By Vicky Mochama

Thu., Aug. 3, 2017

There were two empty trains. And then Freedom came for us.

Isnt that always the way?

On Monday night, I joined a raucous, occasionally solemn throng of people at Union Station for the annual Underground Freedom Train Ride, a subway trip to commemorate Emancipation Day (Aug. 1).

When Itah Sadu, owner of A Different Booklist, implored us Black folk to think about the things that we do each and every day every day excellence not exceptional things but every day excellence, I knew I was in for something special.

(Like, I never thought Id hear a call for everyday excellence followed up by recognizing the Toronto Transition Commission. The steamy heat of the subway platform and the subways air conditioning are low-key anti-Black, but that is an idle complaint for another day.)

No, the something special was hearing Zanana Akande, the conductor for the Underground Freedom Train and a luminary of the Black community, say, Were in Canada. And sometimes not all the time I wonder if were free.

Standing beside Mayor John Tory, she continued, When I have to worry about my son and no longer my son, my grandson to see that they have favour with who might meet them on the road or that they might end up hurt, I wonder.

If, when times are rough, some of us, many of us, are unemployed. And when times are good, most of us are underemployed.

Nearly two centuries after the British officially ended slavery, Black people in Canada still worry about being safe and getting paid.

Zipping up the University line, first in silence then in song, I thought about how Id spent the day before Emancipation Day thinking about the money Black women are owed.

According to the American non-profit the National Womens Law Centre, Black women are paid 63 cents to every dollar a white, non-Hispanic man earns. This means that Black women would have to work until July 31st of the following year to earn what a man made in the previous year.

Im always on the hunt for a day off so I wondered when this day would be for Black Canadian women. Finding this information is nigh impossible. Diversity is our strength until you want to put some data on it.

Black people are surveilled and counted in so many ways, says Anita Khanna, national co-ordinator for Campaign 2000, but yet we dont have data about the impact of that in terms of the poverty rates that theyre living under or the ways that interventions are needed to address those poverty rates.

What we do have shows a troubling state for Black women. Although in 2011 Black women earned 87 cents to the dollar that white women earn, they were still disproportionately impacted by poverty, says Sheila Block, chief economist for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. While they earned more than some racialized groups, they were overrepresented in the ranks of poverty.

For Black and racialized women, the wage gap is not solely a measure of womens rise in the labour force. It is a difference that makes it harder to feed kids, send them to safe schools, live in affordable houses and develop thriving communities.

In my life, it has been Black women who have taken up the burdens of leadership, community organizing and building coalitions the Auntie Squad that I fear/aspire to join. On the Freedom Train, it was clear that Black women were in charge.

So many women have done this great work with little to show for it. It is both a testament to their fortitude and an indictment of the systems that keep them underpaid, overworked and impoverished.

It is those systems that now have work to do. Cause Black women are busy enough.

Perhaps the supposedly excellent TTC (Ill admit they provided a safe and orderly ride on Monday) could begin by offering income transparency, as well as a breakdown of salaries by the race of their employees. An idea City Hall might also consider.

Having access to data like that would be a start. As the census data rolls out, the federal government should provide more race- and gender-based data.

Its a job for every level of government. Says Block, You cant make good policy without good data.

Or as the good Conductor Akande said, And by God, before we close our eyes, lets make sure that were all free.

Vicky Mochama is a co-host of the podcast, Safe Space. Her column appears every second Thursday. She also writes a triweekly column for Metro News that mixes politics, news and humour.

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The Freedom Ride has yet to reach the station: Mochama - Toronto Star