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Abolish the police (in Calgary, too)
71 Plays4 years ago
We discuss the the organizing and struggle to end police brutality in Calgary and rural Alberta with comedian, public speaker and organizer Adora Nwofor.
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Transcript
Protests and Movement Goals
00:00:16
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to The Progress Report. I am your host, Duncan Kinney, recording today here in Amiskwichiwa, Skigan, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta. And since four cops murdered George Floyd on the streets of Minneapolis, less than a month ago, millions of people have hit the streets to protest police violence and brutality. The call to action that has accompanied these protests has been to dismantle, defund, and disarm the police. And to talk about this issue from a Calgary perspective, we have comedian, public speaker, and organizer who is involved in the arts community,
00:00:45
Speaker
Adora no for Adora. How are you doing? I am well Duncan I'm I'm gonna help you a little bit and I'm going to say my last name for you because Some people hurt themselves. It could be a tongue twister. The N and the W are one letter. So this is how it sounds won't for so Thank you for having a door a wall for on your podcast today
Adora's Role and Calgary's Perspective
00:01:10
Speaker
Yeah, thanks so much for being here. A bit of disclosure for the folks, Adora is a former colleague of mine. We had hired her to be an organizer back in 2019 on contract, and we really did enjoy having you around, and I'm so happy to have you here on the pod. Thank you so much. I enjoyed my time at Progress Alberta. I learned so much stuff, and here I am continuing to organize. He got me with the bug.
00:01:41
Speaker
Mm hmm. So yeah, so like, we've done a couple of episodes now on policing and police abolition, disarming, defunding, dismantling the police, but they've been very kind of Edmonton centric. And there's a lot going on in Calgary as well. And that's, that's why I wanted to bring you on. That's why I wanted to chat. So like, what's the like, what's the general vibe in Calgary at the moment when it comes to, you know, policing and Black Lives Matter?
BLM Demands in Calgary
00:02:10
Speaker
Well,
00:02:12
Speaker
Black Lives Matter is basically saying, defund the police, abolish the police. There is not one single voice when it comes to Calgary and Black Lives Matter. So there are many people who have a few different versions on it, but basically we're saying that systematic racism exists in Calgary specific policing, and it's time to change that. So,
00:02:41
Speaker
There's a few different ways that people want to go about it. I would like to get rid of policing in general. So no more police and find different ways to do so. Some people want different kinds of policing. So they would like to see maybe a little more diversity in policing, a little more inclusion. Some people would like the funding to go
00:03:08
Speaker
to different things.
Critique of Calgary's Budget Priorities
00:03:10
Speaker
So rather than funding the police, they want to see maybe more social workers, more housing, more food programs, more organizations, specifically aiding Black and Indigenous people of color.
00:03:27
Speaker
And that question of funding, I think, is the fact that accompanying all these protests has been a very clear concrete ask, right? Defund the police. It's really hard to misinterpret that, though a lot of liberals still do. But it's important to kind of talk about the numbers, I feel, like the actual budget breakdown here.
00:03:51
Speaker
is important to know because it is so much money. And, you know, we progress abroad had done this kind of research and I think it's worth kind of just restating again, like the numbers on police budgets are incredible. In 2019, the Calgary Police Service cost the city of Calgary $401 million.
00:04:14
Speaker
You know, the single largest line item in the entire municipal budget was police, you know, $400 million. That's 16% of the entire city budget devoted to one thing. For comparison's sake, the next largest budget item, public transit, received $253 million. You know, in the scale of like a billion dollar plus budget, like $400 million to police sounds like a lot, doesn't it?
00:04:45
Speaker
It for sure sounds like a lot, especially if there's only 1.3 million people in your city. And is Calgary really that violent? Is there that much violence going on that we need a backup? Is like violent backup? I would like to know what they're spending that money on because I don't think we definitely need new cop cars that look more violent. I don't think that we need
00:05:15
Speaker
a new SWAT something, I think the whole time I looked in Calgary, I've seen SWAT one time on my street, it just so happened to be this year, last month. And that SWAT didn't particularly do anything except for scare the whole street. So to me, what are these millions of dollars being spent on if we can't get transportation? Like if people aren't getting to where they need to go,
00:05:42
Speaker
Why is policing above that? Why is, you know, the housing crisis in Calgary is real and palatable. So affordable housing is so way down on the list. If we took just a small percentage of what we are giving to the police, 16% of your budget going to policing,
00:06:11
Speaker
I don't understand. That doesn't make sense to me. Is it that Calgary is dealing with so many things that we are not seeing or hearing that they need all of this money? Because if you look at policing, they're a business. So I don't know why they are being funded to be a business at this level.
00:06:34
Speaker
Yeah. And I, and I'm glad you brought up the housing stuff, right? To like, like ultimately, you know, these budgets are moral documents and they really do show you the priorities of any particular government or organization, right? There's going to spend $400 million on police. And for context Calgary spent $42 million on social programs and affordable housing. And both of them. That's the combined budget. Yeah. So if people aren't eating, if they don't have a house, if they don't,
00:07:03
Speaker
feel like their family is protected, what are they going to do? Like it's the absolute basics of life. You are not protected in a home environment. And if you're not being fed, if you can't get your basic needs mapped, you're going to do something that is against the law. Is it violence? Maybe not. Does it end in violence? Very often. So if somebody is
00:07:30
Speaker
Stealing from the 7-eleven very often that is in some sort of violence Especially if you end up in jail that changes somebody's life forever Why wouldn't we change people's lives forever by giving them a hole? Exactly and the police budget is slated only to go up right like unless something changes unless pressure is applied and people are in the streets actually demand change and don't go away and
00:07:56
Speaker
the budget for the police and Calgary is scheduled to go up. The budget for affordable housing and homelessness and social programs, that's going down. And that's going down as a result of the austerity brought in by this city council, specifically, I mean, not only because of the economic downturn, but because they decided to spend $275 million on a freaking hockey arena. Right. Right. The hockey arena.
