Perspective of black Maritimers shared in Moncton-based podcast

Two Monctonmen have created a podcast to talkabout their experiences as black men livingin the Maritimes.

Fidel Franco and Marcus Marcialtry to cover a wide variety of topics,from news events such asthe Americanelection, to preconceived notions they encounter in their daily lives.

Information Morning - Moncton8:46Black in the Maritimes

Fidel Franco and Marcus Marcial of Moncton talk about their new podcast

They saya major selling point for their Black in the Maritimespodcastis that they speak without filtering themselves.

Franco saidthe online nature of the show allows them to speak freely.

"That's the great thing about theinternet," said Franco.

"We're not just one people, everybody is able to talk back.There's notgoing tobe a backlash, there's notgoing tobe a riot or anything.It'sjust going tobe a conversation so we can all talk about it."

Marcialsaidpeople have expressed surprise thathe plays in a rock band because of his race.

"I feel like there's this preconceived notion that if you're black you're supposed to be a rapper, an R 'n B or a dancer. Like those are the three things you can do," he said.

"You can't really be a CEO, you can't really be a cop, you can't really be a firefighter, definitely can't play rock music," are other preconceived notions, he said.

Common misconception

Franco said the most common misconception he encountered was people believing that black Maritimersare a homogenous people.

"As black men, we understand certain things that happen to black menor black women,and we understand that in New Brunswick, there's a whole diversity of black people whether you're African, Latin-American, European," he said.

"But to the common eye, we're just all black. So it comes to the idea that we are the same people, but really we're not."

Thepodcastis done on a weekly basisandMarcialand Franco plan to start bringing in people with different perspectives as guests, such as black women, and French-speaking Africans.

Black in the Maritimesis producedweeklyand has amassed almost 5,000 listens across Soundcloud and iTunes in the four months it's been running.