Dr. Beverly-Jean M. Daniel: We Were Not Built To Break

One careless “you can’t” can stick to a young person for years, but it can also light a fuse. We’re joined by Dr. Beverly-Jean Daniel, scholar, educator, and advocate whose work spans more than 35 years at the intersection of race, equity, and urban education. She shares what it was like migrating from Trinidad and Tobago at 16 and hearing, for the first time, that her goals were unrealistic, not because of grades, but because of who she was. 

  The heartbeat of her book, We Were Not Built to Break. Dr. Daniel explains why attacks on Black history and the constant pathologizing of Blackness are not random, and why she teaches Black youth to see themselves as the blueprint and to stand in their greatness. We also talk about how the old advice to “work twice as hard” can fail younger generations, and what it looks like to work smarter by understanding systemic barriers, naming power, and protecting your sense of self. 

Dr. Daniel also takes us inside the realities of higher education in Canada as a Black woman professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, where credentials do not erase anti-Black racism or gendered stereotypes. Then we get practical with The Bridge program she founded at Humber College: the wraparound, hub-and-spoke supports that move students from crisis and withdrawal risk to retention, academic confidence, and even the honour roll. We unpack “stop out” versus “drop out,” the danger of OSAP debt with no diploma, and what happens when Black student success disrupts the stories people expect. 

If you care about education equity, Black student retention, community mentorship, and real strategies that change outcomes, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share this episode with someone who needs it, and leave us a review with your biggest takeaway.

 You can reach Dr. Daniel by using one of the links below:

LinkedIn:   linkedin.com/in/dr-beverly-jean-m-daniel-ph-d-34a26114

 Canadian Scholars: https://canadianscholars.ca/product-category/child-and-youth-care/

Transcript

[00:00:10] Ellington Brown: Welcome to SpeakUP! International with Rita Burke and Elton Brown!

[00:00:15] Rita Burke: As you know, we traverse the world trying to find individuals that we consider to be community builders and today is no exception. But we didn't have to go very far because she's right here in Canada. And today we will be talking with Dr. Beverly-Jean Daniel. She is a diswinguish- distinguished scholar, educator, and advocate. Dr. Beverly has dedicated over 35 years investigating the entanglement of race, equity, and urban education. She currently serves as an associate professor in the School of Child and Youth Care at Toronto Metropolitan University, TMU.

Dr. Daniel is also an affiliate fellow with the Canadian Excellence Research Chair in Health Equity and Community Wellbeing. Now, the hallmark of Dr. Daniel's career is her development of The Bridge in 2010 during her tenure at Humber College. There's so much more that I can say about Dr. Beverly-Jean Daniel, however, as we say on SpeakUP! International, we prefer for our guests tell their own stories.

And so with that, Dr. Beverly-Jean Daniel, welcome to SpeakUP! International! 

[00:01:55] Dr. Beverly-Jean M. Daniel: Good morning to you both, Elton and Rita. It is my absolute pleasure to be here! 

[00:02:01] Ellington Brown: I hope you have your coffee. I hope everyone in attendance has their coffee, because we wanna make sure that we pay close attention to this remarkable woman who will give us an overview of her book, We Were Not Built to Break.

Later during the podcast . Tell us a little bit about, about yourself and what brought you to where you are today?

[00:02:27] Dr. Beverly-Jean M. Daniel: So I migrated to Canada when I was 16, and I came from, from Trinidad and Tobago, and within the first week of me attempting to access schooling here in Canada, it was the first time in my academic career that I had ever heard that I can't. And I remember the principal telling me that, um, he heard that you people like to sing and dance, and whether or not I wanted those types of courses, and having a teacher tell me that I shouldn't bother to apply to university because I'll never get the grades I need to get in.

Um, and by way of context, I came to Canada, I had already completed my O levels, and, um, and I had... I started school at two. I was always an A student until I made the decision that I couldn't be bothered with school for a couple of years. Um, and but then once I, you know, I turned it back on, I was an A student.

So it was really confusing to me to have this experience of being told that I can't before people had any opportunity to, to know what my capacities were. So I... That was the baptism by fire for me in terms of schooling within the Canadian context. I then spend, I, I then went on to university, uh, the, the goal to, to become a lawyer.

But I, I did psychology as my undergrad, and then I ended up working in the field. First, I worked with, uh, with teenage prostitutes, which was really, uh, an eye-opening experience for me. And then secondly, I worked in the field, um, of intrafamilial sexual abuse treatment where I worked as a psychometrist, and in that capacity, I worked with a range of, of clients, some who were incarcerated, some who were on bail.

But I think along the way what I realized that I was spending so much time trying to plug the holes with each individual, that I thought it might be better suited for me to teach people how to work- With communities that experience marginalization. So rather than me trying to work with the kids directly, I could then teach teachers, for example.

So I then spent about, my goodness, um, 13 to 15 years in, in teacher education and training. I spent about 15 years, um, as, as, as a frontline therapist. A- and I think I was able to bring so many pieces to play in my work that when I'm in the classroom, I am able to talk about it from the perspective of being a member of a group that experiences marginalization.