00:08:21
Speaker
That's the first time we got it. We couldn't even use it to do concerts in, let's say, the biggest city in Alberta. So they all go to Edmonton, which, listen, that's great. But they like to talk about how Calgary has all this money if we are not building things that create a better economy. What is the point? Like, it's for fun. Is it what it seems like to me?
00:08:49
Speaker
In my personal opinion, I don't think that we need a new hockey arena that the community is paying for.
00:09:00
Speaker
Yeah. If we don't have an extremely shiny new hockey arena for the billionaires who own the Calgary Flames, like, I don't know, uh, the people, the rich people who run the city, um, might pay less taxes and get angry or something, or maybe they'll, maybe they'll move to some tax haven or something like Murray Edwards did the owner of the flames. I mean, the other part of this that's so frustrating is also to, to see kind of conservative city counselors, right? Who are happily, you know, sharpening their pencils and waiting in and cutting, you know, these social programs and public transit.
00:09:30
Speaker
you know, bike infrastructure public art kind of pick your stupid, you know, issue of the day, but then like literally have no problem throwing money, ever more money every year at the police, right? Or even throwing $11 million towards replacing Calgary's two aging police helicopters, for instance. The police helicopters are for five. I'm sorry, those helicopters are for five.
00:09:55
Speaker
You don't need a police helicopter to hunt down people, truly. We're doing it before helicopters and after helicopters. To me, I just think that at some point in time, you have to understand that over policing people is not creating the bottom line that you want. If we are going to do this about economy, it costs more money to put people in jail. It costs more money to put people in
00:10:27
Speaker
shelters. It costs more money to have people in hospitals. Why would you not give people their basics if it's about a bottom line? Well, I love to say humanity over economy. But quite frankly, if you look at economy first, it's ridiculous not to give people their basic needs. And when I say give people their basic needs, I mean
Personal Experiences and Systemic Issues
00:10:54
Speaker
these social programs that help people move forward. Helping people eat food is not a handout. People literally cannot think or function if they do not eat. That means they're going to be in the hospital. That's more costly than a week of meals. Just to get to the hospital in an ambulance costs more than two weeks of groceries. So to me,
00:11:22
Speaker
all these people who are talking about their economy, it makes no sense. And policing should not be part of the economy. Policing should be a support to your social programs. So I understand that police put their life on the lines. That is a choice. As a black person, my life is on the line every day. I do not choose. I am not paid exorbitantly for that. I can't even get a job half the time because
00:11:52
Speaker
I refuse to not center my blackness. That's always a problem in the workforce. It's a problem in the police. This is why we have systematic racism in Calgary. So I just don't understand how people are busy having this debate about it's okay to continue to fund the police when we explicitly know that funding the police is not helping people
00:12:21
Speaker
Uh, thrive and grow. I know funding the police in this economy. I don't, I don't, I don't think you can do it. Honestly, really. Well, I mean, they do it.
00:12:35
Speaker
That's what's happening. No, I know. It's also kind of very clear that the Calgary Police Force kind of occupies this very privileged space when it comes to Calgary City Council, right? You start digging into these budget documents, like I was doing, and there's just very little oversight just even being applied to what they're spending their money on. There's this capital profile ask. Essentially, the Calgary
00:13:03
Speaker
police force goes to city council says we need millions of dollars for specialized police equipment. Uh, in this case, they asked for $2.6 million in the last capital budget cycle to replace specialized police equipment. They don't actually say what they're going to buy with their money. Like it's just, it's, can you imagine any other, any other kind of government department where it's just like, yeah, we need a few million bucks and we're going to buy stuff and we're not going to tell you what it's for.
00:13:33
Speaker
I mean, it's a trust issue, right? So people explicitly trust the police. It's really disgusting because if you go and look into unemployment insurance, you got to tell those people what you're spending your money on. And it's not a million dollars that you're getting. If you get $1,000 for a family of three, that's a lot of money. Oh, yeah, it's a rectal exam to get any money for government. And not the one that you like.
00:14:02
Speaker
So quite frankly, I'm like, you need $2.6 million to buy more grenades that are going to be in storage? Because why? Or you tear grass? Like, what was the last time they tear gassed in Calgary? Is that what they're using their money for? Because it seems to me like an upgrade on their tactical means that a whole bunch of stuff has been in storage and it's outdated. What do you do with the old stuff?
00:14:31
Speaker
Is that what we're selling? Is that what Canada is selling to other places? I don't know. But that's what it makes me think.
00:14:39
Speaker
Yeah, and your point about the trust that the police have with society, and broadly speaking, the white majority settler society is very true. But people trust the firemen, the fire department. There's a high level of trust there. They're viewed very positively. And when the Calgary Fire Service goes to city council and asks for money for equipment, they say what it is they're going to buy with it. They say they're going to buy defibrillators and thermal imaging equipment and fire hose nozzles and shit like that. It's not a secret.
