A Zimbabwean woman has made history after she became Ottawa’s first black woman sworn in to the rank of inspector. Isobel Granger was ...
A Zimbabwean woman has made history after she became Ottawa’s
first black woman sworn in to the rank of inspector.
Isobel Granger was the first black female officer hired by
the Ottawa Police Service back in 1994.
“I grew up in segregation with doors that were permanently
closed to me,” said Granger, who first pursued her dream of policing in
Zimbabwe — then called Rhodesia — when she applied to an all-white division of
the British South Africa Police.
Being of mixed race, Granger suspected she passed through
the initial recruitment due to her last name. She fully expected to be rejected
once recruiters saw her skin tone. “But I went through the process saying,
‘You’ll have to eliminate me before I eliminate myself.’ Before I knew it I was
hired (as) the first non-white to join white ranks,” she told Ottawa Citizen.
She emigrated to Canada in 1991 in search of a better life
for her children, but “it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be,” she said,
recounting examples of near-daily discrimination she would encounter.
“I’ve encountered more prejudice here in Canada than
racism, because prejudice is born out of ignorance and fear — when you don’t
know something you’re afraid of it. Once people are awakened and enlightened to
something, they develop empathy,” she said.
Granger applied to the Ottawa police in 1991, but withdrew
her application when she realized the force, at that point, had never hired a
black female officer. She called the recruitment office three years later, and
was hired in June of that year.
But she still experienced hardship as she worked her way
through the ranks. “It’s taken me three times as long as anybody else to get
where I am. The higher up you get the greater the challenges are. But I have no
regrets because I’ve been able to be involved in some amazing things.”
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