Just last week, Toronto’s Jully Black made headlines around the world when she took to the court at the NBA All-star Game in Salt Lake City Utah, to sing Canada’s National anthem with a slight rewrite to the lyrics. Black replaced “Oh, Canada, our home and native land” with “Oh, Canada, our home on Native land,” an acknowledgement of Canada’ colonial past.
“I sang the facts. We are walking, breathing, living, experiencing life on native land. On Indigenous land,” the award-winning singer-songwriter said in a an interview with The National.
And while Black’s message seemed to be met with a great deal of positive feedback and support and seemed to resonate across the country — a #OurHomeONNativeLand hashtag was created in support of her efforts — a recent post on Black’s Instagram account tells a different story.
Yesterday evening, Black posted a screenshot of an extremely troubling email that had been sent to her team that was filled with derogatory language, profanities, racial slurs and hate.
“So I haven’t paid any attention to the trolls and keyboard gangsters all week. People have told me what they’re hearing and I’ve been laughing they’re quite funny,” Black captioned the post.
“This one was emailed to my team directly…This one stung a bit I won’t lie. Seeing my the disrespect of my Jamaican heritage, being called a Monkey and Nigger, being referred to as “Blacks” and all the rest of the hate spewed at me including a threat of “You watch as what happens to you…” truly made my heart weep that there is this type of hate period AND coming from somebody claiming to be of Indian heritage here in Canada…,” Black goes on to say.
In the email, Terencia Capleton writes: “But while living in a white majority country, you have the audacity to single-handedly change our national anthem? HOW DARE YOU!”
Capleton goes on to say, “You watch and see what happens if you ever try to pull this s*it again,” and ends the email by stating that they are not white and from India.
“I won’t flood my feed with anymore negative posts I just want you all to see the hate that is coming my way for being an Ally,” says Black, adding, “Oh and And for the record, I’m born and raised in Canada,” with the hashtags #ThisIsCanada #RacisimDoesExist”
It didn’t take long for Black’s followers to rush to her support.
“This letter contained a threat. I hope your team brought it to the authorities,” read one comment.
“Nah. This is next level hatred right here. Had to skim through it because it’s triggering for me. Jully, I am so sorry.” read another.
Black is a Juno-Award winning R&B singer, actor and producer who was inducted into the Canadian Walk of Fame in 2021. She was also named one our our most inspiring women of 2018.
