From the May 1st Movement
20 years ago, a justified rage spilled out into downtown streets.
Shortly after the outrageous injustice of the acquittal of the Los Angeles Police officers who were videotaped beating Rodney King prompted a week-long uprising in LA, outraged people in Toronto responded to the call of the Black Action Defense Committee to gather in front of the US consulate. That same week a white, plain clothed police officer shot and killed 22 year old Raymond Constantine Lawrence, the 14th black man shot by the Toronto police Service since 1978. The Yonge Street Uprising forced Queens Park to acknowledge the widespread racism in government policies and institutions, leading to some reforms.
20 years later, we still see the same racism, poverty and oppression in our City that gave way to the Yonge Street Uprising. These conditions feed an exploitative system that keeps communities and people poor, circumstances that lead to youth harming themselves and others in their own community.
Following the shootings in the Eaton Centre and in Scarborough, Toronto this past summer, politicians have opportunistically used the tragedies that claimed 4 young lives to further their own attacks on working people. Mayor Rob Ford didn’t hesitate to call for more police on the streets, despite the fact that the ratio of police to residents is at its highest in 31 years and costs have doubled in the last decade. Across Canada, there are 69,299 officers at a cost of $12 billion in salaries.
What’s more, he and other Councillors such as Giorgio Mammoliti (who has actively tried to remove basketball nets from his Ward and famously called for the Armed Forces to be brought in to fight ‘gangs’) almost immediately called for an end to funding of ‘Hug-a-thug’ programs, presumably directed at social, recreational, and arts programs for youth. Paradoxically and shamelessly, Ford uses the youth from the football team he coaches to deflect from the mounting evidence of his own incompetence and corruption.
Premier McGuinty plays along with Ford and his buddies in Ottawa who on top of wanting more police are also working to build huge prisons and change criminal laws to send more people to jail and for longer periods.
Unfortunately, there are very few voices that have publicly called the response from Government to the shootings this summer for what it is – an opportunistic alignment with the ongoing coordinated attack on working class people and our neighbourhoods.
Everyday the news tells us about job cuts, wage freezes, and government cutbacks while at the same time reporting record profits for banks and large companies. The lesson from 1992 is that injustice continues until people rise up to challenge them and those responsible.
The May 1st Movement, a coalition of community and labour organizations and activists rejects the scapegoating of working class youth and racialized communities which has been used as a pretext to justify the building of prisons coupled with the reduction of social and cultural programs while increasing police presence in low-income neighbourhoods.
Since Toronto Mayor Rob Ford took office, communities have organized to resist his agenda of cuts to social services, layoffs of public sector workers, and attacks on the poorest people in this city. We support and are encouraged by the rising tide of people in Toronto, including youth, artists and social workers who are beginning to realize that we cannot stay silent while the attacks mount on our neighbourhoods as well as the projects and initiatives that support our people.
We must continue to resist and organize to fight back against austerity policies and those who are pushing them.
To learn more about the May 1st Movement, visit www.may-1.org
To learn more about the “War on Communities” component of the “Right to Exist, Right to Resist” conference, visit www.ilps-canada.ca
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