October 29, 2026
By By Sayaspora
The voices of Black women from the African diaspora remain too often marginalized in Montreal’s and Canada’s media and cultural spaces. And yet, they produce content that humanizes Black experiences, deconstructs stereotypes, and offers fresh perspectives on society, culture, and politics. This article explores how Black women journalists and digital creators are renewing media narratives by combining pedagogy, intimacy, and critical engagement.
Creator Portraits: Multiple Narrative Strategies
Kharoll-Ann Souffrant, a Quebec professor, researcher, and columnist of Haitian origin, shares her analyses at international conferences and in columns where she takes on vulnerability, feminism, and the experiences of Black women. She combines academic rigour with accessible language, addressing discrimination and racism head-on without softening the edges. In her columns, she breaks down immigration policy by weaving in Haiti’s colonial history, making the analysis accessible without thinning its intellectual depth. Her writing on the vulnerability of Black women in professional spaces sparks conversations that mainstream media systematically avoid.
Rebecca G. Joachim (Beck), based in Montreal, hosts the antiracist podcast Woke or Whateva, where she and her co-host deconstruct racial issues from their perspective as Black Canadian women. As host of qulture vs culture on CISM 89.3, she explores Montrealers’ relationships with Quebec culture and with marginalized cultures. On TikTok, she shares reflections on socio-economic issues, fashion, pole dancing, and cosplay. Her videos blend socio-economic analysis of current affairs, cultural criticism, and her love of pole dancing, all while celebrating both physical and intellectual strength, leading audiences to recognize the multiplicity of Black identities.
Systemic Obstacles and Institutional Violence
Media racism plays out through the under-representation of Black women in newsrooms, their absence from decision-making positions, and bias in story selection. According to the 2022 report from the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ), 8 out of 10 Canadian newsrooms employ no Black, Latino, Indigenous, or Middle Eastern journalists. This absence has concrete consequences: newsrooms call on these creators as one-off “experts,” without that translating into full-time hires or adequate compensation. They are also particularly exposed to online violence, which leads to harassment and, at times, withdrawal from public spaces altogether.
Taking Back Control: Digital Strategies and Collective Solutions
With social media, creators gain greater narrative control, they choose their topics, formats, and timing. Initiatives like “speak-up” clips, in which Black women journalists deconstruct the racist biases of a headline in 60 seconds, circulate on Instagram and TikTok, putting public pressure on dominant media.
Beck and her co-host Titi Semahu have developed a kind of “reverse assertive communication”: rather than educating white listeners, they speak directly to Black audiences, validating their experiences. The principle is simple, stop trying to convince the reluctant, and instead nourish those looking to be seen. They build a space of affirmation for those who want to recognize themselves in media narratives.
Building collective spaces becomes essential: sharing resources, swapping strategies, and strengthening professional confidence. Informal networks are growing in which creators share evaluation frameworks to vet media offers, collectively negotiate fair rates, and dismantle the impostor syndrome imposed on them by institutions.
Some creators coordinate complementary posts across different platforms, generating a flow of information that bypasses traditional media gatekeepers and creates enough engagement to force institutions to respond.
Toward Lasting Transformation
These women are driving real change in the media landscape, circulating knowledge and expertise for the Black community and the wider public alike. Cultural institutions need to acknowledge this work with concrete commitments: hiring Black women journalists into permanent positions, embedding antiracist analytical frameworks into editorial processes, and ceasing to instrumentalize their expertise without adequate pay.
Their work isn’t measured in clicks, but in the conversations they spark, the references they build, and the doors they open for the next generations. Recognizing their expertise means accepting that dominant media narratives are not neutral: and that it’s time to share narrative power.
Echoes of Inclusion is funded by the Government of Canada – Canadian Heritage.
