Cheryl Thompson leading Black history research in Canada
November 23, 2021
The Royal Society of Canada acknowledges emerging intellectual leaders who have demonstrated a high level of achievement.
Though Cheryl Thompson meets the requirements, making the esteemed list this year came as a big surprise.
The Ryerson University lecturer and senator is at the forefront of conducting Black History research in Canada.
“To be selected is one thing as I didn’t realize how big this is,” she said. “When you look at the list and you see very few Blacks on it, then you start to realize you are in an elite group, some of whom may have saw that as a natural progression in their career. I never imagined being among a list like this, especially doing the work I do which is to bring some kind of authenticity to it and not change it to appease a White viewer who might be interested in something that makes them feel comfortable. To do that work and have it basically being celebrated in this form is huge.”
Thompson recently launched a research lab, focusing on the study of Black representation and the establishment of an archive.
The project will create an inventory of Ontario’s Black archives and develop a detailed framework for how to collect, describe, curate and catalogue the collections.
In addition to producing a manuscript proposal on Black Archives in the province that will be submitted to a scholarly publisher, the project will conclude with a public exhibition that merges the findings of Ontario’s Black Archives with the storytelling about the archives from the creative and archival communities.
Thompson has been working in archives for the last decade.
“Over that time, I have gained an expertise in working in Black collections and realizing there’s so much more to that story that has never been told,” she said. “What’s interesting is there are a lot of Black creators that are now turning their attention to archives also and realizing how so much of the contributions that we have made to our city, the province and the country have not been commemorated because they have not been archived or they are in archives and can’t be found.
“Part of the impetus for the project is that I wanted to change this and for people to know where to find Black people, our contributions and also for the system of archiving to actually change so that there’s a recognition that the way Black collections have been archived need to adapt so that we can find ourselves when we go into these collections. It is very hard to find Black people in the archives unless you really know what you are doing. You have to be specially trained. My thing is that we want the public to be able to just walk in and find themselves.”
A total of three PhD. and two Master’s graduate research assistants along with post-doctoral fellow Karen Cyrus will be trained during the five-year project that’s supported by an Ontario Early Researcher Award, ‘Mapping Ontario’s Black Archives Through Storytelling’.
Thompson selected Cyrus, a musicologist and York University lecturer, as her Research Lead.
Her PhD dissertation focused on late Jamaican-born keyboardist Donat ‘Jackie’ Mittoo who is considered reggae’s original beat master and musical director.
“Karen has an extensive background in working in Black collections because that is how she was able to do that project,” said Thompson who has been an Assistant Professor in Ryerson’s School of Creative Industries since July 2018. “During the interview process, we hit it off right away. The moment I spoke with her, I could tell she has the same passion like me for Black history and archives and she understood how difficult it is to do this kind of work.”
Raised in Scarborough and graduating from Cedarbrae Collegiate Institute, she accepted a soccer scholarship to attend Olivet College in Michigan. Disliking the school, she transferred after a year to Appalachian State in North Carolina.
While at Appalachian pursuing American History studies, Thompson quit playing soccer and threw the javelin.
Losing her appetite for competitive sport a few months later, she returned home in 1999 to complete her undergraduate studies in Criminology at the University of Windsor.
“I thought I wanted to be lawyer at that stage and figured criminology would allow me to know the justice system and really understand the prison system,” Thompson noted. “That degree, however, made me not want to be a lawyer because I learnt about systems and structures and realized I wasn’t interested in working in them the way a lawyer would have to. I realized I was interested in culture and the way in which that shows up in all forms, including text, visual and experiences.”
She completed a Master’s in Communication & Culture at Ryerson University in 2007 and a PhD. in Communication Studies eight years later at McGill University.
An historical examination of North America’s beauty culture industry, her thesis explores how race, gender and class have shaped women’s identities and the beauty ideal.
Starting as her doctoral dissertation, “Beauty in a Box: Detangling Canada’s Black Beauty Culture’ is one of the first historical examinations of the Black beauty culture industry in Canada.
