The Left Chapter: police

Showing posts with label police. Show all posts

Sunday, July 23, 2017

Police Brutality, Thunder Bay, Ryerson & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List July 16 - 23

Poppy Noor, The Guardian

The first time I was sexually assaulted on public transport, I was 12 years old. Though at the time I wasn’t sure whether I had been. Like many young women, I’ve never felt too confident in calling out these events with certainty.

Read the full article.

22) Too much, too soon: A brief history of Ontario employers crying wolf over the minimum wage

David Bush, Rank and File

Watching the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs hearings on the Liberal government’s Bill 148, Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act this week you can see the louder parts of the business community time and again push a narrative that if the minimum wage goes up to $15 by January 1, 2019, and if the ESA is strengthened, the economy will be in shambles.

Read the full article.

23) Charges stayed against Toronto man after ‘cruel and unusual’ treatment by officer

Alyshah Hasham, The Toronto Star

When Philip Alafe entered the Brantford police station at 6:50 p.m. on July 3, 2015, after being arrested, he told the booking officer he had mental health issues — depression and anxiety — as well as sickle cell anemia, a disease that leaves him in excruciating pain without his medications.

Read the full article.

See also: Venezuela, Omar Khadr, Climate Change & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List July 9 - 16

See also: The Proud Boys, Omar Khadr and more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List July 2 - 9

Sunday, March 26, 2017

Climate Change, Police Malfeasance, Lenin & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List March 19 - 26

This week's list of articles, news items and opinion pieces that I see as must reads if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.

This list covers the week of March 19 - March 26. It is generally in order of the date of the article's release.

1) Racial profiling complaint to be filed against Montreal police over $48 ticket incident

Aaron Derfel, Montreal Gazette

It was supposed to be a fun night out for ice cream, but ended with six police cruisers surrounding a young black man who was holding an ice cream cone in his hand.

Read the full article.

2) Free tuition and universal child care now NDP policy

Sean Kavanagh, CBC News

The provincial New Democrats want to make tuition free and reinstate funding at two Winnipeg schools.

Read the full article.

3) When is a rapist no longer a rapist? On the cost-free repentance of Tom Stranger

Jennifer Izaakson, Ceasefire

Two days ago, Tom Stranger was no-platformed at the South Bank Centre in London. If rapists like Stranger truly seek forgiveness, they must accept to give up power and control over the narrative. There is no redemption without loss.

Read the full article.

4) Why do so many male journalists think female stars are flirting with them?

Hadley Freeman, The Guardian

A magazine’s profile with Selena Gomez is the latest to have an icky fixation on its subject’s looks. Perhaps it’s time for men to be banned from interviewing women.

Read the full article.

5) Feminism That Doesn’t Challenge Male Entitlement Isn’t Feminism

Caitlin Roper, The Huffington Post

Once upon a time, feminism was a social movement. It was a movement by and for women. It had actual objectives - like liberating women from male oppression. It meant something.

Nowadays, with the popularity of third wave liberal feminism, feminism* can be whatever you want it to be. Anybody can be a feminist, including men, and any act can be a ‘feminist’ statement- even if it upholds institutions and structures that oppress and harm women as a whole - it’s all good as long as a woman ‘chooses’ it.

Read the full article.

6) A cop fires. A teen dies. Yet six police body cameras somehow miss what happens.

Craig Timberg, The Washington Post

The killing of Mary Hawkes, a troubled 19-year-old woman suspected of stealing a truck, should have been a case study in the value of police body cameras. The action was fast-moving, the decisions split-second. And all of the surviving witnesses — including the shooter — were police officers wearing small video cameras on their uniforms.

Read the full article.

7) David Miller doesn't believe Scarborough subway extension will ever be built

CBC News

The cost of a long-debated one-stop subway extension in Scarborough is currently pegged at $3.35 billion, with the issue set to go to city council next week. Former mayor David Miller spoke with Matt Galloway on CBC Radio's Metro Morning about what he thinks of the plan.

Read the full article.

8) As Colin Kaepernick brings #LoveArmyForSomalia, NFL executives show what hate looks like

Chuck Modiano, Daily News

“Amazing news,” a proud Colin Kaepernick announced in a video on Saturday. “Turkish Airlines granted us an airplane to fly to Somalia, a 60 ton cargo plane, so we can fly there with food with water for these people. Now we’ve started a GoFundMe page to allow anyone to help us donate food, donate water.”

Read the full article.

9) Trudeau’s Oil Views Spur African Famine

Yves Engler, Dissident Voices

Today the lives of over 10 million people in the Horn of Africa are at risk due to a drought at least partly caused by climate change. A study by Britain’s Met Office concluded that human-induced climate disturbances sparked a famine in Somalia in 2011 in which over 50,000 died. For its part, the Climate Vulnerability Monitor estimated in 2012 that climate change was responsible for some 400,000 deaths per year, a number expected to hit one million by 2030.

Read the full article.

10) Federal budget vows $100-million for strategy on gender-based violence, citing Globe Unfounded investigation

Michelle Zilio, The Globe and Mail

The Liberal government is planning to invest more than $100-million over five years to create a national strategy to prevent gender-based violence, citing a Globe and Mail investigation into how police handle sex-assault allegations across the country.

Read the full article.

11) Under pressure UK universities cancel Richard Falk event

Middle East Monitor

Two British universities have cancelled events planned for the launch of former UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine Richard Falk’s new book.

Read the full article.

12) Poster campaign calls attention to impacts of sexual violence at U of T

Mubashir Baweja, The Varsity

On Thursday, posters containing quotes from students, staff, and faculty about the university’s response to their experiences of sexual violence were put up in conspicuous locations across campus.

