There are services police providYake that can be provided by
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1745746499555
Community led safety solutions. Sinking money into policing while scrapping programs that keep like affordable housing, health, violence prevention, renter protection, community solutions, make critical investments in things we know keep people safe. George Floyd died for counterfeit $20 bill that is a crime of poverty.
Not our call to tell our communities how to grieve.
Desmond Cole
Regis Korchinski-Paquet: 5 hours after she fell to ground, her body was still on the ground in a body bag.
Defunding the police: money could be going to organizations to better protect the community. The way to stop violence is to go to the source, the police are the source of the violence for black people. It’s legalized force, up to taking somebody’s life.
Transforming violence into services and support for black people. The uncomfortable conversation is that white people are be protected by police violence, white people and their property. When police get paid $110,000 year to police black communities … indigenous children in child welfare today, and white people have made careers of managing the files … the racism white people get to benefit.
Until people burned down a police station, then murder charges
That flame was a hope. We are allowed to defend ourselves and fight back. We have to build on this one moment after 400 years of oppression. Stop policing, stop sending people with a gun for somebody in crisis.
DESMOND COLE: I’m really tired of using the term relationship as though these are two equal parties. The black community is not an equal party to the state sponsored police force. We are under subjugation to the state sponsored police force. And there are so many different ways that that’s happening that there isn’t even enough time in this segment. But in Toronto, this situation with Regis Korchinski-Paquet of her falling off of this balcony after an interaction with the police might seem strange or rare to people, but there are so many instances just in the last year or two in Ontario of people hearing a knock on the door. Police. It’s police. It’s police. And then that person ends up on the ground dead. No charges against the officer. Someone has a warrant for breaching probation. Police come and knock on their door. They’re found dead at the bottom of an apartment building. This is happening in Ontario all the time. But we’re not focused on accountability for the police, we’re focused on clearing the police and saying it wasn’t their fault. And so black people, people on low incomes, living in some of these high rise apartment buildings, people who may be in crisis, we are all falling victims to police brutality and it’s being treated every time like a one off and it’s very insulting to see that.
MG: The last time you were here on the program in January, you were talking about your book. And in the book you talk about the call for defunding the police. Kandace Montgomery in Minneapolis was making the same argument, saying that money is going to the police where it could be going to organizations that would better protect the community. What would that idea of defunding the police achieve?
DESMOND COLE: It would stop police from killing people. I think that the way to stop violence is to go to the source. The police are the source of the violence. And we’ve been hearing that on your show today over and over from black people who are trying to remind everybody that this is happening because police are violent. Policing is violence. It’s legalized right to use as much force as you want up to taking someone’s life and then there being no legal consequences. So, Matt, if I keep hitting you with a stick, hitting you with a stick, hitting you with a stick, you can put a camera on me to monitor how I hit you with the stick, but that’s not going to stop me from hitting you. You can retrain me that hitting people with a stick os wrong as if I don’t already know that or you can just take the damn stick away from me. We have to disarm and defund the police. And what’s been really frustrating for me to see is that other people in this country, Sandy Hudson, we’ve been trying to get on radio shows when Minneapolis was burning to talk about police defunding, to talk about other issues that have to do with transforming violence into services and support for black people. And everybody says, oh, we’re just here to talk about Minneapolis right now. So if Minneapolis hadn’t burned, would we be having this conversation about Toronto? I doubt it. And that’s what’s wrong with the way that our media is covering these issues.
MG: What are the hard conversations then? I mean, if it’s about the police or if it’s about not just looking south of the border, but having the gut check here, what are the uncomfortable conversations that we need to have now?
DESMOND COLE: We’ll be uncomfortable conversation is that white folks are benefitting from this violence because the police are here to protect white people and their property. That’s actually what the police have always done on this stolen indigenous territory. So what we want to pretend is at some points, racism is like, you know, an individual. It’s a bad actor or maybe in some broader cases, you know, there might be a problem inside of a particular institution. When police get paid $110,000 a year in Toronto to police poor neighbourhoods, the money stays with them and their family and gets deprived from the community. And in fact, they can even inflict more violence and take more away from black communities and they’re getting paid in the same way that if we go outside of policing, there are indigenous children in child welfare today, just like there was a 60s scoop and residential schools. And white people have made careers managing the files of indigenous children who are being taken from their families. All the money that gets used in these ventures could use to actually support families and keep them together in indigenous communities. But the racism says no white people get to benefit and everybody else gets to be administered while they get paid and their families get supported. So the difficult conversation for me is racism isn’t about some bad feelings inside somebody’s hearts, it’s about power. And when you keep power away from other people, there’s more for you and your people.
