How much more do you need to see? Black Lives Matter
The following was from an address given by Ameil Joseph at the Black Friday Rally in Support of Black Organizations in Hamilton, Friday June 12 at Hamilton City Hall
Jun 16, 2020
As recently as June 11, we saw the Hamilton Police Services Board approve a motion designed to intentionally mock Black Lives Matter protesters and supporters calling them nonsensical and that they are ignorant — knowingly directing these dismissals and insults to Black leaders in our community.
We have witnessed delays and complicity in responding to white nationalist groups organizing where I stand.
We have witnessed the rejection of applications from racialized leaders to the Hamilton Police Services Board.
We have witnessed the employment and coverup of a leader of one of the most notorious white nationalist groups in our city hall.
We have witnessed local school boards refuse to immediately remove police from our schools whose presence is known to threaten Black lives, the lives of Indigenous students and students of colour.
We have witnessed superficial acknowledgments of land without substantive commitment to end the genocide of Indigenous people and our complicity with settler colonialism.
Those of us who have been involved also see the hate mail, the threats, the letters slipped under our doors alongside the aggressive dismissals and interrogations from those we try to appeal to for change.
How much more do you need to see omitted, erased, harm, fail, and humiliate racialized people in our communities, how many times do we need to see the invalidation of anti-Black racism?
Thank you.
Ameil J. Joseph PhD, is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at McMaster University
Please check out the full opinion article here: https://www.thespec.com/opinion/contributors/2020/06/15/how-much-more-do-you-need-to-see-black-lives-matter.html