The Black Experience in Canada & the U.S.
A Discussion with Debra Thompson
The Black Lives Matter movement has given rise to global conversations on how systems with built in racial inequality continue to affect the lives of people of African descent worldwide. In Silicon Valley, tech companies continue to struggle to make their workforces more diverse and develop products that serve all. While there is growing awareness of the ongoing legacy of racial inequality in the U.S., the Canadian experience is less well known.
On February 24, 2021, Rana Sarkar, Canadian Consul General in San Francisco/Silicon Valley, will lead a discussion on the Black experience in Canada and the U.S. with Dr. Debra Thompson, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Racial Inequality in Democratic Societies at McGill University. Through this event, we hope to generate insights into how both social practices and government policies can be employed to combat racism, foster equitable innovation, and ultimately produce outputs that are representative of society.
Dr. Debra Thompson is a leading scholar of the comparative politics of race. Her teaching and research interests focus on the relationships among race, the state, and inequality in democratic societies. Dr. Thompson has taught at the University of Oregon, Northwestern University, and Ohio University, and held a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship with the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University. She is currently working on two book projects: the first explores the global appeal of the Black Lives Matter movement through the lens of American exceptionalism, while the second examines the puzzling persistence of racial inequality in Canada.