Read the full article.

13) If you really care about climate change, you should boycott the ridiculous Earth Hour stunt

Adam McGibbon, The Independent

I am an environmentalist. For my whole adult life I have protested, campaigned, helped to elect climate-savvy politicians and worked hard on what I see as the cause of my life: putting a stop to the dangerous change to our climate that is killing millions.
And yet I hate one of the world’s most prominent environmental events with the intense heat of a burning climate – the annual WWF event “Earth Hour”, which this year will take place on 25 March. The charity expects millions of people around the world to symbolically switch off their lights for an hour.

Earth Hour is terrible, and not just because the symbolism of darkness is very poorly thought out. The worst thing about Earth Hour is that it tricks people into thinking they’ve done something useful by turning off the lights for 60 minutes, and lets the real villains in the climate change story off the hook.

Read the full article.

14) Ending racial discrimination means overhauling our employment laws

Avvy Go & Chris Buckley, The Toronto Star

Modernizing the laws are not just an issue of fairness, it is a fundamental issue of racial justice and equity for Ontarians. Besides, our economy prospers when more workers have access to decent jobs and make decent income.

Read the full article.

15) CUPE 3903 Condemns Racist Graffiti and Bomb Threats

CUPE 3903 Communications Director

Over the past three weeks, there have been several incidents at Glendon College where racist threats have been written on the walls, targeting Jewish and Black students. On at least two occasions, York Hall was evacuated due to a bomb threat. Such threats follow from the recent and alarming increase in far-right attacks on Muslim, Jewish, and other marginalized communities. As the union representing graduate student workers, contract faculty, and part-time librarians at York University, including Glendon College, CUPE 3903 stands against all forms of racism and hate and condemns these incidents. We wish to express our solidarity with students, staff, and faculty at the Glendon campus, and especially with the Jewish and Black members of our community that have been the targets of these threats.

Read the full article.

16) NDP leadership candidate Charlie Angus to spearhead campaign with priority on First Nation issues

Anishinabek, News

Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus is making First Nation issues a priority in his campaign to be elected leader of the federal New Democratic Party (NDP).

“My concern is that the government is still not responding in a proactive manner when emergencies happen in communities, whether it is a suicide crisis or whether it is a housing crisis or whether it is the needless number of fires,” says Angus, who registered as a leadership candidate on Feb. 20 and officially launched his leadership bid on Feb. 26. “We need to start changing how Ottawa relates with First Nation communities. And that is what I want to make a major issue in my leadership campaign.”

Read the full article.

17) Scientists Sound the Alarm: CO2 Levels Race Past Point of No Return

Cassie Kelly, EcoWatch

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that carbon dioxide levels in 2016 broke records for the second year in a row with an increase of 3 parts per million (ppm).

Read the full article.

18) Release of Arctic Methane "May Be Apocalyptic," Study Warns

Dahr Jamail, Truthout

A scientific study published in the prestigious journal Palaeoworld in December issued a dire -- and possibly prophetic -- warning, though it garnered little attention in the media.

Read the full article.

19) Pornography is more than just sexual fantasy. It’s cultural violence.

Julia Long, The Washington Post

In March 2016, the U.K. government published its second National Strategy to End Volence Against Women and Girls. This is an extremely important lever for U.K. campaigners against pornography and its harms, as it recognizes that young people in particular have unprecedented access to online content and that some of that content may of course be harmful. A current government inquiry into sexual harassment in schools and a new cross-party campaign to tackle misogynist abuse online have all highlighted the ways in which pornography contributes to and legitimizes negative attitudes with very real impacts on the lives of women and girls.

Read the full article.

20) Toronto police cleared in death of man Tasered eight times in bathtub

Wendy Gillis, The Toronto Star

Ontario’s police watchdog has cleared Toronto police in the death of a man who died after he was Tasered eight times by police in his bathtub.

Read the full article.

21) Police officer who punched handcuffed teen violated Canadian charter, judge rules

Andrew Foote, CBC News

An Ottawa police officer violated several sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms during a 2015 arrest in which he punched a handcuffed teenager in the face, a judge ruled this week.

Read the full article.

22) Toronto school board suspending U.S. travel over border issues

Paola Loriggio, The Globe and Mail

Canada’s largest school board says it will stop booking trips to the United States indefinitely in light of the uncertainty surrounding restrictions at the border.

The Toronto District School Board, which serves about 245,000 public school students, says it made the “difficult decision” because it believes students “should not be placed into these situations of potentially being turned away at the border.”

Read the full article.

23) Anti-Islam Protesters Rip Qur'an At Ontario School Board Meeting

The Huffington Post Canada

Anti-Islam protesters ripped a Qur'an and walked over its torn pages during an Ontario school board meeting Wednesday evening, as they demanded that Muslim students be banned from praying at school.

Read the full article.

24) Fight for $15, Black Lives Matter Groups Join Forces

Associated Press

A cluster of Black Lives Matter groups and the organization leading the push for a $15-an-hour wage are joining forces to combine the struggle for racial justice with the fight for economic equality, just as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. tried to do in the last year of his life.

Read the full article.

25) How Lenin’s love of literature shaped the Russian Revolution

Tariq Ali, The Guardian

Literature shaped the political culture of the Russia in which Vladimir Ilyich Lenin grew up. Explicitly political texts were difficult to publish under the tsarist regime. The rasher essayists were holed up in asylums until they “recovered”: in other words, until they publicly recanted their views. Novels and poetry, meanwhile, were treated more leniently – though not in every instance.