I am able to speak to it from the context of, of a Black woman who, as Malcolm X said, is sort of the most targeted creature on Earth. Um, I was able to come at it from my experience as being a frontline therapist and understanding some of the nuances of how we engage with people who are, you know, living with trauma.

And I also brought that academic component, right? So I was able to bring in my, my undergrad in psychology, my master's in counseling, my, my PhD in, um, in equity studies and gender studies. So I think all of those pieces combined brought me to the space of and how do we disrupt systems, and how do we teach students to disrupt systems?

And I think that has been a much more productive way of doing my work, particularly when students come back to me after years and say, "Oh, I remember what you taught me, and I use it in my classrooms," right? Or, "I use it when I work with clients." So I think that has, you know, in a, in a short... That's a short summation of, um, of my trajectory to get to this point.

[00:06:34] Rita Burke: Dr. Beverly-Jean Daniel, in a nutshell, you have given us a book about your life, and we will get back to that. Talk to us about how it felt to be told that you cannot. You talked about coming to Canada at 16. 

[00:06:53] Dr. Beverly-Jean M. Daniel: Mm-hmm. 

[00:06:53] Rita Burke: And someone in the education system was presumptuous or audacious enough to say you cannot. What did that feel like? 

[00:07:03] Dr. Beverly-Jean M. Daniel: You know, it's, it's interesting because, um, my father when he is being facetious, he tells people that, um, "Oh, she was born asking questions, and, and, um, and we learned really quickly to let her ask her questions and figure things out," right? So I think there's a part of me that's, that's always been wired that if you're gonna tell me that I can't do something, you need to explain that to me.

It is... Right? I, I don't just accept- That I can't. It has to make sense in my head. Uh, so I think I always had an inquiring mind, right? So I was that kid back in the Caribbean asking why, why are we praying to a white Jesus? Um, why are we going to church and having to kiss, um, the feet of a white man? It, it didn't make sense in my head.

Um, so that feeling of being told I can't is often a thing that spurs me on, right? So I, uh, interestingly enough, I had not intended to apply to go to university that year because I, because I had just come to Canada. It was either October or November. They put me directly into grade 13, which I think was the principal's way of saying, "I don't wanna deal with this person who keeps asking questions," right?

And because normally when our kids migrate, they're typically put back a few grades, right? And, um, and I think in my responses to the principal, he thought it didn't even make sense. But my plan was to actually spend another year in grade 13 just so that I can get a sense of the Canadian system. So the minute she told me that I will never get the grades I need to get in, that was my impetus to apply.

And that's why I said to her, "Thank you so much for that information." I took the form from her, I applied, and I got in, and that's when the panic set in. So um, I, I, I think for me, it was less about how I felt about it, m- but more about how that, that moment helped me to understand the challenges that Black students were facing.

Because I came to Canada as an A student from the Caribbean, right? And we know that the quality of education and the structure of education in the Caribbean is much more rigid, it is much more disciplined. The expectations are much higher, right? So for me to enter this space as an A student is an indication that I was capable, right?

Um, I went to the top girls school in, in Trinidad, St. Joseph's Convent, which you cannot get into unless you have the grades, right? So because I came to Canada with a solid sense of who I was and what my capacities were, her statement didn't unsettle me, but it helped me to understand the experiences of Black students who were either born here or who migrated here early- And who would have been exposed to these constant narratives of, of negativity, of academic, um, failure, of incapacity, uh, and the ongoing sort of patholog- pa- pathologization of Blackness, right?

Uh, so I was protected because of where I was from, because everyone who was anything looked like me. President was Black, Prime Minister was Black, the doctors were Black. So I never questioned my capacity to succeed or to fail because I was Black. And I think the message in Canada is that because you are Black, you will fail, right?

So s- much of my work, I would say the, the foundational piece of my work has always been challenging these, these negative narratives that are attached to Blackness and always wanting to frame Blackness in terms of possibility and capacity. And this is where I always say to the young people that I work with, "You are Black.

You are the blueprint. You have success and excellence written on your DNA. And I need you to understand that we were never built to break," right? Which is where the title of the book comes from. People have been trying to break us for generations, and we're still here. Stand in your greatness. So, um, so her comment catapulted my career, um, in a way that she probably never expected.

So what she thought would shut me down was the thing, was, you know, that, that actually spurred me to, to keep going. 

[00:12:13] Ellington Brown: Sometimes motivation comes from the str- from the most strangest places, places where they expect you not to succeed. But what they've done is they've put wood on the fire, and that just sends you right to the place you need to go in order to, succeed.

There was this, uh, line that you used, "Because you are Black," da, da, da. And y- um, I think that incorporates the... There was a saying or, or a line that my mom would always use, and that was, I'd come home and I'd be really happy. I says, "Look, Mama, I got an A." And my mama would say, "Oh baby, that's so nice." She says, "But why isn't that an A plus?"

