my school.
We spent many days in school with muddy clothes, bruised knees, elbows and feet, after falling on the slippery road.
As I became older and thought of a way to describe this inequality, it occured to me that the pavement ends where white privilege begins.
This is not very different from the challenges facing Canada's First Nations.
Vince Ramcharran
Prince George