Read the full article.

26) Earth's worst-ever mass extinction of life holds 'apocalyptic' warning about climate change, say scientists

Ian Johnston, The Independent

Researchers studying the largest-ever mass extinction in Earth’s history claim to have found evidence that it was caused by runaway global warming – and that the “apocalyptic” events of 250 million years ago could happen again.

Read the full article.

See also: The NDP Leadership Race, the Dutch GreenLeft, Gavin McInnes & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List March 12-19

See also: Chrystia Freeland, IWD, the British Empire & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List March 5 - 12

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

The Sammy Yatim killing -- Consequences for police violence are what is "necessary for public confidence in the administration of justice"

When we look at the case of James Forcillo it is very difficult to not come to the conclusion that it could only have unfolded as it has because he is a police officer.

After the Toronto officer was found guilty by a jury of the "attempted murder" of Toronto teen Sammy Yatim who he had shot to death -- leaving many, myself included, still wondering if you can possibly conceive of anyone other than a cop being found guilty of that charge when the victim in the case was dead -- he was sentenced to six years in jail.

Yet he has been out on bail for all but one night since the conviction while awaiting an appeal. Despite the shocking brutality of the crime that was deemed "egregious" by a judge.

He was convicted last July, released on bail the next day, has had the bail extended already, just had it extended by the judge again yesterday and won't be back in court until October. And Forcillo will spend none of this time serving his sentence in a correctional facility of any kind!

In the Toronto Star we learn that Justice Eileen Gillese "ruled Forcillo’s incarceration pending appeal was not necessary for public confidence in the administration of justice" and that:

“Despite the seriousness of the offence for which the Appellant stands convicted,” she wrote, “in my view, fully informed members of the community will objectively understand and accept that it is not contrary to the public interest that he be released.”

I disagree.

Time and time and time again police officers in Toronto, Ontario and Canada have acted with violent impunity with little or no consequence for their actions no matter how egregious. For a police officer to even face internal departmental discipline of any seriousness is rare, let alone facing the kind of criminal charges that any other person would face for many of these acts.

Even when mass police abuse, violence and violation of civil rights occurs right in front of the media of both the country and the world, as happened during the G20 police riot in Toronto in 2012, the fallout was virtually non-existent with only one officer ever convicted of assault (and getting no jail time) and one senior officer getting a slap on the wrist for trampling on people's rights during a mass "kettling".

It is absolutely "necessary for public confidence in the administration of justice" for the public to believe that police officers are not above the law and that they are not treated totally differently by the courts, because right now that is certainly not how it seems!

In case after case we have seen just how far the system will go to ensure that police officers do not face the kind of justice anyone else would for criminal acts of violence or abuse.

As the Toronto Star noted of Forcillo's actions last year:

Nine bullets [were] fired from Const. James Forcillo’s gun, eight striking Yatim. The last six of those bullets — fired after a five-second pause, as Yatim lay paralyzed and dying from the first volley of shots — determined by a jury to be attempted murder, and called “egregious” by an Ontario judge in a scathing sentencing decision

Six shots fired into a teenager who lay paralyzed and helpless on the floor of a streetcar after already having been shot twice by Forcillo who was not even on the streetcar when he fired and despite Yatim not even having a gun! With video clearly showing Forcillo starting to fire even though Yatim was still on the streetcar (which was empty of passengers) neither a second-degree murder nor a manslaughter conviction could be obtained.

When Forcillo was first granted bail after a single night in jail Yatim's father said “He gets to go home. My son sleeps in an urn.”

With a violent act of such singular criminal brutality that finally resulted in the conviction of an officer-- regardless of whether the "attempted murder" conviction represented real justice -- it was time for the justice system to not just send a clear message to the police that the days of impunity are ending, but also one as well that justice will be done for people, families and communities that have suffered so terribly due to the acts of violent police officers.

And yet again, to date, it has not.

See also: It is not just the police spending in Toronto that is out of control -- it is the police themselves

See also: Beware the echoes of Toronto's 'Year of the Gun'

Sunday, January 15, 2017

Obama's Lies, Male Violence, Meryl Streep & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List January 8-15

This week's list of articles, news items and opinion pieces that I see as must reads if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.

This list covers the week of January 8 - January 15. It is in order of date of the article's release.

1) Pity the sad legacy of Barack Obama

Cornel West, The Guardian

Eight years ago the world was on the brink of a grand celebration: the inauguration of a brilliant and charismatic black president of the United States of America. Today we are on the edge of an abyss: the installation of a mendacious and cathartic white president who will replace him.

Read the full article.

2) Canada will party while indigenous kids are denied services

Vicky Mochama, Metro News

For the vast portion of Canadian history, indigenous communities have been stripped of their rights. Underfunding students, bickering over health costs, and allowing children to slip into child welfare cracks is how those rights continue to be abridged.

Read the full article.

3) Black people 3 times more likely to be street checked in Halifax, police say

Phlis McGregor and Angela MacIvor, CBC News

Ashley Taylor tenses up every time he sees a police cruiser because he knows what could be coming next.

"Being pulled over by the police for me," the Nova Scotia resident said, taking a pause, "it's normal."

Taylor, 42, estimates he has been stopped by police an average of three times a year. The student support worker at Dartmouth High School in said it usually happens on his drive to work.

"Is it racial profiling? Possibly."

Read the full article.

