Often, graduate programs lack formal initiatives to nurture and support marginalized and first-generation students.

The worst experience I recall from high school would be the grade 12 academic advising. I remember being very excited because I had managed to earn an 85 per cent average after three difficult years. As I sat down with my guidance counsellor, he told me that trade school would be suitable for my perceived skills.

There aren't enough movies being made with Black actors, which is why we are outnumbered on nomination day. We need to hold the industry accountable for not creating more opportunities for Black actors, not funding Black films and making silly excuses like the financial bottom line.

In our highly competitive and technological post-modern era, what does Black progress even look like? While the Black community has accomplished so much thus far, there's a lot of progress to be accomplished still.

Don Meredith's fall from grace is seen as a collective one, because there are a lot of black people who see his presence in the Senate as a collective achievement; he's seen as "one of us who made it to the top." We are so eager to see black faces in positions of power that we get caught up in the "excitement" of seeing someone who looks like us on the political stage, and we fail to pull back the curtain.

Being a black father, I notice people being shocked that I am even involved with my children -- that's about living in a wider racist culture. Black masculinity has always been under attack. This Father's Day I want to encourage every black dad out there to remember you don't have to conform, you can do it differently, if you dare.