A new local podcast is aiming to tell the stories of Black and Indigenous people.
Ancestral Voices We Belong is hosted by traditional Anishinaabe Grandmother Kim Wheatley and Jamaican Canadian storyteller and Newmarket-based lawyer Maxine Gordon Palomino. This new podcast series celebrates the rich narratives of Indigenous, Caribbean, African and Black communities.
The podcast is the latest form of a collaboration that dates back to the pandemic, when Palomino and Wheatley hosted fireside online chats in partnership with several libraries throughout the province, discussing books by racialized authors and other topics.
Palomino said the podcast “casts in stone” topics discussed during those discussions, and issues she said she first noticed around 2010, a year after she had immigrated to Canada from Jamaica.
“It's like you're going back in time to what it was, that oral telling, that oral storytelling,” she said. “So you're passing on your stories and the stories are cast in stone, but they're really cast in your mind, it's cast in the culture."
Wheatley, a seasoned public speaker and advocate for Indigenous issues, said the podcast format is one she’s long aspired to.
“I've always wanted to do a podcast,” she said. “This is a dream come true for me.”
The first episode of the podcast has been released, with plans for a new episode every month, which Wheatley hopes could become biweekly episodes depending on funding. The podcast will feature Wheatley and Palomino and occasionally guests, discussing Indigenous, Caribbean, African, and Black communities’ art, culture, and issues.
The podcast was officially launched with an event at the Davide De Simone Performance Hall Lobby in Aurora Town Square on Feb. 25. The Town of Aurora supported the podcast's launch, with Robin McDougall, director of community services, saying it will be "key to fostering diverse and strong connections within our town."
Palomino, who also does public speaking, emphasized the “importance of partnership” in not only producing the podcast, but in tackling the issues faced by racialized people.
Both Palomino and Wheatley agreed that the podcast comes at an important time, with Wheatley saying some of the recent trends have been “disheartening.”
“I feel like we're sliding back down the scale of division rather than coming together, which was one of the great hopes and intentions of the reconciliation report — to right the wrongs of the past, and one of the wrongs of the past was the separation and division between us as community members,” said Wheatley.
“If we remember that we're human first, then we know we all belong and the trend that we're seeing north and south of the border and and maybe even worldwide is disheartening, to say the least,” she said. “It's really, in some ways, nibbling at the kind of reframing that we were all aligned with.”
“I think the distinction between us is important, but what's more important is that as a collective we understand the history of struggle, oppression, and cultural genocide that we have experienced, and still our resilience shines through,” she added.
“It's important," added Wheatley. "It's important enough to make an effort.”
Ancestral Voices We Belong is now available online.