4) Protests Erupt in Kentucky After GOP Supermajority Passes Extreme Anti-Choice, Anti-Union Bills

Democracy Now

In Kentucky, hundreds of demonstrators packed into the Capitol building Saturday to protest the state Legislature’s passage of a slew of controversial bills, including an anti-union "right-to-work" law and extreme anti-choice legislation that bans abortions after 20 weeks and requires a woman to have an ultrasound before having an abortion. The surprise emergency legislative session Saturday came after Republicans seized a supermajority in the House of Representatives, giving the Republicans control of the House, the Senate and the governorship for the first time in Kentucky state history. On Saturday, the Legislature also repealed a law that had guaranteed higher wages for workers on publicly financed construction projects. We go to Louisville, Kentucky, for an update from Richard Becker, a union organizer with Service Employees International Union, and we speak with Lisa Abbott, a community organizer with Kentuckians for the Commonwealth.

Read the full article.

5) New numbers show spike in asylum seekers crossing from U.S. to Manitoba

Austin Grabish & Laura Glowacki, CBC News

The number of asylum seekers crossing the Canada-U.S. border into Manitoba on foot instead of through official ports of entry has risen fivefold in the past three years.

In the 2013-2014 fiscal year, 68 people illegally crossed the international border near the small, southern Manitoba community of Emerson and claimed refugee status, according to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). That jumped to 340 in 2015-2016.

Read the full article.

6) America dropped 26,171 bombs in 2016. What a bloody end to Obama's reign

Medea Benjamin, The Guardian

Most Americans would probably be astounded to realize that the president who has been painted by Washington pundits as a reluctant warrior has actually been a hawk. The Iran nuclear deal, a herculean achievement, and the opening of diplomatic relations with Cuba unfortunately stand alone as President Obama’s successful uses of diplomacy over hostility.

Read the full article.

7) Jody Issel, Soldiers of Odin Moose Jaw President, Isn't Even Trying Anymore

Anti-Racist Canada

You know, if there's one positive thing about Trump's election is that the racists we've been covering here for years have become refreshingly honest about their views. Take this guy for example:

Read the full article.

8) Why Meryl Streep’s Golden Globe Speech Is So Important in the Trump Era

Juan Cole, Truthdig

Occasionally entertainment and politics intersect, often hitting a false note. You never want your screenplay to be, as they say in Hollywood, “on the nose.” You have to step sideways away from ordinary news and address some dimension of the human condition to make art.

But in moments of national crisis, stars feel a need to speak out. Nick Gass has reviewed some of the major such incidents at the Academy Awards. Jane Fonda used her moment on the stage at the Academy Awards in the 1970s to denounce the Vietnam War. Marlon Brando declined to appear and had a Native American activist accept for him, making a statement about Indian rights.

Read the full article.

9) When men kill their partners, warning signs often missed

Alyshah Hasham & Wendy Gillis, The Toronto Star

Last week, a relative of Dr. Elana Fric-Shamji sat silently in a north Toronto courtroom, watching as Dr. Mohammed Shamji appeared on a charge of first-degree murder. Pinned to her jacket was a purple ribbon to honour victims of domestic violence.

Read the full article.

10) I'm a TTC fare evader

Cliff G., NOW Magazine

My income does not meet the minimum poverty level, so without regular, fulltime employment I just can’t afford to get around this wondrous city. What's the answer? Free. Public. Transit.

Read the full article.

11) Obama’s Last Presidential Lies

Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report

Nobody lies with the style and aplomb of Barack Hussein Obama, soon to be an ex-president of the United States. In his last address to the nation, Obama lied about his support for labor; economic and social justice for Black people; climate change and, of course, the rightwing Republican program that is his shameful legacy, Obamacare. Virtually everything the man says is a form of lie. But he does it so well, and some folks want so badly to believe.

Read the full article.

12) Here's Why Jeff Sessions Was Asked About a Murdered Abortion Doctor

Stassa Edwards, The Slot/Jezebel

During Jeff Sessions’s confirmation hearing for Attorney General, Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, asked Sessions about his endorsement from the extremist anti-choice group, Operation Rescue.

Read the full article.

13) The Boyden Controversy Is Not about Bloodline

Robert Jago, The Walrus

Over the holiday break, I was asked to host the @indigenousXca Twitter account, an account shared by different Indigenous activists, academics, and artists each week. I used that hosting opportunity to raise the question of author Joseph Boyden’s Indigenous identity—his “Indigeneity.” Raising this question inadvertently brought an Indigenous debate about identity and belonging into the non-Native media mainstream.

Read the full article.

14) Prosecutors dismissed his domestic violence charges. Then, police say, he killed his wife.

Lindsey Bever and Sarah Larimer, The Washington Post

For years, friends said, Tara O’Shea-Watson had been a victim of domestic violence.

She had shown up on their doorsteps, battered and bloodied after alleged violent encounters with her estranged husband, they said. She had talked to them about taking her children and fleeing from their home in Commercial Township, N.J., but the courts reportedly would not let her move them out of state.

Read the full article.

15) Activist Hilla Kerner says Christy Clark has done little to address male violence against women

Charlie Smith, The Georgia Straight

Last June, Premier Christy Clark made a startling revelation.

In an article in the Vancouver Sun, she disclosed that 35 years ago, a stranger pulled her off the sidewalk into the bushes.

Read the full article.

16) Why do we coddle violent, abusive men?

Heather Mallick, The Toronto Star

What are victims worth? When they’re women and children, not much. They’re dead, they only have us to defend them, and we’re doing a poor job.

Read the full article.