And I would go, "What?" And I'd go, you know, study harder, harder. I'd come back, "Mama, look, I got an A plus." And my mama would say, "Oh, that's so good, baby." She said, "But why isn't that an A plus plus?" And I didn't understand that for a long time, but I realized later after our many con- conversations that she'd said...

I mean, my mom was an honor roll stu- student when she was in college, and she says, "If you, i- if you get an A and s- white person get an A, y- your A doesn't mean anything. So in order for you to be in com- to stack up to the, to them, you're gonna have to do, you have to work a little harder." And I think that was w- what I needed in order to move through life, is to know that I had to be faster, smarter than a lot of the individuals that are happen, that happened to be in university.

And I think this is one reason why I really am drawn to this book, We Were Not Built to Break, because I can think of many, examples of individuals that s- were under stress, but they were, uh, did not break under the pressure. Can you talk to us a little bit more about your book, We Were Not Built to Break?

[00:14:35] Dr. Beverly-Jean M. Daniel: Absolutely! Elton, and it's interesting that you use the idea of us being expected to work, you know, twice as hard, and I think that that line is something that worked well for the previous generations. My concern is that it doesn't work for the younger generation. Um, and the way in which I explain it is, show me anybody who's prepared to work five jobs but only get paid for one, right?

And in some ways, I think when we're telling the younger generation you need to work two, three, four times as hard to get ahead, they're not buying into it in the same way. Um, so I, I have sort of changed that adage to say, um, you need to work two, three, four times as smart, but don't work as hard, right?

And, and well, and what does that mean? It, it, you know, um, part of it is really, um, supporting them in terms of understanding systemic issues, understanding why we have these labels, understanding why there's this constant attack on Blackness, right? Uh, so, and, and this is sort of where the book really is, is grounded in terms of, uh, helping people to understand that- If we think of the history of the Black population, right, and we know that whether you use, uh, anthropological, scientific, biological, which- whichever pathway you wanna use, it still comes back foundationally to saying Black people were the first humans.

We were the first, right? We are the blueprint. Everyone else came through us, right? And even that statement, when it's, when, when Black youth are exposed to that statement, you see a physical shift in their demeanor, right? And they almost sit up a little bit straighter. They, they engage a little bit more.

So that, the, the idea behind the book was saying, "Hey, look, understand that in the history of mankind, we've been here the longest, and look at how many things they've done to try to, to destroy us," whether it's slavery, whether it's Jim Crow, whether it's segregation, right? Um, whether it's redlining. You, you see the, the immigration policies, for example, that have led to the, the, the separation of Black families whereby the mothers were allowed to come to Canada, women were allowed to come to Canada, but no men, right?

So there, the, the constant focus on the removal of the male from the family, the, the, the way in which that impacts families economically, it impacts, um, marriage patterns, it impacts the intergenerational transmission of wealth and culture and knowledge, and they've kept trying. And if you look at what's happening in the US today with, um, the...

What is the first thing that they've attacked? Black history. They did not try to get rid of Chinese history, Greek history, European history. The one history that they've targeted is Black history, right? So We Were Not Built to Break is really an, an, a- an ode to, to signal to folks, you don't spend a ton of time trying to break something that's less than or inferior.

You cast it aside and you keep moving. But the fact that the entire world keeps trying to break us should tell us something about ourselves, that we are unbreakable. Not that we're not gonna have challenges, not that we're not gonna hurt, not that we're not gonna lose soldiers along the way, but you only try to destroy that which you are afraid of.

And if we understood, if our young people really understood our greatness I think that would really reshape how they engage in these systems, um, within these North American contexts. So the book is, is about here are some of the key moments that you need to be aware of. Um, here are some ways in which you need to understand how systems of power impact your life, and here are some pieces that you need to look at in terms of how you support yourself, your families, and how you move forward.

Uh, and so a lot of it is about supporting the readers in terms of understanding the pieces that we are responsible for as in- individuals, but also clearly articulating the pieces that are about systemic injustices, systemic practices, and embedded anti-Blackness in every layer of our society. 

[00:19:47] Rita Burke: Dr. Beverly-Jean Daniel, we've got you on SpeakUP! International this morning, and what you're talking about and how you're talking about it, to me, encapsulates everything that we've done ever since we started SpeakUP! International. And there are many statements that you've made so far that I think are wo- I know are worth repeating.

I'll say just two of them, and then I'll move on. First of all, people only try to destroy what they're afraid of. Absolutely true, emphatically so. We know that. Next, you said that everything Black very often is being, uh, what should I... I- is being attacked, attacking Black and Blackness and Black history. I thought that we were getting better with that, but I was so sad yesterday when I was listening to the CBC.

Uh, no, it was Monday, and there was a guest talking about books, and she kept on referring to everything bad in the books as Black and dark, and it was touching every soul in my body, every cell in my body. I was getting so upset. Talking about books, and she was saying it was morally, the themes were morally Black, and I'm thinking, "CBC, you should know better than this."

I'm not saying not have her on, but l- monitor the, the narrative and the things they're saying. No wonder our young Black people are beginning to buy into Black being bad. So that's my little diatribe on that. But I want you to talk now about, eh, being a professor at TMU. Talk to us about that experience.