00:15:09
Speaker
Like, uh, you know, there's this total, this totally different standard of kind of like, of, of oversight for the police compared to like everybody else. Right. Oh, right. Because the police are based on systematic racism. Like it's the only reason that we have police, like literally police in the United States on internal highlands. Um, when they began policing as communities, it was horrific.
00:15:37
Speaker
But then the government said, oh, we're going to fund this because it helps us, uh, continue having people enslaved. It continues racism, it continues capitalism. That's what the United States is based on. Canada has followed that in so many ways. So firefighters are there to serve the community. They're actually there to serve the community. When a firefighter makes a misstep, they are
00:16:08
Speaker
penalized like we don't see firefighters leaving people in the house and being like, oh Sorry, couldn't see them. It was dark and that's okay. Whoops So, you know, this is that's the difference between Firefighters and police officers firefighters are actually there to serve and protect when you tell a firefighter. Hey, don't put on your
00:16:38
Speaker
lights and, um, the, oh, I don't even know what to call it. Thank you. When you, when you tell a firefighter, your lights and your sirens are causing trauma to people. They get it. They get it because firefighters always show up when there's something wrong. So they understand people are going to associate with that. And then they show up with humility. Police officers.
00:17:08
Speaker
in my personal opinion, are like, no, we are the authority. You cannot tell us anything. You cannot lead if
Historical and Ongoing Racist Practices
00:17:17
Speaker
you do not have some humility for the people that you are leading, if you don't have compassion, if you cannot hear them. So I feel like defund the police until they are hearing their community. And their community means everyone. It doesn't mean the people who need you to come to my house and say there's too many black people coming over here
00:17:38
Speaker
And it's loud at eight o'clock at night. That's not what the boys are for. But that's what's happening here. Yeah. And I'm glad you brought up the kind of history of policing. And policing in North America is a relatively new development, right? It grew out of a few distinct terrible things, right? Catching formerly enslaved peoples, like slave patrols.
00:18:05
Speaker
Exactly. Breaking strikes and simultaneously protecting the private property of the people who were hiring the strike breakers. You can go back and read labor history, just like working people getting mowed down and beaten to shit for exercising their own rights and authority over their own bodies. Then specifically in Western Canada, the RCMP, the forerunner to them was the Northwest Mounted Police.
00:18:31
Speaker
an institution created to specifically to dispossess indigenous people. Yeah. And so that like, you know, white people could settle, settle Western Canada, right? Like, that's the history. And they continue to do so. You know, like, starlight tours are a thing that happens to BIPOC, black, indigenous and people of color. And it's so disproportionately to indigenous folks, because
00:19:00
Speaker
They're like, go back to the reserve. Leave Indigenous people alone. Leave Indigenous people, it's ridiculous. The percentage of people that even recover from a starlight tour or that aren't killed is so small. And people don't know
Protests and Community Engagement
00:19:18
Speaker
that. They say that starlight tours don't happen in Calgary. There's a man who's feeling the Calgary Police Service right now and they're saying, no, that never happened. But they,
00:19:30
Speaker
All it is is deny, deny, deny. It's just a whole bunch of white pharmacy tactics. So whether it's Asian people with our railway, whether it's indigenous people with their land and residential schools and missing and murdered indigenous women, there's Black people who are being over policed, put in jail. Up until recently, it was cannabis that was a thing for us. And we are being pushed out of the market
00:19:59
Speaker
Because now what was illegal for us is now legal for privileged and white people. And when I say privileged, I don't mean black people who have money. Because black people who have money when they go into that are automatically not trusted. That's only about racism. So in my personal opinion, policing has not helped anybody that has created the foundation of Canada or Turtle Island in general.
00:20:30
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, the amount of former cops who've gone into business in cannabis is, is discussing why that's a side project. I actually got something off the side of my desk. I've been meaning to do on that for a long time, but I did want to switch gears a little bit and talk about the situation on the ground in Calgary. You know, I'm up here in Edmonton, you know, I'm following along on the news and on social media and my various channels. And it seems like, you know, there's been a few protests, like more than one, like several, and that they seem to be getting larger every time.
00:20:58
Speaker
You know, can you kind of like walk us through like the situation on the ground in Calgary and the kind of like, is there, is there momentum here? Like what's the feeling on the streets? Oh, there's so much momentum. There's so many people who are finally empowered to say something and do something and interrupt the systems that continuously interrupt, um, marginalized people's lives on all kinds of fronts. So.
00:21:27
Speaker
The first protest I want to say was May 30th. That was at Fish Creek Park that was organized by Uncle Sam White folks. A lot of white people were there. I did hear that a few black people were in attendance and spoke so they were able to express themselves. I think that that's valuable. But I also think that this is not a time for white people to be in the front.
00:21:56
Speaker
If you cannot find a Black person to be in front, make sure that you say that first. Make sure you say that you've reached out to a thousand people because there are Black people who are happy to lead and have our voices heard with respect. So there was a die-in a little bit at that. For me, it's not okay. It's not okay to have
00:22:20
Speaker
of white bodies dressed up in black experiences. And we are talking about Black Lives Matter and police brutality right now, so that is not okay. The second protest was on June 1st. The organizers of that have requested to remain anonymous. And it's women who organized that, by pop women.
00:22:45
Speaker
I'm going to say that I felt like white people were taking over that protest, leading chance and whatnot. And I don't think that that's okay. They did an official die-in. Um, and when I say official, I don't mean by the organizers. I mean a white person asked everybody to do so. That is again, not okay. And then the police service was there and they were kneeling during the die-in.