17) The Boyden affair just got murkier

Rick Salutin, The Toronto Star

I found Joseph Boyden’s interview Wednesday on CBC — in a word rarely called for — unctuous. He surfaced three weeks after saying he wouldn’t deal with questions about his indigeneity publicly but only in a “speaking circle.” This after filling what he calls “airtime” for 10 years on every form of media.

Read the full article.

18) These acid-white LEDs serve as a lesson for Toronto planners

Alex Bozikovic, The Globe and Mail

Hit the lights! When Aura, at the corner of Yonge and Gerrard, turned on its exterior decorative lighting about a year ago, the downtown Toronto skyline changed dramatically. The 78-storey condominium tower was capped by long vertical icicles of acid-white LEDs: Many Torontonians were surprised.

Read the full article.

19) Canadian Union of Brewery and General workers on strike

NUPGE

Members of the Canadian Union of Brewery and General Workers (CUBGW/NUPGE) have been at the bargaining table with Molson Coors for months trying to negotiate a fair and reasonable collective agreement.
Despite being in a strike position as of Monday, January 9, the union held off on setting up picket lines to give the employer a last chance to come back with an improved package of proposals. The employer refused to budge.

Today, the members walked out of the plant to a picket line at the gate.

Read the full statement.

20) Judge blasts Toronto police over 'Kafkaesque' traffic stop

Jacques Gallant, The Toronto Star

A judge has acquitted a man of failing to provide a breath sample, rebuking Toronto police officers’ “aggressive” and “verbally abusive” conduct following a simple traffic stop, which included telling the man he needed to exit his car because he had come to a “high drug” area.

Read the full article.

21) After anti-abortion ads on buses, what’s next?

Heather Mallick, The Toronto Star

Why Peterborough agreed to allow anti-abortion ads on its city buses is baffling.

The ads planned for March will show an enlarged photo of a fetus allegedly at seven weeks, then 16 weeks, and then a smear of blood with the slogan “Growing, growing, gone. ABORTION KILLS CHILDREN.”

Read the full article.

See also: Twitter, Basic Income, Kaepernick, Disney & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List January 1 - 8

See also: Netanyahu, Children of Men, Cheetahs & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List December 25 - January 1

Thursday, July 7, 2016

You cannot 'discriminate' against the police. They are agents of discrimination.

One of the most depressing realities to be made clear by the entire backlash to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest at the Toronto Pride Parade this past weekend is just how many white people are simply clueless as to the continuing day-to-day actuality of systemic racism in our society.

As always seems to be the case when racialized and marginalized communities stand up for their rights in any visible way whatsoever, an endless stream of facile and specious narratives arise based around logically false equivalencies or simple stupidities which are used as a cover for what amounts to racism

One might note that the BLM protest was entirely peaceful and stopped the Pride parade for all of 30 minutes. Based on some of the reaction you would have thought it was a terrorist attack!

I already wrote about some of the absurd and offensive responses from the usual reactionary suspects like the odious Margaret Wente and the Toronto Sun's in-house political simpleton Joe Warmington.

BLM Toronto co-founder Janaya Khan wrote powerfully and movingly of how BLM in Toronto is very much a part of the broader LGBT movement which is what made the time and place of their action totally appropriate. as well as about the awful and viciously racist backlash they faced,.

Khan also pointed briefly to one of the most absurd narratives to flow out of the whole affair -- that being the notion that preventing a police float from being in the march would somehow be "exclusionary" or "discriminatory".

The high school logic class false sanctimony at play here runs along the sad old liberal lines of "Pride is supposed to inclusive and not letting the police march is not inclusive" which sounds good if you forget we are in a society with a history and a legacy of racism and if you somehow pretend the police are a group that can be discriminated against.

Which they cannot be. It is even more stupid than the usual cries of "reverse racism" or moronic nonsense like trying to claim that anti-Islamic bigotry is not racist because "Islam is not a race".

Gay cops can write all the plaintive letters they want, but the police are not a racialized or marginalized group or even a social group at all that can be "discriminated" against anymore than dentists or engineers can be "discriminated" against. The entire construct of attempting to claim this is idiotic.

The police are the paid, armed wing of the state, along with the military. As the paid, armed wing of a racist and colonialist, homophobic and misogynist society historically the police have reflected this in their practice.

They have both historically and in the here-and-now been racist, colonialist, homophobic and misogynist.

That they have been forced to include (and they were forced, make no mistake) members of groups that have suffered under the yoke of these systemic injustices changes nothing. That specific officers may not be racist also changes nothing, in the same way that specific white people not being racist changes nothing about systemic racism.

Just as "All Lives Matter" is obliviously racist as a slogan, "Blue Lives Matter" is even more so.

There are no lives that matter more to the state than "blue lives" as is clearly seen across North America as time-after-time obvious and egregious cases of racist or other murders or brutalization by police officers go almost entirely unpunished. Any type of action against or conviction of police officers in even the most obscene instances are almost unheard of.

In fact, as we just saw in the wake of the G20 Toronto police riot, the police can violate the civil rights of thousands of people publicly and openly with almost no consequence at all.

And everyone knows this so lets cut the bullshit.

The police have served to enforce discrimination and inequality and they have far from turned the page on this with their members, chiefs and officers continuing to support and extol practices like carding that have been demonstrated to be racist.

Until the police unions, membership and leadership have actually disavowed these ugly and vile practices and demonstrated that they are actually committed to a non-discriminatory kind of policing (and I am not convinced that this is necessarily possible at this moment in history) it is an affront to those groups that they actively oppress daily to think that the police should be partying it up in parades without some who see the actuality of the jackboot questioning this.

When people talk about the virtue of inclusion, if they actually mean what they say the police are an obstacle to that goal and a very active one.

