Avg. rent in the city is 2500/month, which is 30K/year. Avg. CUPE Ed worker salary is 39K/year. Remember who to be mad at if schools are closed due to a strike: blame falls squarely on the man denying early childhood educators and custodians the right to basic decent living.
the police cannot be "decolonized"or "reimagined" out of their primary function: the maintenance of racial/social/gendered/abled /economic inequality. recognizing this is is empowering, not depressing. it means we can use our energy building something better (many somethings!)
it is still sinking in so only now sharing this news, but as of July 1, I am joining the University of Toronto-Scarborough as Assistant Professor of Black Feminisms in Canada in the Department of Historical and Cultural Studies, w/ a graduate appointment at WGSI downtown.
No. Black and Indigenous struggles are interlocking and interconnected. All of us stand to gain from the growing mvmt to
#DefundThePolice
. No to this analysis that pits us against one another as we organize collectively for abolition, decolonization and a police free world.
The work doesn’t end with tackling anti-Black racism. Indigenous peoples have long suffered overt racism and insidious bias from individuals and institutions — including the police — throughout Canada. We have to do better.
#Editorial
Climate catastrophe was born not from 'mankind'
but from the slave plantation, the settler town, the prison, the reservation[...]solutions being forwarded by those in power are more of the same—the border wall, the immigration detention centre, the refugee camp, the open-pit mine
"So scary are the consequences of a collapse of white privilege that many Americans have flocked to a political platform that supports and translates violence against the defenseless as strength" - Toni Morrison
Solidarity w/ the Ontario education workers organizing for decent working conditions. Funds are always available for surveillance, jails, repression, while life affirming social needs are decimated. education is a social need and good and workers deserve our support right now.
In response to widespread calls to defund police & invest in communities - borne of rampant police killings of Black and Indigenous people across Toronto and Canada -the city votes instead for on an increase in police funding for “reforms” already known to be ineffective. Shame.
Right now on the CBC we are being told by police that increasing police presence on the TTC shouldn’t concern us because the police’s job is to “help people find homes.” As if they have not have spent years and $20 million public funds violently displacing encampment residents
Be good to younger people in movements and remember you were also once young! I remember folks who were snobby and condescending to me AND I remember folks who patiently schooled me and cared for me and taught me practical skills! The second was much more helpful. Choose
#2
!
Toronto Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, one of Doug Ford’s closest allies, went on Rebel Media this weekend and shared his solution for Jane & Finch:
Spray them down like “cockroaches.”
#cdnpoli
#onpoli
#topoli
Shame on
@JohnTory
-the absolute moral cowardice here. Refusal to
#DefundThePolice
just weeks ago, now looking at
#defunding
services for homeless ppl, transit, childcare? prioritizing repression over communities has always been shameful, even moreso during a pandemic.
Toronto Mayor John Tory is asking the federal and provincial governments for funding help as the city stares down a $1.35 billion deficit. Potentially on the chopping block, he said, are: transit, homelessness services and child care.
Robyn Maynard, author of Policing Black Lives: State violence in Canada from slavery to the present, explains the call for the abolition of policing
#cdnpoli
#ctvpp
More at
we are, collectively, shifting enormous ground: 75% of Canadians identify that the RCMP racist at a systemic level, 35% believe it is incapable of reform - THAT IS OVER 1/3. defund, dismantle and abolish police, invest in safety for our communities
happy
#IWD
including and especially to trans women, sex working women, incarcerated women, Black and Indigenous women, and so many others who are partially or wholly rejected from the category of "woman" when it suits the needs of the status quo.
protestors have NOT been released, police statement was untrue. crowds growing at div. 52 to released them without charges. Arrests of people struggling to end antiBlack racism exposes precisely the problem that is policing, what function it serves in our society
#FreeThemNow
after many conversations, in my 4-year old son's vision of police abolition, we take the money away from police and give it to kids to buy candy. he said this is better than putting people in cages and I strongly agree!
Solidarity with BLM Montreal today as they hold an event commemorating the life of Sheffield Matthews, a Black man killed by the SPVM (Montreal police). May he rest in power and sending love and rage to Black Montreal.
It’s absolutely amazing- a massive shift-to see that over 1/2 of Canadians support
#DefundThePolice
. This is itself a momentous win. AND culture shift is one part - if a major part- of what we need- political transformations next/ Good work and work ahead!
No body cams. No community policing. No implicit bias training. No more sacrificing and rendering expendable so many for a notion of “security” rooted in violence.