[00:21:49] Dr. Beverly-Jean M. Daniel: Uh, wow. Being a professor at TMU has been in some ways rewarding, and in other ways extremely challenging. And, and I say that because, you know, in all spaces that we enter, particularly as, as Black women, um, we can identify the, the various ways in which we're able to, to thrive and the various ways in wh- and the various accomplishments, right?

But what often doesn't get seen is, s- or I should say, are the multiple hurts. It's, it's the violence of the spaces, right? And irrespective of what you've achieved, and, and one of the things I have said to people is that my PhD does not protect me, because foundationally I am still Black and I am still a woman, right?

Which means that I have to still deal with, with the patriarchal relations that are evidenced in these institutions. It means that I still have to deal with all of the racism that comes in, in direct ways and in subtle ways, right? So in the... So whether I am qu- if I am quiet in a meeting, that gets read in a negative way.

If I ask a question, that gets read in a negative way, all right? If I, if I respond to a question that I'm asked, that gets read in a negative way. So you're always in this space of trying to in, in some ways gingerly articulate your ideas in a manner that you're not going to be read. Uh, but I think at this stage in my life, I have come to accept that my very presence in these spaces becomes an act of disruption.

And many of these spaces, they're, they try to push us out, right? So when I get, for example, accused, um, by my dean of slamming a door in somebody's face, and I go, "I'm sorry, what? Did, did, did you investigate this? Because you really should have." But there was no investigation, it's just the acceptance, right?

That as a Black woman, and of course the angry Black woman label gets, gets imposed upon me, right? Um, or, you know, being, being dealt with in ways that- Make you question whether or not you should be there. So one of the, the, the roles that I stepped into was the director of the School of Child and Youth Care, but the level of harassment that I experienced at the hands of the dean, within six months I stepped down from that role, right?

Because I said it's, one, it's not worth my, my peace. Um, two, it's signing forms. It's really not the, the best use of my intellectual energy. And, and three, the harassment was getting to the point where it was affecting me, it was affecting my health, and I know that it was intentional, and I know that it was designed to, to try to destabilize me, right?

Um, so those are the, the, the, for me, the challenges and, you know, and the fact that the institutions know and are non-responsive. With that said, however, when I walk into classrooms and I see Black students and, and I see the look of shock in their eyes when I walk in as that Black professor, and when I'm able to say to them, "I expect you to succeed," and to see young people go from just wanting to get by, just wanting to finish, to being on the honor roll, um, to going on to law school, going on to, to complete PhDs, that for me is the joy of the work that I do, and I have had to learn to balance the complexities of that space, right?

There will be anti-Black racism no matter where I go. Then I have to make a choice. Do I put my energies into focusing on people who are toxic, um, or do I put my energies into focusing on building the next generation? So for me, my, my navigation through the waters at TMU have by necessity been intentional.

I have had to intentionally choose where I put my focus, intentionally choose where I put my energies because if I allow what is happening in those toxic rivers in our society to impact me, we can't do anything more than survive, and I refuse- To be stuck in survival mode, because that means that you're always in desperation mode.

Um, I, I focus on, on thriving. I focus on growing. I f- a- and in some ways, I think interestingly enough, um, I've made, I've made the, the statement, "When people throw shit at you, take it and turn it into fertilizer." Right?

And, and use that to propel your growth, right? So that's why I respond. Okay, I'm gonna, 

[00:28:20] Ellington Brown: I'm gonna have to put that one in my vault. That was, that was good. 

[00:28:26] Rita Burke: He w- he would love that. Elton would love that. Oh, yeah. So thank you. You'll re- you'll keep 

[00:28:33] Ellington Brown: it, right? Oh, yeah. I'm not going... I'm gonna... It's already locked.

It's already locked in! Good doctor, you, you talk about, having, many levels, and when individuals are in college and they see you, someone that looks, the Black people, that look like you, and you mention how they, all of a sudden they get this drop of energy which propels, propels them to move forward because they see someone that looks like them in a position, uh, of leadership, and I think that's wonderful.

But because you are Black, must w- we as Black individuals always come forward with that perspective, that because I'm Black, I have to whatever? 

[00:29:38] Dr. Beverly-Jean M. Daniel: You know, that's an interesting question, Elton. So let me say that there's also the f- the flip side of the coin where I en- have engaged with Black students who are quite upset with me, right?

Because in their, in their framing of it, I'm expecting too much of them. I'm raising the bar too high, right? So

I can speak to the way in which I enter spaces and, and, and I think again, because for the first 16 years of my life I didn't have to enter spaces with this idea of being Black, right, being, right... Yes, of course there's, there's racism in the Caribbean. Yes, of course there's colorism and shadeism and all of those things.

Absolutely, right? But I think the difference for me when I walk into spaces in Canada is that there's the expectation on the part of others that I need to present myself in a particular way because I'm Black. And, and but my framing of it is that when I choose to enter a space, I need to be clear why am I entering that space, right?

