What early childhood educators need to know about fostering Black children's positive identification with Blackness: Foregrounding mothers' perspectives

[Introduction]: "Approximately one hundred and thirty years after the abolition of slavery in Canada, Canada's immigration policy in the late 1960s 'welcomed' Blacks from the African diaspora who were brought in as cheap labourers, working in low paying unskilled dead-end jobs, which were and remain racially and gender segmented (Brickner & Straehle, 2010; Nelson, 2010). Today whether they make up 45% of the Black population born in Canada (Statistics Canada, 20202) or are immigrants or refugees, people of African descent are overrepresented in both the judicial and prison systems, as well as in child protective services, where Black children are disproportionately taken away from their families and placed in the care of the state. Black students, along with Indigenous students, are also more likely to be expelled, or pushed out, from schools in comparison to other racial groups in and around the city of Toronto (James & Turner, 2017); a city deemed to be the most multicultural city in the world by the BBC in 2016. The history of Blacks in Canada involves oppression and exploitation, as Blacks were and are still marginalised and continue to occupy a subordinate role in Canadian society."