00:23:12
Speaker
It isn't just so insensitive and grotesque. And when are you going to think about the people that you're affecting or the people who are trying to change their lives and impact? So I felt like that needed to be interrupted. It was a big protest. They did a walk. I feel like the police wanted to be involved. I was not. These are all of my feelings.
00:23:39
Speaker
was not supportive of police being involved because it's a protest about police brutality. You don't get to be the center here, especially if you keep pushing back. No police, no police at the police brutality protest. Right. Like no justice, no peace, no racist police. The police aren't chanting that. So there's no, there's no reason. I also feel like I saw people in SWAT off to the side hiding.
00:24:09
Speaker
I'm not going to say I think I saw, I saw that. I took a picture. Um, so it was, it was nice that there were so many people who wanted to come out for the first event that was organized, um, by the people that this is actually affecting. Great turnout. You know, a lot of passion, a lot of people who felt like they have never been heard. There was a police officer there who is.
00:24:39
Speaker
actively involved in a police brutality situation. And the person that they brutalized was there. It's a young man. And the police officer is just standing around. There were also business people who came to interrupt our protests and they decided before we did anything that
00:25:06
Speaker
We need it to be policed by them because their businesses are important. So that just goes to show here's systematic racism in business. The next protest was June 3rd, and that one actually started by Kensington. And we are kind of concerned because Bill 1, I believe, has now passed.
Humanizing Victims of Police Brutality
00:25:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's officially law now, yeah. Right.
00:25:34
Speaker
Um, on that day, people were blocking the road. I'm hoping that nothing comes of this. Uh, but that was an amazing event. Also, uh, there were speakers and people around. And like I said, there were people who were chanting and blocking the road. And then there were people who are listening, uh, sharing their stories, very passionate. And then they walked to Olympic Plaza.
00:26:04
Speaker
Um, I don't think that people were really ready for the amount of people. I believe it's over 2000 people were there that day. Um, so maybe closer to three. I've heard, I've heard like three or four in the media reports. So I think that it's about 2000 June 1st, 3000 plus June 3rd. Um, and that at the end of that one, I just thought it was so beautiful because they played music and they were just joy.
00:26:33
Speaker
You know, like we just, sometimes our joy is radical because we are never really allowed to have it unless it's for the entertainment of the white gays. And that's garbage. Um, but that, that was just so beautiful for me to see. I was at the first part I had, uh, I had to leave because self-care is important and all of that emotion, it can overtake you sometime.
00:27:02
Speaker
I did hear that the police were not behaving very well. Somebody asked for a restroom and they said, you need to go home. There's a restroom at your house. You should have planned better. You know, like that's ridiculous. And then the third protest was on June 6th. And I helped organize that protest and we called it a Black Lives Matters vigil because we wanted to humanize
00:27:31
Speaker
the people that have died as of recently and there's no way we could have said every name because that list is way too long and that's why we're protesting but we did choose some people that are recent and relevant to specifically police brutality and we tried to humanize them with stories from their life, the way that their families talked about them, some of the things that they did in the world and
00:28:00
Speaker
make it so their story was not only about their death and how horrific it was. It's really a problem that police, when they're involved in these things, they get a nice little picture of them smiling and nobody talks about whatever they've done. That's always protected. But when it's a black person, the story is always about, well, the context and they have to prove that they didn't deserve to die.
00:28:30
Speaker
Even if you were a murderer, right? In that moment, like a police officer's job is not to ensure that you die, is to ensure that there is justice. So a police officer has those tools. If it's self-defense, it can't always be self-defense if your knee is on somebody's neck, if somebody's running away from you. So we really wanted it to be not about proving why these people should still be alive.
00:28:59
Speaker
We wanted it to be about, these are human beings and they are being used for fodder and that's not okay. We also had a speaker, his name is God Fred Adai and he has a documentary that has just been released and it's about police brutality in Calgary. He survived a starlight tour. He was charged with aggravated assault on a police officer, I believe.
00:29:28
Speaker
And exonerated because he did not. And
Media Representation and Rural Protests
00:29:32
Speaker
there is so much proof and it's six and a half years later and he has not received any justice. He has not received any, um, I mean, that is just an absolute classic. That is, that is just an absolute classic move by the police though, to, to beat the shit out of you and then charge you for, you know, resisting arrest or assaulting a police officer. Like all of it. And, um,
00:29:58
Speaker
You know, he's really struggling, so he needs support. He needs those services that he can't get because the money is going to the police who brutalized it, who misused those monies, those funds, that people are saying automatically, if you are in any social assistance or organization support, automatically you are treated like you are misappropriating those funds.
00:30:28
Speaker
I'm at the end. It hasn't ended there. There was another one about the media. The Monday, I believe the 8th, because the media isn't, in Calgary, it's giving a skewed opinion of what's happening with Black Lives Matter. They want to talk about riots. We have not rioted in Calgary. They want to talk about looting and
00:30:52
Speaker
how we are negatively affecting the police and how the police are putting their life on the line. No, that's not the message that needs to be put out there right now. The message that needs to be put out there is that systematic racism exists in Calgary and all it has. And it continues. And it's ruining the lives of people here, all of the people here.
00:31:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we're definitely going to get to the media because I love talking about that shit. But I mean, the other thing that has really struck me as important and new are these kind of protests and a kind of Black Lives Matter and kind of police brutality protests popping up all over kind of rural Alberta and kind of radiating out from Calgary, right? Right. So there are many. There are many.
