Black Women's Mothering Practices in the Canadian Racial State: Reflections on Maternal Sufferation in the Afterlife of Slavery.

This article centers on a Black feminist analysis of Cecile Case Holder, a Jamaican-Canadian mother grieving the 2005 murder of her 24-year-old son, Andre Burnett, in Toronto during "The Year of the Gun." It explores her grief through the concept of "maternal sufferation," a term rooted in Jamaican culture that describes the enduring hardships shaped by the afterlife of slavery and structural violence affecting Black motherhood in a transnational context. Holder's parenting strategies—such as relocating her family, enforcing discipline, and navigating precarious economic and social conditions—are examined within the broader frameworks of racial capitalism, neoliberal austerity, and anti-Blackness in both Jamaica and Canada. The article situates Holder's experience within Black Canadian feminist thought, highlighting how Black Caribbean women's mothering practices respond to intersecting oppressions tied to global economic demands and systemic racial violence.