KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) – After former police Officer Derick Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd on April 20, 2021, many individuals in the United States and Canada seemed to feel this was a turning point in the mistreatment and racism perpetrated against African people in policing.
Those inclined to believe that this one verdict will somehow change policing and the criminal justice system are wrong, especially where there have been three other African Americans killed by police since the verdict.
In Canada individuals of African descent and non-African people have to stop being so naïve as to believe that what happens in the United States does not happen here.
Canada has had its own share of police killing Black people, so I would strongly encourage Canadians to take their heads out the sand and not to relish in this falsehood and denial.
Canadian police services and Canada as a nation have much blood of African people on their hands .
Slavery in Canada has taken the lives of many African Canadians. In 2017 the assault on Dalia Kafi by Calgary police officer Alex Dunn, and in 2020, the shooting and killing of young Indigenous girl Eishia Hudson by Winnipeg police, the death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet involving the Toronto police, and the assault on Ms. Santina Rao in Halifax and the assaults and killings of Black People by police continue.
In Halifax and Canada, the use of guns is not the only way in which police hurt many African Canadians and African Nova Scotians. We continue to be hurt by excessive force, gross Insensitivity, illegal street checks and personal stops where someone is said to look like another individual who is being sought by police.
The above largely speaks to white nationalism, white supremacy, hate and anti-Black racism.
African Americans and African Canadians are fed up with the crap they are forced to endure in order for others to maintain their unearned and undeserved privilege.
See also: The Santina Rao SIRT report is nothing but a smear campaign
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