The officers involved are still on the job and Halifax Regional Police Chief Dan Kinsella had little to say publicly on Monday about the violent arrest of a young Black mother at Walmart last week, citing an ongoing court case and a potential investigation. Kinsella addressed reporters after a meeting of the Halifax board of...
Puzzling developments with Cape Breton’s non-existent container terminal
Morning File, Monday, January 20, 2020
News 1. Walmart incident “When a young black woman accused the Halifax police of racially profiling and abusing her in connection with an alleged shoplifting incident at Walmart last week, officials did what officials do,” writes Stephen Kimber. “They obfuscated, they passed the buck, they pretended to take it seriously.” Click here to read “Can […]
Can we expect truth about the Walmart incident from police or the store? Nope
When a young black woman accused the Halifax police of racially profiling and abusing her in connection with an alleged shoplifting incident at Walmart last week, officials did what officials do. They obfuscated, they passed the buck, they pretended to take it seriously.
I still don’t know nearly enough about what actually happened inside the Mumford Road Walmart shortly after 3:30 pm last Wednesday afternoon, but I already know too much to have faith we will get full and complete answers from either a we-take-allegations-like-this-seriously Halifax Regional Police or a buck-passing Walmart. Let’s start with what we do […]
Shopping while Black: Santina Rao’s experience at Wal-Mart
Morning File, Friday, January 17, 2020
News 1. Racial profiling “Santina Rao was at the Walmart at the Halifax Shopping Centre on Wednesday when she was accused of stealing by store staff, assaulted by the police, and arrested,” writes El Jones: Rao was shopping with her two young children, age 3 and 15 months. She paid for $90 worth of items […]
Street check apology misses the point: Black people continue to be profiled and surveilled
Before and after Friday, the community and media will be caught up in the wording of the apology, whether we are happy with the apology, and whether we accept the apology or not. All of this is happening on the terms of the police. Let us not forget that they refused to apologize, then changed their minds, and yet we are expected to show up when they finally feel like it.
On Friday, November 29, Halifax Police Chief Dan Kinsella will apologize to the African Nova Scotian community for street checks. The apology comes after the police initially rejected calls to apologize. The Halifax Board of Police Commissioners prepared a statement at their April 15th meeting asking both the RCMP and the Halifax Regional Police to […]
What did Halifax’s new police chief Dan Kinsella learn in Hamilton?
Hamilton is the hate crime capital of Canada, but instead of investigating the white supremacist and other right-wing terrorist groups targeting Black, Jewish, and the LGBTQ communities, Hamilton police trained its investigative unit on people of colour and anarchists. And, with Kinsella in an administrative position, the Hamilton police adopted new methods of surveillance of marginalized people, and bloated its budget with the purchase of militarized equipment.
Since his arrival in Halifax and swearing in this summer, Halifax police chief Dan Kinsella has been making the rounds, meeting with police and community members. As the legislature returns for the fall session, questions will resume about street checks, and how the government and police intend to address the issues raised by the Wortley […]
Policing the Radical Imagination
Since January 2015 I’ve had the great privilege of organizing the Radical Imagination Film and Discussion Series at the Central Branch Library in downtown Halifax. This series emerged out of the Radical Imagination Project, a social movement research project that began in 2010 with the goal of working with social movements to stimulate and circulate […]
The problem with meritocracy: it destroys our humanity
Morning File, Wednesday, June 12, 2019
News 1. Studenting While Black “On June 2, Black graduate student Shelby McPhee was accused by two white women of stealing a laptop while he was attending the Black Canadian Studies Association session at the 88th annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences held at the University of British Columbia,” writes El Jones: The white […]
Studenting While Black: another example of calling the cops on Black people for simply existing
Despite the outsize media coverage devoted to the idea that universities are filled with Black and brown people oppressing the free speech of white men, in fact, universities remain overwhelmingly hostile to Black people.
On June 2, Black graduate student Shelby McPhee was accused by two white women of stealing a laptop while he was attending the Black Canadian Studies Association session at the 88th annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences held at the University of British Columbia. The white women, Congress attendees, asked to see proof that […]
We the North: Black lives only matter when they are shooting a basketball
In Ottawa, one of the legal advocates for the Elizabeth Fry Society tells me that the Human Rights Commission refused to speak with Black gay women in prison. E. Fry filed a complaint that argues that Correctional Services of Canada (CSC) discriminates on the grounds of sex, race, ethnicity, and mental disability in its programming […]