Black History Month may be in our collective rear view mirrors, but that doesn’t mean the spirit or the importance of recognizing black voices and history is.
It was tough to tell since Ontario and Quebec (Canada’s largest provinces) spent half of February in another Coronavirus lockdown, but Indigo Books (Canada’s largest bookstore) made sure there was plenty of space devoted to books written by black authors or celebrating black culture.
But Keshia Rangongo-a Customer Experience Manager at Ottawa’s Indigo Pinecrest location-decided to go the extra mile. Every week during Black History Month, she posted a video on social media recommending specific titles and authors while explaining why readers of all ages and ethnicities would find them valuable.
“I do these recommendations because I enjoy them,” she says when asked what inspired her to take the extra step. “This black history month one of my friends asked if I could do a few recommendations for children’s books featuring black people. She said that she really enjoyed the books I post featuring black kids because like me and many others growing up, these books were few and far between. I thought why not and then decided to take it a step further.”
Keshia has been with Indigo for four years and admits that her favourite part of the job isn’t just the exposure to a massive variety of books, but also making recommendations to budding young readers. “One thing I love to do is recommend children’s books that are new or interesting or that people just might not know about. Especially when it comes to books that feature people of colour.”
Keshia’s approach was simple; every week she posted a video making recommendations to a different age group that were written by, about or included people of colour. “My hope was that it will expose people to the amazing range of books available not just to our black children but to everyone. I want to inspire black youth to read by showing them there are books out there with characters that look like them and understand them. I want to help parents, educators and even just the curious who are looking for this kind of content but don’t know where to find it. Most of all I just want people to enjoy the books.
Indigo was investing in social awareness and equality before 2020. But like many other companies, the events of last year inspired them to step up their game and lean harder into racial equality and justice. Indigo may be a singe player in the game, but they were early to the party.
(As for those who insist that companies and corporations are only exhibiting social consciences to exploit current social trends, consider this age old question. Is it better if an alcoholic quits drinking because they want to get better or because they think Jesus told them to? The answer is it doesn’t matter as long as they quit drinking. What motivates people to get on the right side of history is irrelevant. What matters is that they’re getting off the bench and joining the good fight. Doing nothing is the same as doing the wrong thing.)
Black History Month may have just come to an end, but there’s still plenty of work to be done and plenty of battles to be fought. Everyone makes their stand differently and every step counts. While Indigo will likely continue embracing and celebrating diversity moving forward, you can count on Keshia continuing to take advantage of where she is to inspire the youth of today and the leaders of tomorrow. She’s taking baby steps now that could leave a giant’s footprint tomorrow.
(Shayne Kempton is also employed by Indigo and would like to ask everyone to STOP RETURNING ALL THEIR CHRISTMAS PRESENTS ALREADY!)
Image via www.chapters.indigo.ca
