No Pride in Policing Coalition Media statement
May 16, 2016 — For Immediate Release
Why is Olivia Nuamah, Executive Director of Pride Toronto, doing interviews with Sue-Anne Levy? The No Pride in Policing Coalition calls for Nuamah to apologize and to resign for continuing to try to undermine the democratic decisions of the Pride Toronto membership.
On May 11th, Olivia Nuamah, the executive director of Pride Toronto, had her second interview with Toronto Sun columnist Sue-Anne Levy published in the Toronto Sun .(LEVY: Pride Toronto’s financial woes in the rearview, looking forward to ‘grassroots’ festival”). Her first interview was in “LEVY: A ‘do or die’ year for Pride,” March 17, 2019.
Sue-Anne Levy, is a columnist with the Toronto Sun who has been widely criticized for racism, anti-refugee perspectives, Islamophobia, and pro-police arguments against Black and other people of colour activists, including Black Lives Matter – Toronto. In Dec. 2018 the National News Council decided — following a series of complaints — that Sue-Anne Levy and the Toronto Sun had engaged in “a serious breach of journalistic standards” in reporting the false claim that refugees were “slaughtering goats in hotel bathrooms.” Nuamah is very aware of who Sue-Anne Levy is and previously has experienced written attacks from Levy in her columns. We demand that Nuamah publicly explain why she has done these interviews with Levy and apologize to people in our communities for these interviews, especially to people in our communities who have been hurt by Levy in the past.
In this second column there are a number of quotes from Nuamah that are directed against the majority of the Pride Toronto membership and the No Pride in Policing Coalition (NPPC) which has helped to lead the battle to re-affirm the decision of Toronto Pride members to support all the demands of Black Lives Matter- Toronto put forward at the Toronto Pride parade in 2016. This position was first adopted in January 2017 by a very large majority of the Pride members and has been consistently re-affirmed. This includes the demand that there be no institutional police presence in the Pride Toronto parade and festival. Since Nuamah has not challenged these quotes we can only assume they are accurate. We are also well aware that ever since the Pride Toronto members adopted this position Nuamah has tried in her position as executive director to undermine the clear position of the majority of the membership.
Nuamah is quoted as stating referring to Pride Toronto that “They’ve also tried to be more thoughtful about how they engage more ‘critical voices’ in an effort to dispel the notion that Pride is ‘some sort of militant organization.’” Whose critical voices is she referring to? And if this is the majority of the Pride Toronto members why is she trying to undermine what they have decided?
She is also quoted as stating that “Pride has to address its own inadequacies … these public displays of dissent and disagreement (aren’t helpful),” she said.” This seems to be an argument against the members who have defended the majority position against institutional police participation from her attempts to undermine it. We ask why is there a problem with public displays of dissent and disagreement in what is supposed to be a community-based, democratic organization?
Levy states that: “The police will most definitely not be marching in uniform, despite Nuamah’s attempts last October to invite the cops to be part of the festivities.” Again why did Nuamah try to invite the police back in last October when this was against the clear decision of the large majority of Pride members?
Levy also tells us that Nuamah’s effort to invite the police back in “was hijacked at their January board meeting when members — led by a fringe element determined to dwell on old wounds — voted 163 to 161 to keep the cops out ‘indefinitely.’” First of all this was not a board meeting but was a special general meeting of the entire membership to discuss the question of police participation. The majority of the members (not a “fringe element” dwelling on “past wounds”) did not “hijack” Nuamah’s efforts. Instead they re-affirmed the previous decisions of Toronto Pride members. The only reason the vote was so close at that meeting was because the Pride Toronto staff signed up more than 200 new members just before the vote. But even with this the position of the majority of members was reaffirmed once again.
Levy tells us that “Nuamah is determined to continue trying to move forward with the police, although she admits the January vote strained relations. ‘I have signaled I want to work with them,’ she said.” Despite the clear decision of the majority of members at meetings since 2017 Nuamah continues to work to undermine the democratic decision of the membership and to work with the police.
This is exactly why the NPPC at the last Toronto Pride Annual General Meeting called for Nuamah’s resignation for consistently working to undermine the democratic decision of the members. We are reiterating this demand in response to these interviews with Sue-Anne Levy and her continuing efforts to undermine the decisions of Toronto Pride members.