00:31:43
Speaker
Uh, I went to Innisfail. I definitely wanted to dive, I definitely want to dive deeper into Innisfail. That, I mean, that one was, uh, got a lot of news coverage, but it's not just Innisfail, right? It's all these other communities. So what I want to say about rural communities in general is that they have always had black people and, uh, always pretended like, Oh, these are, you have to be a certain kind of black person to be here or enjoy your life or for us not to bother you.
00:32:11
Speaker
Um, and it's, it's quite frankly ridiculous because the pushback on five black people in the community is garbage. In a community of 800 people, eight black people is 1%. What's, what are they doing? What's happening? Why are you still treating them poorly when they're doing nothing except for existing? They don't have to exist the way that you like either. So if they're loud, that's, they're allowed to be loud.
00:32:42
Speaker
There's, white people are loud all the time. I mean, Canada Day is coming. Everybody, there's not a lot of white people that I know who are not having a party and being loud. Then the same black people will have a party because they want to show that they love Canada and they're not allowed to have that party. Why is that? Because we're in a small town, because you don't like the way that we're part, because you don't like our food. It's ridiculous.
00:33:11
Speaker
to me. So racism has always been rampant in small towns. It's rampant all over Alberta. So why not fight it there too? Yeah. And people have reached out to you or you've seen kind of, you know, these, these rallies being held in places like Okotoks, you know, Brooks, Stettler, Lacombe, Sylvan Lake, Blackfolds, like places you wouldn't think would be holding.
00:33:38
Speaker
you know, anti police brutality rallies are holding anti police brutality rallies.
Police Narrative and Diversity Initiatives
00:33:43
Speaker
And, um, and like the obvious and the one that blew up was Innisfil, which we're going to get to. But before we get to that one, I think it's also worth talking about the counter reaction by the cops. Right. And that, and that also feeds into the kind of media criticism part of this, but I will say that the like cop again, the game of the Calgary police force is very strong.
00:34:05
Speaker
And we've seen them try to blunt these efforts through a variety of tactics. Do you have a particular one you want to start out with? May 1, let's talk about it. Well, the chief constable Mark Neufeld said the police service is listening.
00:34:23
Speaker
Uh, here's, here's a, here's a quote from him, uh, in a Livewire Calgary piece. Let me be clear, Calgary police service does not tolerate racism. Let me be clear. CPA, Calgary police service does not tolerate police brutality. We do not tolerate the intentional use of force that is excessive in violation of the law or policies. Oh, so they don't tolerate it, but what do they do? Encourage it? Is that, is that the other word that they use for it? Because racism and police brutality and all the rest of that is there.
00:34:52
Speaker
Um, quite frankly to me, um, if you're listening, you would not continue to deny. So you're not, you're obviously not listening. That's white supremacy. One-on-one is to deny is to make us prove.
00:35:07
Speaker
Yeah. And the media are of course going to just kind of transcribe this quote and transmit it uncritically. But like, of course the Calgary Police Service is racist. Like that's not even a like, that's not even a thing to think about. Like it is officially built to uphold and reproduce white supremacy. Right. So what I've been hearing specifically straight from the mouth of the police chief is there is no systematic racism in the Calgary police force.
00:35:34
Speaker
I do not know of any systematic racism in the police force. Right there. I mean, what, what do you say to that? That's not listening. That is yet another tactic that has been used against us. So like, it's just, it's just, it's really just a repeat of tactics again and again and again. So they now put out, um,
00:36:04
Speaker
all the things that they're doing that combat systematic racism. And I'm like, if you look at this list, it is systematically racist. Like a workshop on indigeneity? Are you serious? A workshop on Canada? Like it's Turtle Island, first of all. So not using correct terminology,
00:36:32
Speaker
reducing it to 30 minutes or something that, you know, if you want to be educated about this, if you want to be knowledgeable, feel free to take it. If not, don't. The hours to become a registered massage therapist are more than policing. And I'm going to guarantee you that there's systematic racism in massage therapy. So there must be more in
00:37:01
Speaker
If I'm going to be honest, the listing of things that they say that they offer is not complete. People, like every four years, people want to update their anti-racism training. Who's doing their anti-racism training? If it's white people, they're wrong.
00:37:26
Speaker
The thing that I wanna talk about the most about the police and their systematic racism is the diversity team. How do you have a diversity team that's quite people? Because police need to create, what they are saying is that they wanna create a bridge with communities. And I'm just like, why would you don't have police officers from those communities? That's just something about systematic racism.
00:37:56
Speaker
Sorry, I gotta jump into the chat. There's a diversity of thought is the one I always love. I heard the chief of police of Edmonton up here saying it, but like, yeah, there's like a liberal and a conservative and a social Democrat on there. I mean, they're all white people. Diversity of thought. How do you think? Don't you think if you have experience, so if you don't have any experience, your thoughts cannot be that diverse.
00:38:23
Speaker
especially when your first thought is to deny systematic racism. Um, so what does this team do though? Like, like there's this diversity team. Like what the hell do they actually like, what are they responsible for? Oh, the only thing I see them doing is mining for information within our communities to use it against us through carding because the cloud group police chief also said that that is a very valuable tool.
00:38:52
Speaker
to stop people and just find out if maybe possibly they have ever done anything in their lives. Let's check right now. Why don't we check the police? Why don't we just randomly going up to police and checking their records? That seems like that would make sense to me if you can randomly do it to somebody on the street because I know I've been carded and I wasn't doing anything illegal. So that's to me ridiculous.