Instead of decrying and being enraged by non-violent protests by Black Lives Matter, why not stand in solidarity with them in the face of actually violent, often deadly and overtly discriminatory actions by the police and demand societal redress and justice for this?

I think we all know the answer as to why so many white people get so up-in-arms about the former but say nothing at all about the latter.

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." - Martin Luther King "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

See also: Black Lives Matter is right -- The police are the oppressor

See also: Part of the problem: Talking about systemic oppression

Monday, July 4, 2016

Black Lives Matter is right -- The police are the oppressor

You know, it is always appalling to see some oblivious white idiot walking around with the horrifically racist Cleveland Indians logo on their chest or on some sign of some kind.

I did not see this specific idiot in the picture, but saw another entitled white idiot, strolling down the platform of the Go Station after a Jays-Indians game this year with this disgraceful caricature on the front of her jersey.

Had one approached her, called her out on the bigotry implicit in wearing such an image, she would no doubt have been both shocked and denied it was bigoted or racist at all. It was "tradition" or simply a logo or just for a laugh or whatever pretense one uses to justify this form of abject, vicious ugliness that can only be ok to those who simply are unwilling to understand what images like these mean historically and the role they have played in creating a culture of racist indifference.

The vast bulk of white folks it seems simply do not want to and cannot accept that they have built and are the direct beneficiaries of a colonialist and racist social order and that they have woven that order's narratives and lies into their fictions about themselves and their society,

And so it is with the pathetic and, indeed, deeply racist reactions to the very minor, and profoundly just, protest that Toronto's Black Lives Matter (BLM) made at the Toronto Pride parade.

Suddenly legions of white people, the vast majority of whom could not possibly care less about LGBT pride or liberation aside from when they get to sound liberal about gay marriage with their friends, are up in arms about how BLM allegedly sought to derail Pride for their own "agenda" or sought to somehow "exclude" the police in future as if such a thing were possible,

Accused plagiarist and pseudo-intellectual dilettante Margaret Wente, who always seems to play the apologist for power and the status quo in situations like this, wrote a column, of course, furious that BLM's protest might imply that we have issues of systemic racism in our policing in Canada comparable to those in the United States -- which, needless to say in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, we don't because this clueless wealthy white person says we don't.

Very convincing.

To her, these activists from a community that has been marginalized economically and socially for centuries are "bullies" -- as opposed to the police whose practices of carding and racial profiling have been an assault on the rights of people she does not know or care about, and whose continued resistance to changing their behaviour belies their rhetoric about celebrating inclusivity.

The most powerful people in our society, one of the armed wings of the state, are supposedly being "bullied" by unarmed, peaceful activists from a community they have brutalized forever. It is a stunning, staggering, shocking reversal of historical fact,

Or we have Joe Warmington, who was a stalwart apologist for homophobic bigot Rob Ford, claiming that Pride owes the police an apology! Maybe he could apologize to Toronto's LGBT community first out of basic decency.

Pathetic.

That is what so many of us white folks are, Pathetic.

We are people who will walk down a street proudly displaying "Chief Wahoo" even though we know what colonialist racism and violence did to the native and indigenous peoples of North America and even though we know what it continues to do today. Too many of us simply do not care.

In fact, when called on it, white people love to play the victim and to try to cry "reverse racism" or some other sad refrain.

And so it is again, now, in Toronto.

BLM peacefully, and for a very short time, stopped a march that was created in the wake of police violence to call out not just issues with Pride but continuing police violence against racialized communities. BLM forced Pride organizers to take notice in the only way they could and forced concessions that now appear will not be honoured.

In doing so, they acted in the very best traditions of Pride.

And yet the braying of reaction, so utterly predictable, again tries to make the oppressed the oppressor and the victimized the victimizers.

As Malcolm X said ".If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

And that is what we need to remember.

It is the police who are doing the oppressing and it is Black Lives Matter that is fighting oppression.

Not only are Black Lives Matter right to ask that the police not have a float in Pride, the police should never have been there to begin with.

See also: It is not "political correctness" that hurts the poor Mr. Kay, it is systemic oppression and those who enable it

See also: It is not just the police spending in Toronto that is out of control -- it is the police themselves

Sunday, July 3, 2016

Peel Police State, Scarborough Subway, By-elections & People's Choice 2018 - Left Chapter Toronto City Politics Journal IV

Scarborough Subway Fiasco

In the wake of the news that the one-stop extension of the Scarborough subway would cost almost a BILLION dollars more than originally anticipated and would come in at at least a staggering $3.2 billion (for one single stop) Mayor Tory and other supporters of this increasingly unjustifiable fiasco are doubling-down on the dumb to try to justify it.

Even former Mayor David Miller came out of retirement to opine (in this case correctly) on CBC Radio about how as the "plan" grows more-and-more absurd the rhetoric of those supporting it grows more-and-more hyperbolic and inane.

Mayor Tory went to the extent of writing a rather lame op-ed in The Toronto Star wherein the only serious justification of continuing with this plan -- as opposed to the several LRT lines that could be built instead and that would service far more people in neighbourhoods increasingly marginalized not just socio-economically but by issues exactly like inadequate transit infrastructure -- is that not doing so would hurt the reputations and images of those who have supported it!

Given how much Toronto civic politics has been centred around personality and short-term, dead-end politically opportunistic "thinking" it would seem we are on track for the plan, which was approved again by the Mayor's Executive Committee, to continue full speed ahead towards yet another transit disaster for the people of Toronto and Scarborough after Toronto City Council begins a new session on July 12.