So if I go into, to the academy, why am I there? What are my goals? What do I want to achieve? So when I enter those spaces knowing that what fuels my work is, um, is my people. What, what gives me the drive to keep going is my people. It's my community. It's my love for, for Black people, right? So whenever I enter those spaces, I bring that love with me, right?

So when I look into the faces of my students, all my students, and I tell them this, you know, day one, I said, "Look, I don't care what background you are, how you identify. As my student, I want to see every single one of you succeed," right? However, as a Black woman, I must put my community first, right? So outside of my classroom work and expectations, I am prepared to put in the extra work to support Black students.

So for me, it's not about having to do it, because I can tell you there are lots of Black academics who don't support each other, who don't show up for the students, right? Um, and I can think of many Black academics that I have encountered who, they scare me more than I am scared by white folks, right?

Because of their own internalized stuff. So I think, uh, Elton, people have to, to make a choice in terms of why are you doing this? W- w- what, what is your goal? What... Right? And for me, my goal is always the survival and uplift of my people. Um, and like I said, there are times I have gotten pushback from, from Black students.

I've even had Black students report me to the dean to say, "She's, she's pushing us too hard." But when I look back on those journeys with those, those students, understanding or helping them to also understand that for most of their career or their academic journeys, the reason they have kept going is because the teachers just kept pushing them through.

They expected them not to do well. They expected them to be subpar, right? So then when they were subpar, the teachers accepted it and patted them on the back. But then when I encounter them and I go, "No, this isn't-" This isn't quality work. Well, then I become the bad guy, right? But it didn't mean that I gave up.

Uh, I kept working with them. I c- And I can think of two students right now, uh, who can tell you that when they first gave me their assignments, and this is when I was teaching part-time at, at, um, at, when it was Ryerson, um, and I said to them, "This is unacceptable. You need to do it over." And they were both so upset with me.

Both of them are professors now, right? And interestingly enough, one called me yesterday. You know, "Professor, I haven't spoken to you in a while," right? Um, or I can think of another young woman who from the minute I interacted with her, she was mad as hell, right? And she has now applied for her PhD, right?

And as we're sitting here, I'm seeing text messages from her showing up on my phone. So I walk in with the expectation for all my students that they will do well, but I walk in with the absolute confidence that my Black students will thrive and flourish under my care. And this summer, we're hosting, um, the Bridge Academic Summer Institute.

So yes, it's, it's always about I will care for you, I will carry you. And, and, and if I could just say this last piece, I think the thing that I give to my students is, again, is particularly my Black students, but all my students, is this knowledge that I will always be here for you, right? Whether it's 10 years down the line, 15 years down, I will always be here for you.

Um, and that is something that a lot of our young people haven't had. 

[00:35:45] Rita Burke: We're talking with Dr. Beverly-Jean Daniel on SpeakUP! International. And as you know, on SpeakUP! International, we seek to inform, to inspire, and to educate, and I have no doubt that we're doing that today by listening to Dr. Jean, Beverly-Jean.

Now, you founded a program at Humber College in 2010, I believe. Talk to us about that program, please. 

[00:36:16] Dr. Beverly-Jean M. Daniel: Yes. Um, so that program, which is called The Bridge- And if you think of the literal and the metaphorical sort of idea of a bridge, what does a bridge do? It takes you over obstacles, right? Um, it, it helps you move over difficult terrain.

And, and I think it is so important for us as a community to understand, uh, that the schools and the classrooms are some of the most violent spaces that our children are exposed to, right? Black children are not safe in our nation's schools. Mm-hmm. The level of racism that they're experiencing is unreal, and I don't know if we fully grasp the con- the, the, the concept of how bad it is.

So the Bridge Program came about when I was at Humber and I was the, uh, the program coordinator or the program director, however you wanna say it. And I'm sitting at my desk, it's the end of the semester, and I now have the list of all the students who have to be withdrawn from the program that semester.

And I remember there were 20 students on the list. 18 of them were Black. Hmm. Just think about that,

right? Wow. And I had to do a double take. I thought, "Okay, am I missing something here?" So this is where my, my researcher brain goes, right, "Okay, w- was it a miscalculation? Is it... Like, what is happening here?" So I then decided to go and look at the previous, um, patterns of withdrawal, and it was exactly the same.

Approximately 80% of the students who were slated for withdrawal were Black. I then decided to talk to some of the other program coordinators and I said, "You know, have you guys seen this pattern?" And pretty much they all said, "Yes. Oh, but they're not being withdrawn because they're Black, they just happen to be Black."

Well, don't you guys think this is a problem, right? So let me say that for me it was shocking, right? And this is after I had spent years in the school system. But somehow, whether it's my, my little middle class brain be- or whether because schooling came easy for me, I assumed that once our kids got to the post-secondary sector, that they had already figured out how to navigate the systems and they were gonna be okay.

I didn't think beyond grade, grade 12, grade 13. I thought, "Oh, once you get to university, you're fine." But I forgot that university- Are just as toxic because they're in the same toxic stew of racism, right? And they're technically less supportive because now you're expected to figure it out. You're expected to do it on your own.