00:39:22
Speaker
If it's important for you to stop anybody on the street. And when I say they say they're stopping anybody, but we know because the reports are there that it is disproportionately Black and Indigenous people. No, that's systematic racism. When you are telling me that you're creating a committee of people to go into communities, to randomly ask them for their information. That's all I see the diversity team doing.
00:39:52
Speaker
They're basically a group of quarters. They're truly just going to find out who is the messy kid. Do we know why that child is struggling? Is it because a police officer slapped them in their face once? And here you are with your sirens at our fun event saying, oh, this is so much fun. It's not. You're grooming black and indigenous bodies
00:40:21
Speaker
to assist you in their oppression. You're grooming them to be nice. You're grooming them to give you too much information so that you can then put it into your computer and use it against black and indigenous and people of color in their communities. That's really all I see that diversity team as being. I also feel like even if you do get people who are from those communities and that team is inclusive,
00:40:48
Speaker
I don't know if they're going to really be empowered to make any changes because the police cannot make changes for police. The police who are traumatized, I don't know if they're getting help. Women in policing, the sexism is rampant. So racism, like anti-black racism is the gauge of all oppression. So work won't be the last thing that they ever think about. And I'm telling them, no, no, no, no, no, I'm the center now.
00:41:14
Speaker
Here in Edmonton, we're a little farther along on this kind of defund the police argument. But one of the tricky ways that I see the powers that be kind of are going to try and blunt this and defuse it is in Edmonton, we have this program called REACH. And it is this kind of nonprofit that is adjacent to the police, but is essentially the police.
00:41:35
Speaker
It's run by all white people. The former warden of the Edmonton Women's Prison is the executive director of it.
Defunding Police and Reform Efforts
00:41:42
Speaker
I don't know what the equivalent of this in Calgary, or maybe the equivalent is this diversity team, but if we put all this work in and we defund the police and this money just gets shifted over to these police adjacent organizations, nothing is going to change. There's no real actual change happening.
00:42:04
Speaker
There's no change happening. It's just shifting. Quite frankly, I don't even think that, um, I think that we really need to think about who we're shifting the money to because to shift it from police to social workers, very often social workers are just a different, they're not a, they are
00:42:30
Speaker
Very often social workers are just a non-physical, violent version of the police. Yeah. Like they don't have guns, but they like, I mean, they've been responsible for the 60s scoop and all sorts of like child, child apprehensions of indigenous people or poor people or black people. Like it would be better. I mean, it would probably would objectively be better if social workers did more stuff just because they just don't have guns and the ability to kill people. But it's still, if we don't reform social work, like
00:42:59
Speaker
If we don't reform so many things, so many things like the organizations that are in our cities, quite frankly, a lot of them are anti-black and they practice anti-black practices. This is why we're having the Black Lives Matter movement in general. So the policing is yes, one part of it, but if we defund the police, we give the money to another organization that does basically the same thing police does without guns. There's no point.
00:43:28
Speaker
if we are not getting to the bottom of this, which means we need to talk about it from a different gaze and all the gazes that are in power are white. So, you know, what you're saying about this reach is exactly what I'm saying here. Even the organizations that are claiming anti-racism are still using internalized racism where their version of anti-racism includes some colonialism.
00:43:58
Speaker
At some point, we have to understand that unless we don't colonize, unless we move away from all of these systems that are inherently violent, it doesn't matter where we put the money. We're just going to have a different version of it. So, you know, if it's about social workers, we're just going to have a new version of residential schools. We're just going to have a new version of people in shelters.
00:44:28
Speaker
who are not functioning. We're just going to have a new version of unemployment supports where people are in the cycle that leads to all of these other things. So like just take the money from the police and instead of us dying, we just suffer. Yeah. And speaking of another way that the Calgary Police is trying to blunt this defund the police argument, you know, this is headlines from June 10th from the Calgary Herald.
00:44:57
Speaker
Calgary Police Eye expanding use of body cameras. No. And the Calgary Police Service loves body cameras. They have had pilot projects starting back in 2012. They were the first major police service in Canada to fully equip its frontline officers with body cameras. They've deployed more than 1,100 of them in the spring of last year. They are just in love with these kind of devices. But do body cameras actually do anything? I mean, have we seen the body camera footage?
00:45:27
Speaker
doing anything we don't see it doing any it does nothing all it does is enable people to say well we didn't see the whole story what happened last week what happened last month is just a reason to continue to postulate around someone's death or victimization that it's just it's yet another tactic for white supremacists yet another make them prove so the people who are in power have access to
00:45:55
Speaker
this camera that makes them look good. And when it doesn't, they turn it off or they don't release the footage. Body cameras do absolutely nothing but give us more footage in the world. We already have proof that racism is rampant. I'm sorry, I thought that it stinks off.
00:46:17
Speaker
Yeah, body cameras are trash. Let's be clear. You don't need any more evidence that police systematically harm people. You just simply don't need any more evidence that the institution is systematically racist, that it commits regular violence upon black indigenous
Media's Role in Systemic Issues
00:46:36
Speaker
bodies. So then why do we have it? We have it for them to have another toy. We have it for them to have another tactic to make sure that we are not
00:46:45
Speaker
being treated properly. It's also like, are people giving us these cameras? That just increases the budget for nothing to happen. This is why policing is a business. They give their buddy, they get them at a discounted price, which is already inflated anyways. I'll be honest, I actually don't know the process, but it's a business. We know the new business. People are in bad together.
