Black lives matter everywhere

The activist movement Black Lives Matter may have started far from Canada, but there are people in Windsor who also feel very strongly about it.

The movement began after the man who shot and killed African-American teen Trayvon Martin was acquitted. It campaigns against police brutality toward African-Americans in the U.S. and has become widespread through social media.

Unifor Equity Coordinator and activist Christine Maclin believes this is an issue not only in the U.S. but also in Canada.

“People who do not fully understand what black people in Canada experience will respond that all lives matter,” said Maclin. “Too many people of colour are carded, stopped by police, searched for unknown reasons, arrested, put in jail and even killed right here in Canada.”

An example of these instances is the high amount of racial profiling/carding in Toronto that caused an uproar in 2015. Toronto City Council made the decision to ban this type of carding beginning Jan. 2017.

Maclin said she has had some bad experiences with local police and her children have been targeted as well.  She feels one of the main issues is the police not knowing the whole story and only seeing one side.

“There’s always two sides of the story and we’ve got to get both sides,” said Sergeant Wren Dosant, diversity inclusion officer with the Windsor Police Service.

Dosant says Black Lives Matter concerns should be taken as seriously here as any other groups like it.

“It’s an issue because a certain segment of our population feels that they are being unjustly treated,” said Dosant. “And anytime you have any segment of your population feeling unjustly treated, it should be addressed.”

Kathy Brown, a certified counsellor and relative of an RCMP officer, also feels there is more than one side to each of these stories.

“I believe the same hatred can be found on the other side of this coin in the black community as well that threatens and antagonizes those attempting to uphold the law,” said Brown. “Perhaps it’s a violence born out of frustration but it doesn’t make the minority, violent black community any less guilty then the minority, violent police community.”

Brown said with so many big issues like this one, the pendulum tends to swing too far the other way, causing the handling of the issue to become part of the problem.

Dosant said he feels the WPS is doing a good job of reaching out to the community and hearing people’s concerns and that’s why there aren’t as many issues here surrounding BLM as there are in other places.

However, he said he is sure there have been incidents, reported and unreported, and encourages anyone with a complaint against local police to lodge it formally.

“Our local professional standards branch here investigates all complaints thoroughly, so they would never get turned away,” said Dosant. “There will always be a listening ear here at the Windsor Police for any complaint.”