So what I realized was that so many of our young people didn't know why they were there. They were told, "Go get an education." Right? But one of the things that we, we as a community haven't done well, through no fault of our own, 'cause I do remind people that we didn't even get access to universities until the '60s, right?

So in our lifetimes, that's when we got access to universities, which a lot of people don't even pay attention to, but we don't necessarily have the language of careers. So our kids might say, "Oh, yeah, I wanna be a police officer," or, "I wanna be a, um, a lawyer," "Oh, I wanna be a, a, a basketball player," right? But for our kids to understand there's a...

it's, like, thousands of careers out there, but they don't have the language for it, right? How many of us get to see a physiotherapist? Most of us can't afford it, so the idea of a physiotherapist doesn't show up for our kids. Um, a gemologist, a botanist, right, a marine biologist, all of these are very viable pathways, but our community doesn't necessarily have the language to articulate it.

So the Bridge program really emerged out of my wanting to, to help and support Black students as they navigate the post-secondary education landscape. So what I did was I instituted, um, a series of, of workshops and, um, and supports for them whereby, and I refer to it as this, the, um, the hub and spoke model, right?

That the Bridge program became the hub, where whatever issues they were having, they would come... they could come to us, and we would then identify the, the support services for them. Because some of the students were being withdrawn, not because they weren't capable, right? But, you know, if we take, you know...

Elton, if I can use you as a, as a quick example, something is happening in your personal life that is causing you crisis, and you're not able to effectively balance the demands of your personal world and the demands of schooling. So what you do is you stop attending class, but you didn't actually drop the course, right?

So the classes that you kept attending, because you were already struggling with the personal stuff- You didn't do as well on those courses, and then the ones that you didn't attend, you've completely failed. So now your overall grade point average is significantly w- dropping, right? Because you've got that zero grade, right?

Or that maybe 10, right? Your grade point average has dropped. You don't have the minimum, um, required grade point average, so now you're either on academic probation or you're being withdrawn. So they weren't being withdrawn because they weren't capable, they were being withdrawn because they did not necessarily have the skills and the supports to help them effectively figure out how to manage, how to balance, and what options they had, right?

So once the students got involved with the Bridge program, you know, so Elton, you come and you tell me, you know, "I'm, I'm having to deal with X or Y or Z." Well, now I'm walking you through the process and I'm saying, "Okay, well, which three or four courses do you think you can keep and do well? Okay. All right.

You've now got these two others. You know what? The drop date is coming. Let's drop these two courses so we can keep your GPA high." Right? So it's, again, simple things like that, that our kids didn't necessarily understand how to, to do, right? The, some of the other pieces that I would do is, "Okay, so you're going through a crisis and you failed these two courses.

Is there any evidence of that crisis that you were going through? Okay. Did you know that you can write a letter to the registrar's office explaining your circumstances, and you could have those grades withdrawn from your transcript, which then brings your grade point average back up, right?" But who's telling our kids that they have these options?

No one, right? So the Bridge program really became this sort of a wraparound model and, um, I'll be honest and tell you, I had to fight, and I mean fight, to get the program going because nobody wanted to do anything just for Black students, right? Um, what we then saw was that in the first year, the students who were involved in the Bridge program had a 85% retention rate, which was already higher than Humber's overall retention rate.

By the second year of the program, and every single year after that, we had 100% retention rate. We never lost a single student, right? If life became extremely difficult, we put the strategies in place to help them stop out, not drop out. Right? And that's, that's a very important distinction. Stopping out is, "I am going to take a semester off and come back the following semester."

Dropout is, "There's so much going on in my world, I can't pay attention to school. My grades are gonna drop, so now I'm in trouble with OSAP because I wasn't in school." So it's, it was just all these levels of, of crises that could have been very easily addressed, but no one was invested in it, right? The other thing that I will say really quickly is that what a lot of people don't understand is that there's a significant financial impact when Black students drop out of post-secondary.

If you drop out of high school, you are not borrowing money to go to school. You go to post-secondary, and oftentimes you're borrowing money from OSAP. If you get withdrawn, the expectation is you need to pay that money back, right? And you cannot get any additional loans until that money is paid back. So if you drop out or you're withdrawn, you now have this financial burden, right?

And we talk about it as debt with no diploma. So you've now amassed all of this debt, but you cannot get back into any school or any post-secondary program until you've paid off that debt, right? The other significant change that happened, which I, which I to, to this day I don't think our community is aware of, is that historically post-secondary institutions got money for bums in seats.

You bring the students in, the government will give you money. But when that funding formula changed, right? So actually, let me just back up a little bit. So it made sense for the institutions to get in as many Black students as they could, right? Because... And to keep them there as long as they could. So what they would do is they would move, you know, Elton from program one.

"Oh, he's failed out of that. That's okay, we'll move him into program two. Oh, he's failed out of that. That's okay, we'll move him to program three." Because for every time that Elton registers, you get funding. But when the funding formula changed and the focus was on retention, and Black students were now being seen as a liability, once Elton failed out, goodbye Elton, right?