“Before it was a dissertation, it was my life journey where I decided to go natural after about 15 years of chemically straightening my hair,” the former University of Toronto Instructor and part-time Sheridan College faculty member said. “I was doing that as a teenager and my hair was damaged. I just felt like I wanted to live a healthier life and the hair and body were part of that. Being a writer and always reflecting, I decided to write about my experience. “
About 13 years ago, she wrote an article that was published in ‘Toronto Star’.
“That was the first article that I had ever written that was published in a mainstream publication and that prompted me to take the passion I had for my transition further,” she said. “I realized nobody was writing about this and talking how about it is we have been sold through media culture and inundated with advertising telling us we have to buy into a certain industry and look. Not everybody who does a PhD. is coming at it from an interest in figuring out who they are. My PhD. was literally my attempt to do that.”
Thompson, who held a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Toronto, said there’s a strong connection between hair and the identity of Black culture.
“This is even more the case for young girls and women as some of our earliest memories are attached to our hair and those memories could be good or bad depending on how you are raised,” she pointed out. “Hair care in Black communities can be difficult in terms of finding the right products and obviously when you are a little girl and your hair is being done, there is a natural curl in Black hair and it can be dense. So combing that hair can be very painful. Now there’s pain attached to your hair being done. As soon as you get old enough, mothers would want to put a chemical relaxer in their daughters’ hair so that the hair care practice wouldn’t hurt them.
“There were good intentions behind why a young Black girl got her hair permed because it literally made life easier for both the person whose hair was done and the person doing it. As you get older, your hair gets damaged because those chemicals can be harsh. A lot of Black girls transition to wearing hair weaves, lace front wigs or just wigs in general. I don’t judge anyone for their hair choices, but I maintain that the only hairstyle that actually doesn’t damage hair is when you wear your hair the way it grows out of your scalp and you learn to work with your actual texture. When you cover, hide or alter it, that means that you have to do things to protect your hair at a certain point because all of those other methods will damage your hair.”
Thompson, who teaches Advertising Theory, co-created the concept for this year’s Gold Series#MyHairStory campaign that amplifies the voices of eight Black women and their personal hair journeys.
Cheryl Thompson (Photo contributed)
For this campaign, Gold Series -- a Proctor & Gamble haircare line designed for afro-textured hair that was co-created by Black scientists, stylists and dermatologists -- collaborated with Black Women in Motion that’s a Toronto-based youth-led organization working to empower and support the advancement of Black women and sexual violence survivors.
“The whole point of this campaign was how can we make this authentic so that it doesn’t feel like we are hawking products on people,” said Thompson whose parents, Leander and Syrilin, migrated from Jamaica in the 1970s and have been married for 51 years. “My hope is that the series inspire people to see themselves in the products and to connect with who they are and who they can become.”
Two years ago, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 188, making California the first American state to ban racial discrimination based on natural hair. Since then, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Colorado, Washington, Maryland, Connecticut, New Mexico, Delaware and Nebraska have prohibited discrimination based on hair texture.
Is similar legislation needed in Canada?
“Absolutely,” said Thompson who authored ‘Uncle: Race, Nostalgia & the Politics of Loyalty’ and is working on her third book on Canada’s history of blackface as performance and anti-Black racism. “There’s a lack of thought put into not just the licensing of natural hairstylists, but also what gets taught at cosmetology schools. There are people going there who aren’t learning how to do Black hair and handle our different hair textures. There’s that knowledge gap across the country and part of that is a bias because, for a long time, there was a point of view in the hair care industry that Blacks don’t spend money. White hair salons, therefore, didn’t see the value in renting a chair to someone who specialized in Black hair.”
Thompson is part of a 17-member advisory committee that will guide the process of identifying a new name for Ryerson University that reflects the university’s strengths, values and inspirations.
The committee was assembled after the university’s Board of Governors accepted the Standing Strong Task Force’s final report 22 recommendations, including renaming the university.
“I said ‘yes’ the moment I was asked because it’s a chance to be part of history,” said Thompson who is a columnist with ‘Herizons’ that’s Canada’s leading feminist magazine. “I am interested in naming and the idea of re-naming and letting go. One of the things that the dominant culture in Canada always seem to struggle with is just letting go of what they have known to be true and embracing a different story that’s based on something else. For me, processes of renaming are exactly that.”
