Broadcaster, writer and activist Desmond Cole is the special guest on this episode, and oh boy, does he have a story to tell.
Many people know him from his 2015 article in Toronto Life magazine where he talked about being carded by police and harassed for no reason other than being black.
Others know him from the time he spoke at a Toronto police services meeting to demand they destroy data collected from carding. When he didn’t get a response, he refused to leave the meeting and was escorted out. He was a Toronto Star columnist at the time, and when an editor said his activism violated the newspaper’s journalism policy, he left the Star. He wrote about it in a blog entry called I choose activism for Black liberation.
So when Cole was in Halifax this week, Tim made a point of asking if he had had any encounters with Halifax police. And yes, he had a story.
“I took off and I ran from the spot I was at and I literally went and I hid.”
Listen to the full interview because you’ll want to hear what Cole did next.
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Plus, we talk about Dalhousie student Masuma Khan and the case involving her #whitefragility comment, and the emails going back and forth among councillors and the mayor regarding the Cornwallis statue.