#DefundThePolice
#FundOurCommunities
30 ppl arrested today, many more brutalized, and mass amounts of people pepper-sprayed. some folks haven’t yet spoken to lawyers. Shame on
@JohnTory
and all political class not actively opposing this mass criminalization
This is..not a time to push for a study, a tweak of the status quo or to otherwise delay the urgent and necessary changes that young people -and people of all ages- are out in the streets fighting for. We are in a moment of radical demands & incredible possibility. Chose wisely !
Mark Saunders was making over $400K per year. this is the salary of (at least) TEN community-based harm reduction workers, trained in mental health, overdose, de-escalation response. DIVEST/INVEST.
These are rough times, but I am so excited to share the cover of Rehearsals for Living, by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and I. with
@Knopf
in CND and
@haymarketbooks
in the US, w/ a foreword by Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Afterword by Robin DG Kelley
By myself and Andrea Ritchie (
@dreanyc123
)- “Black lives are being sacrificed in the name of (white) public health, whether through disproportionate exposure to COVID-19 or policing of the people least able to stay home”
Sharing this for ppl who have asked to read my article "Police Abolition/Black Revolt". It will be open-access shortly but until then it also lives here! DM-me if you need support accessing
"This struggle to defend the trees and forests is above all a struggle against imperialism. Because imperialism is the arsonist setting fire to our forests and our savannas." - Thomas Sankara
I have worked in community for many years before academia and have been involved in many de-escalations of complex mental health crises. We never harmed anybody, people did not have panic responses to our presence because we were not armed agents threatening them with violence.
Regis Korchinski-Paquet
#SayHerName
. Policing is violence against Black women, with a long legacy in Canada. The cases of egregious violence against Majiza Philip, Sharon Abbott, Jaqueline Nassiah, Audrey Smith, Stacy Bonds, Sophia Cook. The death in custody of Chevrana Abdi.
I have many thoughts and deep concerns about the convoy and massive-scale open white supremacist organizing across cities and towns in Canada and the complicity (and support) of law enforcement. I have not shared much of this
#onhere
yet.
These arrests yesterday need to be widely condemned. Arresting young Black people who are bravely standing up in support of their unhoused neighbours shows us the harm of relying on policing instead of investing in real community safety.
While at a tear down at Beasley Park yesterday, peacefully taking photos, I was arrested & charged with assault of an officer for what happened at JC Beemer. But let me as you this: who in this picture holds power?
A full statement will be released soon. Follow
@HamOntESN
Violence in our communities can only be addressed by a meaningful investment in our communities. Policing not only fails to prevent violence but extends its reach and scope against Black, Indigenous, racialized and poor communities.
Canadian Union Of Postal Workers -Statement on Defunding the Police: “In the wake of a number of murders committed by police in the United States and Canada, CUPW joins an ever-important number of voices that are calling to DEFUND THE POLICE” this is huge!
The folks who pushed to unmask our kids at school in the name of their “mental health,” wellbeing and freedoms are silent now that paediatric emergency rooms are overwhelmed with kids ill with respiratory illnesses. This shallow vision of freedom works against collective wellness
We shouldn’t overly romanticize organizers or young folks but also I don’t think we talk enough about how much incredible abolitionist work happened this year that was done by people who were 18, 21, so new to the work and displaying such a strong ethic of care and commitment.
the use of massive police presence to evict folks living in encampments shows us the net result of prioritizing policing over care. it is always choice to prioritize violence, and it is how Toronto operates. it is possible to choose differently.
Not an overhaul, not “modernization” not another study, not anti-racism training for officers - less funds not more, less power, not more, less reach into Black peoples lives, not more
#DefundThePolice
Yes, we should decriminalize drugs (re: police chiefs statement). But no praise necessary for these latecomers. How many lives destroyed by preventable OD, SWAT raids, arrests, jail/prison, immigration detention, deportation, police beatings and killings. Decrim AND defund.
#abdirahmanabdi
- I feel unable to speak to this except sending my thoughts and prayers to his family, the Somali community and the broader Black world, today. this system is not broken but doing what it was designed to do
#DefundThePolice
I am *thrilled* at how much police defunding work is happening, from Winnipeg to Vancouver to Montreal to Edmonton. There is a lot to despair over. But it’s important to remember that while the energy is less frenetic, a huge amount of people have been drawn into freedom-making.
On Wednesday, Peel Regional Police announced a permanent end to the School Resource Officer Program, after placing it on indefinite hiatus in late July.
Less media than it deserves , but important organizing is happening across Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa Montreal and Vancouver to demand city budgets support decent life for all instead of paying the police six figures to gun down our communities like they have done for decades.
