Akra Soumah is here on February 2 (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThis year\u2019s theme is \u201cunited by heritage.\u201d Mboussi says they chose this theme because they want to help celebrate all heritage together as opposed to having separate events throughout the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe chose the theme because we all come together for Black History Month, whether you\u2019re from the Caribbean, Canadian born, American, or originally from one of the 54 African countries. In February we all come together because we are all African-descent people,\u201d says Mboussi. \u201cThis is why we say this is the only time we can really say, \u2018Yes, we are together.\u2019 We are trying to just raise awareness about that. During the rest of the year we have plenty of events, but people don\u2019t really know if they\u2019re about Africa, the Caribbean, or somewhere else. We\u2019re really trying to let people know that, February, we are all united by our heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mboussi says that the name \u201cBlack History Month\u201d can cause some issues; she hopes that in the future, people here will start to follow in other provinces\u2019 footsteps and start calling it by a different name, one that can allow for other cultures to also have their own celebrations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI found that in some provinces, they\u2019ve been calling Black History Month African Heritage Month. I think that it\u2019s to help avoid this frustration that some people have about, like, \u2018What about white month? What about this?\u2019\u201d says Mboussi. \u201cIf we say \u2018African Heritage Month,\u2019 it\u2019s easier to talk to people because you could have Asian Heritage Month, or other ones, too. So that\u2019s also another reason why we chose the theme this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mboussi says that part of what makes Black History Month important is that it allows people to come and learn about different cultures. She says that bringing the community together is rewarding and great to experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cTalking about Black History Month is, honestly, not my strength,\u201d she says. \u201cMy strength is talking about the African continent, so if people want to learn about the diverse heritage of black people, we invite them to attend something this month and learn about our diversity. The artists in the music events will be representing around 10 African countries alone, so we want people to come and learn about this. I spend my days saying, \u2018Please don\u2019t say \u201cblack people\u201d because we are all really different!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Black History Month
\nVarious times,\u00a0Wednesday, January 31 to Saturday, February 24
\nVarious prices and venues
\nvaccsociety.blogspot.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Black History Month is more than just a historical examination. Officially recognized in 2008, the month-long celebration of culture has grown into so much more. Victoria African and Caribbean Cultural Society founder Pulch\u00e9rie Mboussi says that Black History Month grows into a bigger festival of celebration every year. \u201cThis year is going to be huge. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,205],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-january-24-2018"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15306"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15309,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15306\/revisions\/15309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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