The group’s demand to ban police floats and booths from the Pride Parade and Pride community spaces appears to have emerged as its most contentious call since Sunday, but Khan said Black Lives Matter Toronto isn’t seeking a meeting with police over the matter.
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Toronto (BLMTO)’s move to demand a more racially inclusive Pride parade descended into a heated debate over police presence at the event.
On Sunday, Black Lives Matter held up the Pride Parade with a sit-in to advocate for a number of issues including additional funding for the black-focused party Blockorama, a permanent black queer youth stage, a South Asian-focused stage and more American Sign Language interpretation provided by black deaf and hearing interpreters.
Chantelois told CP24 on Monday that the decision to no longer include police floats in Pride is a decision that needs to be made by the community, not BLM.
This March, members of the group camped out in front of Toronto police headquarters for two weeks, demanding an overhaul of Ontario’s police watchdog and the release of the name of an officer who fatally shot a man last summer.
“All I was saying was thank you to the police service from the chief on down for their contributions to better relationships with the LGBTQ2S community”, Tory said.
“First of all the Pride parade is supposed to be about community inclusiveness, everybody getting together, rejoicing, all this positive stuff and then we’ve got Black Lives Matter who hijacked the parade, and extorted an agreement”, he said.
Exclusion does not promote inclusion.
“No police floats”, said BLMTO co-founder Janaya Khan.
Khan added Black Lives Matter does not want to “police the police” in terms of their overall presence, but is against the institutions that they represent.
“Frankly, Black Lives Matter is not going to tell us that there are no more floats anymore in the parade”.
“Pride should live up to their motto – ‘You can sit with us.’ You can’t throw police under the bus and to do that”. Since 1990, Toronto police have killed at least 51 people, according to an estimate from past year. I began to tell a few peers at work, and soon word spread. “Who’s deciding what’s in the parade is the membership, and my community”.
Mayor John Tory has sent a letter to the Toronto Police Association voicing his support for the police union following the Black Lives Matter-Toronto protest at last weekend’s Pride Parade.
Police brutality and discrimination is recent past for the LGBTQ2 community, but it is a very present issue for people of colour.
“The first night they were demonstrating there, police came out wearing hazmat suits”, he said.
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“When we accepted this year’s Honoured Group status from Pride Toronto, it was with the clear intention of using this platform to address what is a historical and current culture of anti-Blackness deeply embedded in the Festival”, Ms. Williams said in a statement.
