I understood you correctly; I think the priorities would include....
First, let me go back to say that black is not a colour; it's an ideology. And I think that black is synonymous with African Canadians. So do people see themselves as African Canadian or black? I don't know.
Next year, 2012, marks the 50th anniversary of Jamaica. What a resurgence of pride there is now for people who are of Jamaican ancestry.
It's also the 50th anniversary of Trinidad and Tobago. What a resurgence of pride there is in that particular anniversary.
So do those people see themselves as African Canadian first, Canadian first, black first, or do they see themselves as Jamaican first, or whatever? I suspect they see themselves as Jamaican first, or what have you.
The reason for that is that we, as a country, have not affirmed our community of African Canadians. Why would I come to Canada? And I'm taking a lot of impressions and putting them together, so please excuse me. But why come to Canada and identify yourselves, and feel a connection to these people here when you come from another place where you are known to have made a contribution, as opposed to this place where you are invisible and, if anything, you are poor, uneducated, and many other things that are just assumed to be true?
It is a challenge we work on in terms of trying to help people feel a sense of pride in being African Canadian, and part of that would be in having them acknowledged as being founding peoples. Part of that would be in the process, because it can't happen at once; it's a process. Having the materials, a series of films, a series of vignettes, a series of exhibits, having more written, more research done, more photographs brought to the forefront, and having those artifacts collected would be one of the ways of drawing attention to what we have, who we are, and what we can become.