Police shootings rose by almost 25% in Canada in 2022. *This* rise in violence is not being treated with the same urgency by political leaders, and is not considered an emergency requiring immediate action from all levels of govt
#SupportsNotPolice
Ppl in Canada who most vocally advocate what they call “freedom of speech” (that is, in particular, racist speech) are rarely interested in any other forms of freedom- freedom from ongoing structural racism, freedom from unchecked police violence, freedom to protest injustice,etc
Thread: This is a really powerful and brilliant analysis shared by Black prisoners in Nova Scotia as dictated to El Jones, drawing links between abolishing and defunding police and asking us to tie this to a demand to defund and abolish prisons /1
my son is learning to read his first words all at once and is fucking acing it and I am so so proud of him. I rarely share family life on here but needed to share this with the world because it/he is everything!
wrote in
@TorontoStar
"Since (at least) the 1980s, Black women in Toronto – including the Black Women’s Collective, Sherona Hall of the BADC... have worked to bring visibility to the realities faced by Black women at the hands of the police.
#DefundThePolice
so much more could be funded: decent, long-term housing for our communities, safe-supply, non-carceral mental health supports, community-led anti-violence programs, access to healthy food, free public transit, vastly expanded women’s shelters, the list is endless
Racism was already terrible enough, but the thing where now racists also hate and target hospitals/health care workers is a trash next step that I genuinely had not foreseen… sending solidarity to the health care workers at the counter protest in Toronto today.
Standing in solidarity with Harsha Walia,
@HarshaWalia
, outstanding movement scholar, organizer, mama and freedom fighter who I’ve been proud to co-struggle with for well over a decade.
As bombs are dropped on schools and hospitals in collective punishment of Palestinians, Queens Park is debating a motion to censure MPP
@SarahJama_
barring her from asking questions, because of her statement naming the internationally recognized reality of Israeli apartheid
Two police killings in the last two days - Montreal and GTA-
#defundthepolice
and keep our comminties alive - why not build up supports ? why not create the conditions for decent living?
#TheFutureIsAbolition
note to self: there are so many incredible, exciting forms of struggle happening right now against the violence of prisons, borders, policing during COVID-19. i can't –none of us can –take part in all of them at once or I/we would not be effective at any. it's OK to pick a few.
U of T community -faculty, alum and honorary degree holders- showing huge support for the Peoples Circle for Palestine, check it out and sign up yourself,
#ChantelMoore
, a 26-year old Indigenous woman was killed by Edmundston police during a wellness check. policing IS racial violence, it is gendered violence.
“The only way to fight back against the cheapening of labour is to engage in an internationalist struggle against racialized citizenship and racial capitalism”
@HarshaWalia
#socialism2022
Anti-racism training, bodycams-these reforms forwarded by the TPS Board are sidetracking the now widely popular demands made by Black-led multi-racial movements to defund & abolish policing.They are trying to regain legitimacy for an institution that is illegitimate&beyond reform
I use a lot of citations in my work. maybe too many, from an aesthetic point of view. but I consider citing to be an act of love. one I want to be generous with. so many of our brilliant people out there doing the good work!
Remember that it is a political choice that govt officials make about who and what to value. People in power are choosing to spend over 1B$/year on policing while Toronto residents are left in deplorable life threatening conditions.This is not a preventable tragedy, but a choice.
Am preparing myself to read the new numbers on police use of force, strip searches, and race in Toronto. May we continue to build futures without police and policing because this can not go on.
#abolitionnow
So much happening that is inspiring right now. all across Canada, brilliant and courageous Black folks are working to get
#policeoutofschools
, to
#defundthepolice
and build something beautiful. So much behind the scenes labour undertaken by so many to make this happen.
Quietly celebrating being another year older today.I hope to be kinder and wiser with each turn around the sun. i hope to be harder in the ways I will need to be, and softer in the ways I will need be, too. Grateful for those who bring love, texture and possibility into this life
As ex-police stand to make millions from a drug that was used as a part of a war on black people, remembering Bony Jean-Pierre, a Haitian man living in MTL who was killed in 2016 in the context of a minor drug bust/minor amounts of marijuana .
#blacklivesmatter
#reparationsnow
I'm finally allowed to share this piece of good news:
#PolicingBlackLives
has been shortlisted for two 2018 Quebec Writers Federation (
@OfficialQWF
) literary awards: the Concordia University First Book Prize and the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction
Quilem Registre, a 39 yr old Black man living in Montreal, was killed after being tasered 6 times by police, stopped for a traffic violation in 2007. His family took part in many demos against police & demanded an end to the use of Tasers. Tasers Kill: this is long known.