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 […]
A White People’s Guide to Black History Month
It’s February, the most dangerous month of the year for free speech and free expression in Canada. A good way to start off the month if you’re white is by a bunch of white people having a conversation among themselves about how important it is to have a conversation about whether blackface is racist or […]
When You See That Cop Light Bling, That Can Only Mean One Thing
Morning File, Saturday, July 7, 2018
1. Welcome to Waterville: Still a Jail Hey, looking for something for your child to do this summer? Why not send them to the Nova Scotia Youth Centre (Waterville)? Why not? It’s a “fabulous place” according to this video. I’m sure the people who work there are very dedicated, and there is something to be […]
Police street check data shows we need more journalists, more news organizations
There may be few surprises in what the CBC uncovered in the Halifax police data, but that doesn’t make gathering and reporting the information less relevant or important. And, for that, we need journalists...
On October 24, 2016, CBC Halifax journalist Phlis McGregor happened to hear an interview on As It Happens about a York University research study that analyzed two years of Ottawa police data. Between 2013 and 2015, the report said, police there pulled over nearly 82,000 drivers for mostly routine checks. The data showed Middle Eastern...