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Labelled a 'racist'

Broadcast Date: Nov. 30, 1998

On a cold December evening in 1991, June Callwood is called a racist when she dismisses a staff member's concerns about racism at Nellie's. Over the years, the women's shelter has become increasingly divided by colour. New members accuse Callwood of being a woman of privilege who refuses to share power. The shock of such accusation leaves Callwood confused and betrayed; something she still wrestles with, says her husband Trent Frayne in this television excerpt.

On May 1, 1992, Callwood resigns from the board of Nellie's, an organization she helped found in 1973. "Nobody asked what happened," says Callwood, "you didn't have to do anything in those days. You just had to be in the way of legitimate rage. It woke people up...but a few of us got our heads kicked in."

Labelled a 'racist'

• Callwood had been accused of racism prior to the Nellie's controversy. At a 1989 International PEN congress in Toronto, protesters accused PEN of racism for under-representing minority Canadian writers. Callwood, the incoming PEN president at the time, was leaving Roy Thomson Hall when two picketers accosted her. She told them to "f--- off." One of the picketers was writer Marlene Nourbese Philip, a woman of colour, who promptly accused Callwood of racism.

• PEN International is a worldwide association of writers fighting for freedom of expression.
• June Callwood was a victim of the hypersensitive climate of fear and political correctness. It was a time when being white was reason enough to become a symbol for systemic racism.

• Callwood found it hard to shake the "racist" label. It eventually followed her to the Writers' Union of Canada, another organization she helped found. She resigned from the union in 1994, once again amidst accusations of racism. Robert Fulford, himself a member of the union, described the whole incident as ridiculous to CBC's Shelagh Rogers.

Labelled a 'racist'

Medium: Television

Program: Life & Times

Broadcast Date: Nov. 30, 1998

Guest(s): June Callwood, Sylvia Fraser, Trent Frayne

Narrator: Shirley Douglas

Duration: 4:00

Photo: Saturday Night and Toronto Life magazine

Last updated:
April 19, 2007