MG: Just before I let you go, the temptation is to say that this moment changes everything. And people would say that in the wake of historic elections, they might say it in the wake of the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, they might say, in the wake of Samia tT’s death in Toronto. Do you see this moment as being any different?
DESMOND COLE: I watched a police station burned down in the United States, in Minneapolis, and I have to tell you, I don’t know if I thought I would see that in my lifetime. And it took that to bring charges against a murderer, a murderer that people watched on camera. a murderer that wasn’t charged until a police station burned down. And so in this moment, that symbol of that police station on fire for me, I’m not going to be ashamed of it and I’m not going to tell people oh don’t respond violently. That flame was a hope and a flame inside of my own heart and many black people’s hearts, because we are allowed to defend ourselves. We are allowed to fight back and we have to build on this one moment after 400 years of oppression is not going to do it, but we have to continue to build on this. And yes, the answer for the police is to stop policing and to start supporting and caring and to send other people like we’re sending people with a gun to somebody who’s in crisis. So, I mean, if people want to pretend that that’s a rational response, there’s still a lot of work to do.
MG: Desmond Cole, good to speak with you. Thank you.
DESMOND COLE: Thank you, Matt.
We’re talking about the conditions of our lives everyday.
https://www.tvo.org/video/the-fight-to-end-anti-black-racism
Kike Ojo-Thompson Kojo Institute
Akwasi Owusu-Bempah assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto,
Sandy Hudson
Sandy and Nora: Defund the police
Something BLM saying 2016 when Andew Loku was killed in Toronto
Right now there are services the police do not perform well, and in doing these services black people are being killed. Take away these services, implement new services, free up funding and invest in services that will tackle these issues better
Defunding happens all the time: shifting of resources and moving them around so that we’re better answering . There are a number of ways we can be in prevention mode, and utilize funds that people really need.
Parenting support, child care, that’s expensive in this province, funding to support folks with that expense. Lots of calls to police in context of child welfare. These calls would be unecessary
defund: police won’t exist or it’ll be down to zero
If you listen that’s not an option let’s got to these other issues, and that’s systemic racism in action, because should be listening to the people that know.
Jamil Javani: Police too present: carding, hassling youth, on the other hand police are not there when they are needed.
Over policing under protection: high rates of stop and search, hostile and aggressive nature of contacts … and then call in relation to victimization, not treated in same way, taken seriously, being responsible for their victimization, depending on where they live treated undeserving victims.
Sandy Huston: Defunding the police, decriminalize drugs, investing in public health, setting up treatment centres, instead of criminalizing people, take money away from police in putting it in public health system, and making a new emergency service particularly for those experience a mental health crisis, police are not well placed for those experiencing a mental health crisis, what if there were another number to call, another service where health professionals come and respond
Immense pressure on public to put pressure on politicians.
Anti-Black Racism in general: knee on neck for 9 minutes under-valuing and de-valuing of black lives. Accountability and Proportionality
Power, it’s about de-funding the police, not body cameras We might be able to forgive Doug Ford but can’t forgive he dismantled Anti-Racism Directorate, distancing himself from Anti-Racism
Sandy Hudson on Huffington Post
Alternatives to policing
Instead of relying on police, we could rely on well-trained social workers, sociologists, forensic scientists, doctors, researchers and other well-trained individuals to fulfill our needs when violent crimes take place. In the event that intervention is required while a violent crime is ongoing, a service that provides expert specialized rapid response does not need to be connected to an institution of policing that fails in every other respect. Such a specific tactical service does not require the billions of dollars we waste in ineffective policing from year to year.
Defunding the police can free up funding that we can reinvest in services that provide real safety for both kinds of communities. The communities that are constantly exposed to police violence should not be deprived of effective safety and security services simply because more privileged communities feel safer when calling the police is an option.
We can rethink the way that we create safety in our communities by creating alternative services that truly create safety and security for everyone. Black Lives Matter – Toronto has been advocating for this since our inception, alongside our global counterparts and other Black justice organizations.
Right now, the only emergency option available for most people who are experiencing mental distress is to call 911. Both D’Andre Campbell and Regis Korchinski-Paquet died while the police were attending to calls about their mental distress.
Couldn’t we create a new emergency service that connects us with unarmed, mental health emergency service workers specifically trained to provide the health and social care required in crisis situations? It’s happening already, with front-line programs active and working in conjunction with police in parts of the U.K. and in states such as Oregon, where the CAHOOTS program has been active since 1989.