Pharmakons: The Poison and Cure of Black Youth Mentorship in Canada

Black youth mentorship programs (BYMPs) have proliferated in Canada since 2020, with goals ranging from leadership development and combating systemic racism, on one hand, to connecting Black youth to postsecondary institutions and workplaces, on the other. In this first system-level analysis of these programs, our surveys and conversational circles reveal the challenges facing BYMP administrators in taking Afrocentric approaches to mentorship. We position BYMPs as pharmakons , embodying both poison and cure. With a primary focus on individual development and market demands, many Black youth mentorship programs are supplanting centuries-old African traditional practices of youth mentorship with the systematic, quantifying logic of capital. We advocate for a recalibration of program goals, emphasizing cultural transference as a pivotal aspect of Black transindividuation and strategic political organizing.