Ward 2 By-Election

In a by-election that has singularly failed to get any attention, Michael Ford is clearly cruising to what is likely to be an easy victory July 25 that will be based entirely on family name.

While two other candidates decried this on City-TV News there is little reason to think Toronto's long-standing and sad history of power-broker backed (and not by any means just on the right) and ultimately voter approved nepotism will not continue on given the lack of serious contenders with the kind of clout or name recognition that would be needed to defeat a Ford in their stronghold.

New Democrat Christopher Strain did manage to get some press when he cleverly issued a challenge to Ford for a one-on-one debate (which Ford, of course, declined on the not entirely unjustified grounds that any debate should involve all candidates). While his website remains strikingly policy light Strain is, at least, strongly opposed to the Scarborough subway.

A list of all the by-election candidates can be found on the City of Toronto website.

School Trustee By-Elections

As predicted here previously, progressive Chris Moise won the Ward 14 TDSB by-election on June 20th.

Two other school board by-elections are continuing and will be held July 25.

In TDSB Ward 5 (York Centre) there are several candidates running on actual platforms in the race to fill the spot left vacant by the sad death of leftist Howard Kaplan -- though none of them seem to remotely have his approach and philosophy, which was fueled by a serious and genuine commitment to social justice.

Erica Shiner is running on a to date vague -- though progressive in tone -- "platform" and has a solid chance to join Moise on council at least in part, again, due to family name. She also benefits by contrast with her opponents.

Nina Zaslavsky has some backing and worked previously for two City Councillors. Her platform, such as it is, consists of three planks one of which is the truly terrible idea to have police officers stationed in every school -- a policy if adopted that is far more likely to lead to the abuse and surveillance of students than it is to help "protect" them.

Jordan Glass came in second to Kaplan in the last TDSB election in Ward 5. While Glass has framed his campaign around fighting for students with special needs and is a supporter of LGBT inclusion, he also talks in very right-wing tones about "fiscal accountability" and cities the odious Fraser Institute in his totally wrong-headed call to allow parents to be able to choose the schools they want to send their kids to. This is a deeply reactionary idea that would do nothing but ensure the entrenchment and reinforcement of marginalized communities remaining marginalized within our public education system and is little more than a right-wing fantasy that in reality would be a nightmare.

There is also a contest for TDSB Ward 1 going on, but on that front I can offer very little information. None of the candidates have websites or even Facebook pages with one exception, a candidate who appears to be affiliated with perennial candidate Kevin Clarke. I can also find no reporting on the race to fill Michael Ford's vacated spot. Given that this means an entirely random candidate whose views are not widely known may get elected by default, this is somewhat disturbing.

All candidates in these by-elections can be found on the City of Toronto website.

Peel Police State

We have already touched on the dangerous situation unfolding in Peel where the police and their chief are OPENLY defying their civilian and elected overseers as if we live in a police state.

Now the chief and senior police officers are publicly calling on the progressive Chair of Peel's Police Services Board to resign, which is a disgraceful attempt to interfere in the democratic process. So far the Mayors of Brampton and Mississauga are resisting this. This needs to be closely watched, as were the police to succeed, when it really should be the chief herself resigning, it would set a terrible precedent and signal that the Peel police can basically set their own rules and agenda.

New Leftist Municipal Initiative

A potentially very exciting new leftist political initiative has been started by activists in Toronto. Called People's Choice 2018 they have launched after a first meeting with the following statement on Facebook:

The People's Choice 2018 Campaign is fighting to elect candidates from Toronto's working class wards to City Council and drive forward the People's Platform. This consists of an $18/hr minimum wage, fare-free transit, and a rent freeze for all Toronto tenants.
We are socialists
We are environmentalists
We are anti-racists
We are feminists
We are union members
We are community activists
Join the fight for a better city for all of us!
[email: peopleschoice2018@gmail.com]

This is a terrific start and the fact that they have put municipal minimum wages and free transit front and centre is very encouraging. I ran on both of these planks municipally in 2014 and have written articles about the need and possibility of both the municipal minimum wage and fare free transit. They are crucial in the fight for social justice and inclusion.

We need a front like this to help offset the institutional support from organizations like the Labour Council for the say and do-nothing progressive politicians we have now and to build a serious alternative to the right.

Join their Facebook group to stay up-to-date and for information on future meetings and rest assured I will be reporting here on developments and news as this unfolds.

See you in two weeks!

See also: Toronto and Peel's 'finest', TTC Scarborough subway shame & more -- Left Chapter Toronto City Politics Journal III

See also: Pot Crackdown, Di Ciano, Putting the Brakes on Democracy & more -- Left Chapter Toronto City Politics Journal II

Friday, June 17, 2016

Toronto and Peel's 'finest', TTC Scarborough subway shame & more -- Left Chapter Toronto City Politics Journal III

Change Coming for the Cops?

In a rare case of government downsizing and "cutbacks" that I can get behind, it appears Toronto may be on the verge of actually taking some steps for the first time in a generation towards tackling a ludicrously bloated police budget that has been padded and padded by political pandering.

A report released Thursday, that seems to have the strong backing of Mayor John Tory, has recommended a variety of measures to trim the $1 billion plus police budget including shuttering some police stations, a moratorium on hiring and promotions, stopping the bizarre and long-standing practice of paying police officers to perform tasks they are not at all needed for, and more.

It also recommended shutting down the TAVIS program that many community groups and anti-poverty groups like the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty have seen as little more than a harassment and intimidation campaign by the police against the racialized and marginalized.

All of these steps, if taken in full, would result in the liberation of $100 million from policing for other uses.

