By Jesse Robitaille
This story originally appeared on rabble.ca in December 2014.
For the second time in less than three weeks, hundreds of people marched through downtown Toronto to protest the systemic abuse experienced by Canada’s Black community.
About 300 people gathered at Nathan Phillips Square on Dec. 13, 2014, for an action organized by Black Lives Matter Toronto (BLMTO) in response to state-sanctioned violence and racism, including that of the Toronto Police Service and other local law enforcement. Two and a half weeks earlier, BLMTO protesters organized a similar action outside Toronto’s U.S. consulate following a grand jury's decision not to indict the police officer who killed Michael Brown, an 18-year-old unarmed Black teen from Ferguson, Mo.
“There are cases of police brutality, and Black people dying under suspect circumstances while under police detainment here,” said BLMTO co-founder Sandy Hudson. “We are submitting some requests to city hall to change some of the carding practices, to adopt the recommendations made in the community report and for [Toronto Mayor] John Tory to acknowledge that white privilege exists.”
You can tweet Tory @johntoryTO to ask why he believes white privilege does not exist.
Hudson, who's also the executive director of the University of Toronto Students’ Union, called some people's belief that systemic racism is less significant in Canada compared to other countries an all-too-common misconception.
“These stories aren’t as publicized in the Canadian media, so part of what we’re trying to do here is make sure the public is aware that – just like in the States – there’s a disproportionate amount of Black people and Indigenous folks filling our prisons. Just like in the states, there’s a disproportionate focus on Black communities when it comes to policing, and all of these things lead to anti-Black racism.”
STORIES FROM THE BLACK COMMUNITY
Saturday’s action began outside Toronto City Hall, where several people, including Kabir Joshi-Vijayan, a well-known local activist and member of the Justice for Jermaine Carby committee, spoke to the crowd about their experiences.
He and other protesters invited the Black community to share their personal stories via social media using the hashtag #AliveWhileBlack.
“As a child white boys told me I was ugly and compared my skin to feces,” read one protester’s sign. A second protester’s sign begged, “Please don’t let me die,” while another one proclaimed “ALL BLACK LIVES MATTER” in big, colourful letters.
“It was late July when me and my four cousins walked into a convenience store to buy some refreshments,” another organizer told the crowd. “There was already a middle-aged white female at the counter buying an item. We walked by and I heard her say, ‘Watch out for those niggers; they’re bound to steal something.'"
An alarming number of protesters said they were fighting the same issues their parents fought against four decades earlier—the systemic injustice against the Black community.
While these stories are seldom heard, what is often talked about is the concept of Black-on-Black crime.
“We’re interested in discussing blue-on-Black crime,” said Hudson. “The discourse of Black-on-Black crime is being pushed by right-wing media as a tactic to distract from the real issue at hand—state-sanctioned violence.”
The Black Lives Matter movement highlights the realities of state-sanctioned violence against the Black community, Hudson said, including police brutality, poverty, affordable housing inefficiencies and inaccessible education.
“This is where the real crime lies.”
Hudson called the concept of Black-on-Black crime a “victim-blaming myth used to deflect blame from the systems that are designed to murder black bodies. What’s more ironic is that it’s used under the moniker of care for the Black community by the same people who deny our real experiences of violence.”
A DUNDAS SQUARE 'DIE-IN'
After sharing their stories, the crowd marched about 500 metres to Dundas Square, where the number of protesters ballooned as people joined in from all directions.
It was here, in the middle of what's arguably Canada’s busiest intersection, where the growing crowd — now nearing 800 people — held a "die-in." The crowd lay silent on the pavement for four and a half minutes to represent the four and a half hours Brown’s lifeless body was left on the road after he was murdered by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.
Another non-indictment later — this one complete with video evidence of a murderous cop choking an unarmed Black man named Eric Garner to death in New York — and the song remains the same...
But Black Torontonians don’t need to look as far as the United States for justification for their fear.
Less than three months before the protest, during a routine traffic stop in Brampton, Ont., 33-year-old Jermaine Carby was shot several times by a Peel Regional Police officer. Little else is known about the incident, but police are reportedly captured on amateur video saying “drop the knife” despite no weapon being seen by witnesses or confirmed by police or media.
Witnesses did report seeing him with his hands up, and Joshi-Vijayan said Carby's medical report shows one of four bullet wounds in a part of the forearm indicating he did indeed have his hands up when he was shot.
While the media continues to flatly question Carby's character and criminal past, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has yet to provide any answers or support to the late man's family, according to Joshi-Vijayan.
Jermaine’s mother Lorna Robinson also spoke to the crowd about her son’s murder.
“No one knows about it. They just sweep it under the rug like he was nobody. They didn’t even know who he was and what he was about, and I want everyone to know he has been killed in cold-blooded murder.”
Like Hudson, Joshi-Vijayan believes one doesn’t need to look far to see the state-sanctioned killing of Black people.
“We can look at these terrorists right behind us that call themselves the Toronto Police Service. We can look to the thugs that call themselves the Peel Regional Police. Her son was gunned down with his hands up — not in Ferguson, not in St. Louis, not in New York — in Brampton.”
The Justice for Jermaine Carby committee has placed on SIU Director Tony Loparco several demands, including releasing the name of the officer who shot Carby and the name and whereabouts of the driver who was with Carby when he was killed. Additionally, the committee demanded confirmation whether a knife was recovered from the scene.
The committee also called on Ontario Attorney General Madeleine Meilleur to disband the SIU in its current form.
BLACK VOICES & NON-BLACK ALLIES
As with the Nov. 25 protest outside of the U.S. consulate, BLMTO organizers asked non-Black allies to maintain a supportive role rather than a central role and allow Black community members to speak for themselves about their experiences; however, Hudson noted the “fantastic support” the community has received from its non-Black allies.
“One thing we requested right from the beginning was to make sure Black experiences were centred in all of this and Black people were able to speak for themselves,” said Hudson.
“Our allies have been providing us with the necessary materials, supporting us when we need it, writing letters to the media when they try to create a story out of the last action that wasn’t really true to what happened.”
BLMTO is working with other racialized communities (no longer considered “visible minorities” because in many cases the non-Caucasian population now accounts for the majority of the total population) as the movement grows internationally, Hudson added.
“Watch out for more actions in the future. There is a lot of energy around this.”
Carby's mother said she is similarly grateful for the support her family is receiving and welcomes more people to join the fight because “it could have been your son.”
On Christmas Eve, BLMTO will host a candlelight vigil for Carby at the spot near Queen Street and Kennedy Road in Brampton, where he was killed by Peel Regional Police.
“We are powerful, and we can do anything that they can do,” said Robinson to loud chants about shame, racist police and systemic abuse. “This is why they try to separate us from each other and try to get us to be against each other: because they know once we are together we are powerful and we can out-do anything.”
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