Toronto events!!!

Toronto Fun Parties

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Doug Ford says there's systemic racism in Canada after all

Premier Doug Ford looked to clarify some troubling comments he made surrounding Ontario and Canada's long and deeply entrenched history of systemic racism.

In a Parliamentary session on Wednesday Ford backtracked on comments he made yesterday during a press conference where he said Canada doesn't "have the systemic deep-roots" the United States has "had for years."

Ford was speaking on the ongoing protests in the U.S. and around the world in response to police brutality, anti-Black racism and the systems of oppression that uphold both.

Soon after, fellow members of Parliament Mitzie Hunter and Michael Coteau called on Ford to "take concrete steps to fight systemic racism" and support the Black community.

Ford responded today by saying "of course there's systemic racism in Ontario, there's systemic racism across this country."

"I know it exists. What I don't know is the hardships faced by those communitites."

He said he and many others don't have those lived experiences or have "walked a mile in someone's shoes that has faced racism." 

The backlash to his comments yesterday came swift and hard, with many, many people pointing out instances of systemic racism in Canada's history.

Among them is the fact that the entire country is a direct product of British colonialism that sanctioned the assimiliation and cultural, enviromental and corporal genocide of many Indigenous populations, practices of which persist to literally today.

Ford said that he and his fellow politicans would not stand for racism and would work to "stamp this out."


by Lisa Power via blogTO

No comments:

Post a Comment