00:47:14
Speaker
Quite frankly, I feel like if you want to do something, if you want to have a camera there, you need to have an impartial bystander there with the camera on because they're not going to turn it off. And they're going to be at a different gaze from the police officer. Like, I don't know what's happening when I see a cam imagery that, you know, it's on the ground and people are rolling around and, you know, there's like screaming that that's
00:47:44
Speaker
That's not helpful. Yeah. I mean, I also think you make an excellent point about the supply chains and the procurement policies of police forces. There is a whole lot of greasy stuff that happens. I even just talked about it earlier, the millions of dollars that go to police equipment without any actual oversight or telling the public what they're spending it on.
00:48:03
Speaker
And that's where I think we can kind of come back to the media angle on this. There are so many stories and ways to dig into the story of policing. We're doing it here with the Progress Report. It's just Jim and I, and we've got a small freelance budget. But if you've got stories in Edmonton or Calgary that you want to write, I want to read them and edit them and get them out into the world. So if that's the kind of work you want to do, please let me know.
00:48:29
Speaker
But I don't have the time and capacity to write as these police procurement stories that I want to write, or even just the school resource officer stories. Pick your issue on policing. It's all worthy of a deep dive and diving into what the true harm of these programs really is. But we're not getting that out of existing mainstream media and the independent
00:48:52
Speaker
organizations that do exist, like say mine and the sprawl, simply just don't have the resources to kind of like properly investigate, right? Right. And here's another thing is that, um, it depends on what you look like to be able to do a deep dive. Who's going to talk to you? Who's going to pay attention to you? So, you know, that's, that's also unfortunate in the media.
00:49:21
Speaker
You know, I asked, I was talking to someone in BC and I forget their name at this moment, I'm so sorry. And they were like, ask me questions. And I was shocked because no media person has ever been like, we are live, ask me a question. So I asked why, why did it take so long to get these stories here to the place that they are, even though it's, you know,
00:49:49
Speaker
sliver of what needs to be done and why doesn't the media reflect you know inclusivity and diversity and basically the answer was you know because media is a business and it's polarizing and what you're saying is true you know like there's no budgets for people to be going out there and trying to get the information but also you know if we do choose to do that by ourselves
00:50:17
Speaker
as an offering to our world, who's going to really take us seriously? I know black journalists that when they try and get to the heart and soul of it, there's not a lot of people who want to talk. They don't want to have their name there. And if they do want to talk, there's no way to protect them on the other side of that.
00:50:39
Speaker
I mean, ultimately the media are responsible for, you know, reproducing and reinforcing white supremacy. Like I think that's clear. That's, that's like the job that they do. I mean, post media, like very, has a very obvious political agenda. Um, but I mean, organizations that like ought to know better, like CDC, uh, still count out to the like worst parts of, you know, Calgary society, right? So I'm going to tell you, like you would think that they would know better, but they still aren't, they
00:51:06
Speaker
How would they know how to center blackness if they don't do that? How would they know how to center indigenous voices if they've never done that? People of color. If the stance is automatically, we don't trust you, you have to prove to us that we can't give them the proof that they feel that they mean, because people who have money and power will punish them. I mean, it's a vicious cycle.
00:51:29
Speaker
Yeah. And, and I think the final segment here is going to focus on something we teased earlier, which was, which is Innisfail, you know, this, you know, small central Alberta town of like 8,000 people. They made national headlines when, you know, a black lives matter slash, you know, anti-police brutality.
00:51:46
Speaker
rally was planned by a 23 year old woman named Brittany Bovee. It was briefly canceled after the community freaked out. The mayor of the town said, essentially racism wasn't a thing and that all lives matter. The mayor eventually apologized after it went national.
00:52:05
Speaker
Uh, and the rally was eventually held. I know you were a part of this event. You know, what are the big, um, kind of like, uh, memories that what kind of happened at the event and what are the kinds of big things that stick out, uh, to you from this event? Uh, well, the event was peaceful. That's, uh, sticks out to me because the people who came there wanted to hear it learn. Um, there were some people who wanted to push back.
00:52:35
Speaker
Somebody said, it's okay to be white as I'm speaking. So I got involved because there were no, initially no black voices to be heard in the Black Lives Matter rally or protest. So Brittany reached out to me and I said, yes, I will come. And as I was speaking, this man said, it's all right to be white. And I was like, of course it is. We know that it's here. It's everywhere. You see whiteness every place.
00:53:02
Speaker
Um, why can't we center blackness? Why can't that happen? Um, and as I was done speaking, another person started up with all lies matter. Uh, and very notably to me, everybody started chanting at them with black lives matter and drawn them out. So, you know, it's, it's emotional to keep having to go to these places and people tell you that your experience isn't real.
00:53:32
Speaker
Um, but it's also, I don't want to say hopeful, cause I, I truly don't have hope that this is going to change things. I think that this is a catalyst to some sort of change. Is it going to be what I would like to see what black people need? I don't know. So I don't want to use the words hopeful.
00:54:01
Speaker
Another thing that happened was, again, the media not talking to black people, rebel media was there and asking people for specific incidents of racism in Israel. Anybody, anybody, they're asking anybody. And it was really ridiculous what they came up with. So. Yeah, I mean, the footage of that little
00:54:28
Speaker
in cell ghoul of key and Bex harassing you and other people, uh, at the rally was, uh, was troubling, but I mean, that's exactly what he does. He's talking to get a reaction and, and, um, and to, to get tape for his, you know, his shitty racist YouTube channel. And here's the thing, what he did get is a whole bunch of people perpetuating racism. That's the, I mean, he got it. So if he doesn't think that there's racism there, there's a group of people on motorbikes.
