what racism feels like: how one woman started a national movement to heal and help others do the same
6 minute read
mar, or moms against racism, led by kerry cavers (foreground), has been awarded a portion of novartis' health equity initiative award for its neuroequity project.
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kerry cavers remembers the paperboy in her hometown of tsawwassen, a suburban community in the greater vancouver area where she grew up. he was a little older than she was and a familiar figure in the neighbourhood. he kept telling kelly that she was adopted because she didn’t look like her mother, who was white.
the community was predominantly white and affluent, and kelly was biracial and had a darker skin tone.
“he repeated that narrative over and over and over again because i didn’t look like my mom. and so to him, he didn’t understand it, and he really believed it. he didn’t understand how genetics work,” kerry says, explaining events that had a lasting mark on her life and outlook.
how racism unravels identity and relationships
“that impacted my own sense of identity and my relationship with my mom, because then i was questioning if i was adopted and if she was lying to me. there was a period of time where i was convinced that i was adopted,” she said of the pain caused by the boy’s lack of understanding. she says she doesn’t hold his comments or his ignorance against him, but it still hurts.
“so for me in school, i was one of the only black kids and a handful of racialized kids,” she says. “my story is not atypical.”
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she also shares a pivotal memory when she was about seven years old and was invited, along with a group of kids, to a birthday party. she was excited about the birthday cake.
“the best part of the birthday for a kid is the cake, right?” but when the cake came and was cut and handed out by the birthday child, she waited patiently for her piece. none came. she thought there must be a second cake coming out because why would she not get a piece of cake? the party was breaking up, and so she asked if she could have a piece of cake and was told no.
“and i said, ‘well, why?’ and they said, ‘well, because you’re black.’”
she was at the age when children start realizing their own identity and racial identity, unless they have a family where it is not well reinforced, like hers. her mom was an alcoholic single mother, and her dad was a jazz musician in vancouver whom she saw only rarely.
kerry left the birthday party and ran home distraught.
“in that moment, i was like, i don’t know what it means to be black, but it’s obviously bad because you don’t get cake. and so it took a bit to reconcile that,” she says, pointing out that children pick up messaging from the adults in their lives, books and cultural attitudes, so she didn’t blame the child.
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it’s a memory she shares in her presentations to young kids because she knows that it will resonate and hit home for them. she’s become an advocate, devoted to empowering black and racialized children and youth, and now novartis canada is recognizing her leadership with an award of funding through the company’s health equity initiative.
her work, much like her kind-hearted persona, is powerful. kelly went on to make good choices, find community support and counselling, coming through what was a difficult start that could have had a much darker outcome.
she had a career in commercial real estate, found a wonderful partner and had three kids. being a mom fueled her to make a change. she wanted to address racism and help make the world a better place for her kids and all kids who may experience what she went through.
growing up biracial: ‘genetics are wild’
“motherhood changed me, and i think that that is something that a lot of moms can identify with. and so my life of flying under the radar and just taking the hits and not saying anything about it, not doing anything about it. i was like, ‘that’s not going to cut it anymore because i have kids now.’ with our first, because my partner is white, genetics are wild, and we knew there could be a possibility that our child could come out even darker-skinned than me and realizing that he would be ill-equipped and that, like his parents, would be ill-equipped, and just the people around us would be ill-equipped for the questions that would inevitably come.”
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in 2020, after the murder of george floyd in minneapolis that sparked nationwide protests against police brutality, she started a facebook page for moms to talk openly about racism. it grew into a national movement and non-profit organization, moms against racism (mar), that just celebrated its fifth year. the work kerry and her growing team focus on is creating a safe place for mothers and “mothering individuals” like caregivers, relatives and educators to dismantle racism wherever they encounter it.
at its heart, the organization offers workshops and programs to guide the next generation of community leaders and provide tools, resources and a supportive community. the diverse book baskets program, for example, offers 10 curated books that reflect racial, cultural and gender diversity. baskets are sent to families, libraries, schools and community centres to make representation accessible.
moms against racism movement to heal and empower
“in doing this work, we realized that it has to come with healing. there’s so much healing that needs to happen both in racialized communities, we have our own healing to do, but also for white folks to be able to show up and have these really difficult conversations without getting defensive.”
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the four streams of advocacy include childcare, education, recreation (arts, culture and sport) and healthcare. the underlying theme that grounds the organization is inclusivity—learning for everyone—and kerry recognized the need for neuro equity.
“it’s hard enough carrying the marginalized identity of being racialized and then also carrying the neurodivergent identity.”
the recognition is also rooted in kerry’s own experience. she was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd) two years ago. through the development of a pilot for the mar neuroequity project in 2025, she decided to get assessed for autism spectrum disorder, which led to the additional diagnosis of asd.
“for me, like the movie the sixth sense, when you get to the end, and you get that one piece of information, and then it’s like refiltering everything before through that lens,” she says. as a woman in her 40s, getting the diagnosis has led to a refiltering of her own life choices and grieving what could have been different had she known she was neurodivergent. the self-understanding, though, continues to be positive for kerry, also giving her insight into the process of assessment that can be disorienting and isolating.
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“you’re on a list, you meet a random assessor, you don’t really have any relationship with them. you get your assessment, and then you’re sent on your way with maybe a package of information or something like that. so with neuroequity, we build in wrap-around support with additional counselling sessions and help to orientate someone to their new experience.”
novartis canada funds to support neuro equity
the neuroequity project is the piece that novartis canada selected to receive a portion of its $562,000 health equity initiative 2025 award, shared with two other canadian initiatives.
“the support from novartis is going to allow us to really take that to the next level and move it out of a pilot and formalize it and get those systems in place to help an exponential amount of people,” kerry says, adding the award also signals to other funders the importance of the project and will open more doors for the work of mar.
why is the neuroequity project so valuable? she notes that the funding affirms that culturally safe, community-led mental healthcare is essential and possible. and next, mar will work to make systems-level changes to expand access to care for racialized and neurodivergent youth and families, particularly in communities that have been excluded from existing systems.
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kerry also emphasizes how mental health support and counselling were critical in her own journey, coming back full circle to her experiences as a little girl.
“i was able to unpack some of those things,” she says of wounds from the past.
mental health support for her as biracial and neurodivergent has “allowed me to transmute that into more acceptance for myself and almost permission to not have to do things that don’t feel good for me or that don’t work for my nervous system or don’t work for my brain. that’s been really wonderful, too, because it has increased my capacity in other ways and allowed me to show up.”
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