After more than two years with the Guelph Black Heritage Society, Kween is stepping down from her role as executive director.
She’s been considering the move for some time, but always felt like the job wasn’t finished. That is, until someone reminded her it will never be done, no matter how hard she works.
“I needed to hear that, because I think I was waiting for the moment I was gonna fix it all and be able to take a break,” she said in an interview.
A number of personal reasons led to the decision, including the ongoing impacts of the concussion she's been dealing with since October of last year.
”For so long, I’ve taken care of my community that I forgot I am too my own community. My businesses were faltering, my relationships were faltering. There was no time for peace and joy, and I think I just need to step back and work on healing myself, so I can be a better community leader.”
While the decision to step back from her role as executive director has brought some relief, it feels “bittersweet,” and was “probably one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make in my life, because GBHS is my community, my family … a second home.”
Kween grew up in Guelph, but was driven away by the racism and systemic failures she experienced, moving to Toronto until the cost of living eventually brought her back.
But when John Leacock introduced her to the GBHS, everything changed.
“I had no idea what this place was. It had been there for years and I had left the city not even knowing,” she said.
That connection made her feel more at home in Guelph than ever before.
“I grew up in an Irish/Italian home, so my family looks nothing like what I see in the mirror,” she said. “And while my family is amazing… they just don’t have the same lived experiences that I’ve gone through.”
GBHS quickly became a second family, giving her the cultural connection she had always longed for.
“I ran away from my home so many times before finally leaving for Toronto. I was constantly looking for these answers to who I was,” she said. “GBHS really just (put) a rooftop over me, where I could explore and do social justice and help my people all at once.”
By 2019, she was volunteering, helping with social media and events.
But when the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd sparked protests across the globe, she felt compelled to take on a bigger role.
“After 10 years of protesting … something felt different for me this time; I needed to do something more than just attend a protest or put up a post,” she said. Together with a group of women, she put together the protest – and then a series of protests – that jump started her role as executive director in 2020.
“Denise Francis really just took a chance on me, and helped me learn things,” she said.
During her time in the position, she and Francis, GBHS president, worked together take the work beyond protesting in the street, launching initiatives like Change Starts Now initiative and the Give A Cup capital campaign.
“It wasn’t just changing and helping our community, I was trying to teach and educate others outside of our community on what it means to be an anti-racist.”
Though rewarding, a role like that doesn’t come lightly.
In the past few years, the GBHS and its members have dealt with a lot of harassment: vandalism, threatening emails, cyber bullying, phone lines being cut; one member was even threatened with a knife.
“This role also brought me a lot of grief and a lot of pain and exhaustion through constant activism and empathetic love for people, and just wanting to see a better world. A place where I don't have to worry about if a phone call from one of my boys is because another one of us got shot,” she said. “It’s been so hard to switch that off, for so many of us.”
She also realized through all this, she has been missing joy.
“During this time, a lot of people said joy can look like resilience for Black people. Why can’t joy just be joy? And that’s what I want to move forward into, because no matter what happens in this world, racism will continue. We continue doing the hard work, of course, but I think through a lot of that has to be joy, or we’re all just going to break.”
While she’s sad to leave, she said she sees the value in being able to heal, “so that I can be a better community leader.”
But this isn’t a final farewell: She will also continue collaborating and volunteering with GBHS, while using this time to heal from her concussion and focus on her own businesses, The Kween Company, and the Heels Academy, which she co-owns.
“It’s important that my business partners and the people I serve get 100 per cent of me and not just 50 per cent because that’s all I’ve got left in the tank,” she said.
But she’s also going to dedicate some of that time to finding joy, starting with running for Ms. Guelph in the 2023 Canadian National Miss Pageant.
In the meantime, she encourages city members and councillors to read the post she made on Instagram explaining her departure, and the changes she hopes to see in Guelph.