00:54:57
Speaker
and they started to rub their engines and people were like, no, no, no, that's not okay. And it's actually after the protest was done, after we were speaking, they just wanted us to leave. I feel like people who were shopping, because we were buying no frills, were upset, but I think no frills turned down their music. I don't know if that, I don't know if somebody asked them or if they knew, but that's how it felt because the music was very loud in the beginning.
00:55:27
Speaker
and got quieter towards the end. So somebody inside there recognized that this was important. I saw a lot of people congratulating white people. To me, that's not an appropriate way to go about this. Congratulating the mayor on his slow response to a Black Lives Matter protest is not necessary.
00:55:57
Speaker
A lot of people want to say, Oh, well, you know, he saw his mistake and fixed it. And, you know, that deserves a celebration. No, no, it doesn't. That deserves some processing. Like, let's think about that. How, why would you say that? Why is, did you need to be convinced to be supportive of this? It was a peaceful protest. Nobody did anything.
00:56:26
Speaker
that was involved in this Black Lives Matter side, how come you are now saying that this is hopeful? Because there are so many beginnings, the 13th Amendment, the end of residential schools. There's so much proof that we have already started. We've started many, many, many times. So when are we going to get to the end already?
00:56:56
Speaker
When is my life going to matter to the extent that I can exist? My whole humanity. I want my whole humanity. I want my children's whole humanity. I want my grandchildren's whole humanity. I want the seven, eight, 10, 100 generations behind me to have their whole humanity. And that's not happening. And it's not going to happen because you said, okay, let's have a march. That's not where I'm going to put
00:57:25
Speaker
My confidence in the change of this world in, you know, a mayor saying, oh, okay, I was wrong. You can have your march. Is that the change? That's not, that's not enough. Quite frankly, many of these rural communities are like, oh, just the fact that we're talking about it is enough. We don't need a protest. Yes, you do. You need to see black bodies existing and at their discretion.
00:57:54
Speaker
without your opinions, without your gaze, without your consent, because we don't need consent to exist. So the thing that I would say was most upsetting to me there was a woman asked me, I went to go intervene between a Black Lives Matter supporter and somebody who was upset that we were there.
00:58:25
Speaker
And a white woman came up to me and said, well, why aren't you over there talking to them? And I was like, I already spoke. What do you mean? Why do I have to talk to them? And she's like, well, they don't seem to get it. And I was like, they don't want to. They don't want to get it because we didn't do anything here. They have their organizations. They collect, they meet, they make plans and nobody does anything. But the second it's a black indigenous or person of color,
00:58:54
Speaker
that becomes an issue. And then this white woman is telling me I must explain to them because they're not hearing her. And I was like, are you not seeing that you're using your privilege on me right at this moment to tell me what I should do as a person who's already in danger? That's, if I'm going to be honest, nobody in Innisfil protected me.
00:59:23
Speaker
And they asked me to come there to speak. So when people feel like they're being helpful, what are they really doing? You think that you're progressive because you want to talk about it. No, you're progressive because you want to burn it down and you're willing to do what is necessary to get that accomplished.
Protests as a Beginning
00:59:46
Speaker
That's what progressive is.
00:59:48
Speaker
I think you make a point that needs to be further talked about, which is that quite often white people will go to these events and walk away feeling hopeful. And that's not really the point of these events. Rallies and marches are ultimately, especially when you're doing things like stopping traffic, they're demonstrations of power. They show that you are a mass movement.
01:00:13
Speaker
And there is real value to kind of demonstrating that power and being in the streets, having a march, stopping traffic, doing those things. But if you can't continue to demonstrate that power, then what you're asking for is never going to happen. And so that's, I think, needs to be reinforced with the folks who show up to these events and that the march is not
Connecting and Supporting the Cause
01:00:40
Speaker
the end. The march is the beginning.
01:00:43
Speaker
It's the beginning for them. And what are you going to do with your beginning? So, uh, Dora, we got to wrap it up right now, but, um, what's the best way for people to follow your work, uh, get ahold of you, get in touch if that's a thing they need, hire you, if need be. Plug, plug your pluggables. Right. Please find me on Instagram. I am at statue S S T A T U E S S E. You can find me on Facebook at Dora no for a D O R a M like Norman W O
01:01:12
Speaker
F, like Frank, O, R. Or you can send me an email, this first name, last name, adoramwulfor, at gmail.com. Anywhere that I'm at, feel free to stop me if I'm busy. I will tell you I'm busy. Please hear that with humility. I do comedy, I do public speaking, I'm a makeup artist, I'm an actress, I'm a model. There's a long list of things that I can do and I'm a professional at as it goes forward right now.
01:01:41
Speaker
there will be a new web series that I am hosting about living a creative life in Calgary. So check it out.
01:01:50
Speaker
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01:02:17
Speaker
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01:02:34
Speaker
contribute $5, $10, $15 a month. It really goes a long way and we really do appreciate it. If you have any notes or thoughts or comments that you think I need to hear, you can reach me on Twitter. I'm on Twitter at Duncan Kinney and you can reach me on email by DuncanKAtProgressAlberta.ca. Thanks so much to Cosmic Family Communist for the amazing theme. Thank you for listening and goodbye.