Because if we kept bringing you in, you would skew our numbers, right? So Black students were no, no longer seen as a possible cash cow. So what the Bridge to, the Bridge Program did exceptionally well- Is not only did we create that supportive environment for Black students, not only did we ensure that they had 100% retention rate, but we specifically focused on their academic development, right?

So what we then saw happening is these students are now showing up on the honor roll, right? Because now they're empowered. Now they have a better sense of who they are, right? Um, so if a bridge student gets an 80-something on an assignment, oh, no, no, no, no, no, they're mad as hell. They're going to the professor and they want an explanation and they wanna know where they lost marks and why they lost marks, and this needs to be looked at again, right?

So now all of a sudden you've got all of these Black students on the honor roll. Hmm. That's changing the dynamics, right? Because Black students fail. Black students aren't supposed to be on the honor roll. And not only were they now showing up on the honor roll, they were now getting the academic scholarships.

So now they're even more of a threat. So what then happened, there was a group of white students who started writing hate mail, who started threatening me, right? The hate crimes unit had to be involved, the police had to be involved. It was a hot mess, and here was their logic. And, and this is what they wrote in the letters, right?

"Ns," the N word, "could never be that smart, so she must be changing and inflating their grades." She should be fired and sent her back to where she came from." Right? So all of the, the, you know, the, the, the narratives around, um, Black, Black failure, right? So the only way that Black students could be succeeding is if somebody was inflating their grades.

So that's how bad it is for Black students. Um, but we pushed past it and we, we kept going. Um, and so many of those that literally, they, they've all done something. So to, to look back and think that I kept thousands of, of Black students in school- 

[00:50:30] Ellington Brown: Yes! ... 

[00:50:31] Dr. Beverly-Jean M. Daniel: Right? Um, and what saddens me is that since my time at, um, at TMU, I've been trying to find guaranteed funding for it, and every year it's the same thing.

"Oh, you know, this or that." Um, even this year as I'm trying to run the summer institute, I have gotten not one single penny from TMU, right? Not one single penny. So I said, "Okay, well I guess if I have to do it out of my own pocket, I'll do it. If I have to use my research funds to do it, I'll do it, but I'm, I'm not prepared to not do it."

Because the Black students are reaching out to me saying, "Miss, when are you gonna do The Bridge? When are you gonna do The Bridge? When are you gonna do The Bridge?" So The Bridge is going to start back tomorrow evening, and, um, we're going to be bringing in grade 12 students from the Jane and Finch community, um, undergraduate students, master's and PhD students, and we're going to spend the summer building this team of absolutely brilliant young people, right?

Um, so yeah, The Bridge, The Bridge is coming back whether they give us money for it or not. Um, and- 

[00:51:53] Ellington Brown: Well, this is a, this is a good thing. You holding on to this vision that obviously is working, and it just shows that as B- Black individuals, we're almost built to think that there aren't any options for us.

And so therefore, we go through the forms, we fill them out, and we feel, okay, well, we, we know. We're following the rules, and we're, we're stuck into this system, and there's no play in it for us. And with your Bridge system, they're able to find the options necessary for them to take care of important things in their lives, but also determine how they're going to be successful, uh, dealing with post education.

 I think that alone is invaluable! You can't even put a price on, on that. It's impossible to, do that. I just wanted to say, you're doing a wonderful thing. And I, I don't wanna take up any more time, 'cause I know Rita has a question.

So Rita, the virtual floor is yours! 

[00:53:19] Rita Burke: Yes, ma'am. I sat here as if I was sitting at the feet of one of my own professors. And as you spoke, I could hear the determination, I could hear the caring, I could hear the compassion in your voice, in your tone, in your tenor, in your demeanor for our people, and I think that's, that's really critical.

You're committed. There's no question about that. So my last question then is- What does the title The Lessons We Forget To Teach Ourselves mean to you? What does that title mean to you, The Lessons We Forget To Teach Ourselves? 

[00:54:06] Dr. Beverly-Jean M. Daniel: Yeah, so that was an interesting... There's a story, a little bit of a story behind that.

Um, so again, one of my former students, uh, who was doing, um, a TEDx talk had reached out to me and asked me to be one of the speakers at her TEDx talk. Um, now this young woman has been sort of in and out of my life for the past several years, and I think last year she and I met, and I remember her saying to me, "You know, Dr.

Danielle, when you were at Humber, we took your presence for granted. We didn't realize just how much you were protecting us from the storms." Um, and she said, "Once you left..." She said, you know, "The, the, the analogy that I can use is you're in a storm, but somebody has a massive umbrella covering you, so you don't think the storm is that bad, and then all of a sudden the umbrella is gone, and you get hit with the storm," right?

And again, this was a young woman who when I said to her, "I expect better of you," right? And she, she can tell you, she was mad, right? "What do you mean you expect... All my teachers were fine with this," right? Same young woman, she has finished her bachelor's, she's finished her... Well, she finished her diploma. She went to did her ba- her bachelor's.