This money could be used in critical areas of social inclusion and civic infrastructure instead of, as has happened city budget after city budget, being fed into what amounts to the military wing of the austerity city.

I would suggest that these changes and attempts to divert spending from policing do not go anywhere near far enough, but they are a start.

And one can anticipate an angry, confrontational and fear-mongering campaign against even these changes from the city's police union and its political apologists on council and in the media, none of whom seem to fundamentally accept the idea of democratic and civilian oversight of the police at all.

Transit Farce Continues

The epic and terribly damaging farce that is the continuing derailing of transit progress in Toronto has taken yet another twisted turn with the revelation today that the one stop extension of the subway in Scarborough will cost $1 billion more than anticipated.

In other words, to build this single new stop will cost a staggering $2.9 billion.

The city has not planned for and does not have the funds in place to build both this immensely expensive small expansion and the 18-stop Eglinton E. LRT line that is envisioned to accompany it.

Yet again, absurd narratives about subways vs. LRTs driven by shortsighted political goals and a seeming complete ignorance of what LRTs are have put the city in a position where its latest subway plan is looking like the biggest white elephant since Mirabel Airport in Montreal or the Sheppard subway line a little closer to home!

Let us hope rational transit planning reverts and the city takes a look at the original 7-stop LRT plan to replace the Scarborough RT line -- a plan that would service far more people for far less money.

King St. Pedestrian Way

Jennifer Keesmaat, the chief planner for the City of Toronto made what is, by car loving Toronto standards, a rather audacious proposal in The Toronto Star when she suggested that King St, be converted, at least in parts, into a car-free zone.

Her plan is modeled on a street in Melbourne, Australia specifically, though streets like this exist around the world.

Her idea is that you block off access to King St., presumably through a large swath of the downtown, to cars and instead divide it between the streetcars, bike lanes and greatly expanded pedestrian use.

This a great idea and could be incorporated into what seems to be a slowly emerging broader push back against the car as king in the city and into a general campaign to get people to leave their cars in their driveways.

Peel Police Insanity

Peel Police Chief Jennifer Evans is continuing her profoundly anti-democratic attempts to resist any civilian oversight of her department.

After having essentially refused to follow the orders of her democratically elected bosses and end the racist practice of carding in Peel a few months ago, she is now denouncing attempts to "bring in an independent auditor to probe the force’s hiring and promotions practices, along with its overall equity performance" (which is apparently rather lacking) in a letter she circulated to her own force members.

This is outrageous conduct in a democratic society and utterly unacceptable from a public official who is supposed to be answerable to the public and those they elect.

She should be dismissed immediately as a reminder that we supposedly do not live in a police state.

G20 Police Farce

In what should come as a surprise to absolutely no one, Supt. David (Mark) Fenton was "sentenced" to a slap on the wrist after having been found guilty of discreditable conduct for his role in the G20 police riot in 2010.

Fenton was the commander who notoriously gave the order to "kettle" hundreds of innocent civilians as well as to arrest and detain hundreds of entirely innocent people in one of the greatest mass violations of civil rights in Canadian history.

The disgraceful and frightening conduct of police in the city over the course of that weekend has led to almost no officers at any level being held to account in any meaningful way and remains a great shame and stain on both municipal and provincial politicians who failed to act to ensure that they would.

Jim Karygiannis Remains True to Form

Anti-choice and anti-LGBT marriage equality rights, bombastic former Liberal backbench MP Jim Karygiannis, now sadly a Scarborough City Councillor, was reprimanded by the city's integrity commissioner for essentially browbeating a constituent and an uber driver.

The commissioner said of one of the incidents:

The councillor’s conduct is shocking and had the cumulative effect of irreparably harming the complainant’s and her family’s trust and confidence in the councillor.
More importantly, the councillor’s actions led to a reasonable belief that the separation between elected officials and enforcement had been blurred and accordingly damaged the trust and confidence that the complainant and her family had in the institution of the City of Toronto.

Karygiannis has apologized and other than a reprimand no other action will be taken against him.

I ran for the NDP in the 2000 federal election in Karygiannis' riding (which he won re-election in easily) and I am certain that no one, at all, in the slightest, who knows anything about him is at all surprised by any of this.

See you in two weeks!

Please post any thoughts or ideas in the comments here or on the Facebook group.

See also: Pot Crackdown, Di Ciano, Putting the Brakes on Democracy & more -- Left Chapter Toronto City Politics Journal II

See also: Reefer Madness, Transit Lanes, Ward 2 & more -- Left Chapter Toronto City Politics Journal I

The Left Chapter

Pages

The Left Chapter has moved!

Sunday, July 23, 2017

Police Brutality, Thunder Bay, Ryerson & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List July 16 - 23

Sunday, March 26, 2017

Climate Change, Police Malfeasance, Lenin & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List March 19 - 26

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

The Sammy Yatim killing -- Consequences for police violence are what is "necessary for public confidence in the administration of justice"

Sunday, January 15, 2017

Obama's Lies, Male Violence, Meryl Streep & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List January 8-15

Thursday, July 7, 2016

You cannot 'discriminate' against the police. They are agents of discrimination.

Monday, July 4, 2016

Black Lives Matter is right -- The police are the oppressor

Sunday, July 3, 2016

Peel Police State, Scarborough Subway, By-elections & People's Choice 2018 - Left Chapter Toronto City Politics Journal IV

Friday, June 17, 2016

Toronto and Peel's 'finest', TTC Scarborough subway shame & more -- Left Chapter Toronto City Politics Journal III

Popular Posts