MEDIA ADVISORY January 26, 2020
No Pride in Policing calls for a U-turn back to community at Pride Toronto
The No Pride in Policing Coalition (NPPC) is calling on Pride Toronto to make a sharp U-turn at its upcoming Annual General Meeting (AGM) by making violence against Toronto’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, Black, Indigenous, people of colour (LGBTQBIPOC) people in Toronto its number one priority. Pride Toronto will hold its AGM Wednesday January 29 at the Native Canadian Centre.
“Olivia Nuamah’s departure is a unique opportunity to return Pride Toronto to its founding principles” according to scholar-activist and NPPC spokesperson Gary Kinsman. “Pride was based in the community’s fight against the police repression, humiliation and brutality of the massive bath raids in 1981 and it is our responsibility to hold the line against continuing anti-black, racist police violence today” added Kinsman who was one of the organizers of the 1981 Pride March.
NPPC was formed in support of the Black Lives Matter demands made to the organization at the 2016 Pride Parade. A 2018 report by the Ontario Human Rights Commission documents that Black people in Toronto are 20 times more likely to be involved in a fatal shooting by the Toronto Police Service (TPS) and are over-represented in use of force cases (28.8%), shootings (36%), deadly encounters (61.5%) and fatal shootings (70%).[1]
“From Stonewall to the present, Pride is a protest against systematic police and state brutality” added Kinsman “The reality that Black, indigenous, racialized, feminized and trans queers live with sexist, racist and gender violence on top of homophobia means our struggle against police and public violence is still an urgent priority.”
The No Pride in Policing Coalition (NPPC) is also calling on Pride Toronto to return to its community and movement origins, reclaim its independence from government, police, and corporate coercion and control and reaffirm a commitment to social justice, community organizing and accountability as key criteria for Pride’s next Executive Director.
As scholar and activist Jamie Magnusson of NPPC noted “we have the opportunity now to hire an organizer who honours this history and is committed to community and movement building as key values. We need someone who understands Toronto Pride is not an empty corporate Tourism Toronto sales event, but a celebration of our pride in our lives, creativity, and the struggles we have yet to win.”
“We have affirmed
these principles over and over at previous AGMs and are asking LGBTQBIPOC folks
to come out to the Toronto Pride AGM Wednesday January 29 to ensure Pride
Toronto goes back to being an organization we can truly be proud of,” they
added.
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[1]http://ohrc.on.ca/sites/default/files/TPS%20Inquiry_Interim%20Report%20EN%20FINAL%20DESIGNED%20for%20remed_3_0.pdf#overlay-context=en/news_centre/ohrc-interim-report-toronto-police-service-inquiry-shows-disturbing-results