She's, she's done two master's degrees. She's looking at her PhD. You know, same young woman who was fighting me initially. So when she invited me to do that talk, I thought, "What, what is the message that I could give," right? And the message for me was helping people to remember that when people tell us we can't, that that notion of can't is somebody else's responsibility.

It's not ours. That message of can't is their own trauma. It's their own insecurities that they're projecting onto us. But what often happens is that we get so much of other people's insecurities being projected onto us that along the way we forget who we are, we forget what we c- what we're capable of, and we, we stop teaching ourselves about our brilliance, about our capacity.

So you think of, for example, you know, a young kid says, y- you know, you, "What do you wanna be when you grow?" "Oh, I wanna be a pilot." But then somebody says, "Oh, you know it's really hard to become a pilot, right?" So that's one negative nugget that's put, that, you know, like a stone on your back. And then somebody else says, "You know you need math, right?

And you're not good at math." So that's another stone that gets put on a, on a back. And then somebody says, "Well, you know, um, you know that there aren't that many pilots, right? So how are you gonna get a job as a pilot?" That's another... So you keep getting buried under other people's negativity. So for me, the, the line around the, the, the lessons we forget to teach ourselves is how can we go back and remember those dreams?

How can we go back and, you know, open the closet door and, and reach behind the clo- you know, in that box, and pull out those dreams, and remind ourselves what we thought we were capable of before the world took those ideas away from us? Um, remind ourselves what we were passionate about before somebody rained on all, all, all of our passions.

Um, and even that line where I said, you know, when people feed you crap, you turn it into manure, right? People will keep coming at you. They will not stop, because we're almost wired for the negativity. But part of that self-care and that self-protection is to never forget who we are, right? And to keep teaching ourselves, uh, because I, I, I...

One of the things I've said to people is the minute I stop learning, that means I've, I've just died, right? Because there's always something to learn. There's always something that we can go back. And even at this stage in my life now, where technically my children are grown, um, I, I feel as though I'm still parenting, don't get me wrong, right?

But it's giving me an opportunity at this stage to also go back into my closet and to find that box in the back of my closet and, and find out what did that little girl wanna do? What were her dreams? What were the, what were the pieces that she really, really wanted to try? Um, and how can I teach myself that again?

How can I teach myself to have that unbridled passion of youth and to keep moving? 

[00:59:24] Ellington Brown: It has been such a pleasure and eye-opener. You have been inspirational. And your book, We Were Not Built to Break, is going to resonate with so many, Black, Brown, and other marginalized, communities for them to be able to pick themselves up maybe by their bootstraps and decide that th- they are not going to be, broken.

I think the perfect example is our mothers, especially my mom, who was a single mother and who went through a whole lot of s- nasty stuff, and to finally get to a point in life where she was, uh, happy. And I think in your book, you give, uh, life to decision-making, something that we don't have that option.

And we look at other groups, and they have all of these options and back doors to reach their goals, but they're not for anyone else. And then you find out later through you that no, no, no, those options are there. You just need to have someone d- to be your champion, and that's where you, you step in. So I, I really wanna thank you for taking the time to be, be with us Dr. Daniel. I like saying that. I don't know, it has a ring to it. Uh, maybe, maybe because you're Black, I don't know, that it has such a ring to it. But in a- but in any case, I thank you so much, and I know that this has, uh, we've been jostling around a little bit in order to, to get you on SpeakUP! International, and w- Rita and I really appreciate it.

And when you write your next book, we would love to have you back and for you to tell us your, your new, vision that you've pulled out of that box that's sitting way in the back of your closet. 

[01:01:50] Dr. Beverly-Jean M. Daniel: Thank you so much, Elton. I, I really appreciate it. It has been my pleasure being here. Um, and Rita knows that when she calls, I come running.

[01:01:58] Rita Burke: Oh, you're so beautiful. You're so beautiful. But you know, at the beginning, you talked about being a frontline therapist, and when you described the bridging program, the Bridge Program- ... I could see the therapist in you coming out and surrounding and blanket, blanketing those Black students- Mm-hmm ... so that they would feel cocooned and warmed and, and strong enough to survive being in that college.

Mm-hmm. And for the next time I will ask you is, the Bridging Program, did any of the other colleges, and we can talk about this later- Yeah ... adopt that program? But I want to thank you so, so much for what you've done today for SpeakUP! International. Let's keep the conversation going at some point. Dr. Beverly-Jean Daniel! 

[01:02:47] Dr. Beverly-Jean M. Daniel: It's my pleasure, and I would always be happy to come back and, and chat. Um, and, and Elton, my, my next project is gonna be, um, love letters to my daughters. Yes. The conversations that we, we as Black mothers need to have with our daughters. We need to, um, and- 

[01:03:07] Ellington Brown: She, she never stops, huh?

[01:03:15] Dr. Beverly-Jean M. Daniel: Thank you both so much for having me! 

[01:03:18] Ellington Brown: Thank you for tuning in to SpeakUP! International! If you wish to contact our guest, Dr. Beverly-Jean Daniel, please be prepared to submit your name, your email address, and the reason why you wish to contact Dr. Beverly-Jean Daniel at Linkedin.com 

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