Reclaiming Ritchie: Photo project aims to change the reputation of Black men in west-end neighbourhood

A pandemic, George Floyd's murder, and an eye-opening family discussion led a brother and sister in Ottawa's west end to launch an Instagram photo project that aims to change perceptions about their neighbourhood.

The series is called, "Portraits of Black Somali Youth from Ritchie,"and it pairs a dozen images of young men with their first-person stories of racial discrimination.

The goalfor Faisa Omer is to show thatdespite the headlines, there's more to Ritchie's young, Black men.

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"Ritchie's known for gangs and violence. Growing up in Ritchie, we've seen a lot of things. I remember looking out the window and seeing guyshandling a gun.Every other yearthere'sa death and it'ssplashed all over the newspapers," she explained, asking some of her models to smile for the camera to challenge those negative stereotypes.

"We're trying to showthe sense of innocence.They're just regular males that live in Ottawa. Even thoughthey live in Richie they're stilltrying to live their lives, go to university, get a job, get a family, like every other person."

Portraits of Ritchie: Photo project pushes back against stereotypes

4 years ago

Duration 1:08

Faisa Omer and her brother Abdullahi teamed up to take portraits of young Black men in the Ritchie Street neighbourhood, aiming to show that despite the area's negative headlines, its young men are just regular people.

Growing up Ritchie

The project grew out of a conversation theOmer family had, right inthe Ritchie Street neighbourhood where Faisa and her six younger siblings grew up.

The 28-year-old photographer and mental health clinician had left her Edmonton apartment to hunker down with family during COVID-19.

In the wake of Floyd's murder last May, the Somali-Canadian familystartedto talk about the racism they'd faced. But it was Faisa's younger brother Abdullahi the only male in the room for that talk whoseexperiences stood out.

"He kept saying, 'You know what?This isn't new. I don't know why you guys think this is new. This is every day,'" said Faisa. "When he started telling us the stories, I was like, 'Did your friends go through this?"

Faisa's equipmentwas already set up in the basement. Abdullahi, 21, organized the shoots featuring himself andfriends he'd grown up with.

"I took photos of boys because they're the ones being profiled. My brother andhis friendsdo get people who hold their purses tighter to their chests, you know? People do fear them," said Faisa, who studied photography at Algonquin.

One of the young men profiled shared a story about going to a nearby clothing store to apply for a job with a friend.

"We asked the cashier if the manager was available and he said she wasn't. So we said out loud that we would go to another store in the area. We later found out through a friend that works at the store that the cashier actually called that [second]store to warn them not to hire us," reads the Instagram post.

Abdullahi alsoshared his story about being the only Black student in an academic-streamed English class, when his teacheraccused him of cheating on an in-class assignment.

Confused and upset, Abdullahi approached the teacher, asking him, "What are you trying to say? That thiswork is too good for it to be [mine]?That's when ithit me so I made him repeat it. 'You're saying that this is too good to come from me.' And he was like, 'Yeah,'" saidAbdullahi.

After the Omer family reported this to incident to the school, the teacher remarked the assignment, giving Abdullahi a C-minus.Heswitched schools the next year and is now enrolled in Carleton University's industrial design program, where he is one of two Black students.

For him, the goal of the portrait project is to revealwhat people from Ritchie can achieve.

"It's a way to stick it to the man, saying, 'Yeah we are from Richie and we're doing this and we're doing that and we're proud of it,'" explainedAbdullahi.

Revealing Ritchie

Though the Omer family has lived on Ritchie or nearby Penny Drive and Ramsey Crescentfor more than two decades, both Faisa and Abdullahi say it can be risky toto reveal theiraddress to those outside the community.

Faisa remembers a revealing conversation with a co-worker ather first after-school jobin Bells Corners.

When they realized they lived on the same street, he asked her to not to tell anyone, saying he'd changed his address on his resum to get the job.

"And it's just Tim Hortons!" she joked. Her colleague, Faisaexplained, was afraid the manager would think that because he's Black and from that neighbourhood, he was affiliated with a gang.

Abdullahisays thateven today, he's still careful who hereveals his address to.

"To people that look like us, we'll say we're from Ritchie. But when it comes to jobs and schools, we won't say it as much because we know it can have an effect on how people look at us. Normally, we just say we're from the west end of Ottawa,'" he explained.

Instagram Therapy

The portraits have prompted a number of Instagram followers to share their own stories of racism.

Faisa says her background in neuroscience and counselling she currently works with Somali youth has helped her respond to the outpouring of sometimes disturbingcomments.

While she is not surprised to hear many in Ottawa have faced discrimination, she was saddened to realize these incidents still bother these men, much later.

For example, even though the young man with the retail discrimination story applied for that job several years ago, Faisa said that during the photo shoot he expressed pent-up anger telling the story, saying the manager could "keep his minimum wage job" since he got a better job the following week.

For Abdullahi, the lasting impact of these experiences is feeling you don't belong.

"Everywhere we go, we realize when we're the only minority in a group," he said.

"It makes us feel like weshouldn't be there. We don't look like everyone else and we're not treated like everyone else. It becomes hard for us to move forward and try to do better for ourselves. We feel like we shouldn't."

Now that Faisahas left the neighbourhood,she sees this project as a way to give back. She is considering continuing the series with more portraits from Ottawa, or of youth she works with in Edmonton.

For Abdullahi's part, he wants to make a difference in how his west-end community is perceived.

"This is a neighborhood we know. We know that everything the media portrays is not how it really is. We want to show how it affects us that everyone looks at us differently because we're from Ritchie, and because we're Black."