“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.” – Assata Shakur

On Saturday March 26th, over a thousand people gathered for #BlackOut Against Police Brutality to demand justice for Andrew Loku and Alex Wettlaufer who were murdered by the pigs. On Monday April 4th, hundreds marched to Queen’s Park, demanded and were granted an audience with Kathleen Wynne, who admitted “I believe that we still have systemic racism in our society”.

Black Lives Matter Toronto (BLMTO) forces onlookers to recognize that police brutality exists and that black people in this city are specifically targeted by the police. It also gives voice to the ways that black people and people of colour experience racism in Canada today. Occupying a space like Police HQ shows that people can come together to build inclusive spaces that rely on the contributions, support and commitment of people across the city.

The Black Lives Matters Toronto movement has made concrete their solidarity with Indigenous organizers. BLMTO stood side by side with occupiers of the Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) office in Toronto, just as indigenous allies had stood with the people occupying TPS headquarters when they were attacked by the pigs in the middle of the night.

As a result of Tent City and other actions, Toronto City Council voted to restore Afro-Fest to a full two-day event and unanimously voted to review the province’s Special Investigations Unit through an ‘anti-black racism lens’. Kathleen Wynne committed to meet again with BLMTO organizers and the Ontario Coroner opened an inquest into the death of Andrew Loku. And Michael Coteau, the Minister Responsible for Anti-Racism has promised there will be public meetings to talk about anti-blackness in policing.

But now that Tent City has come to an end, how will the community prevent police from harassing and killing our people? How will we prevent more state-sponsored murders, such as those of Jermaine Carby, Sammy Yatim, and Andrew Loku? Demanding inquests into the murders of people at the hands of police is not something new and has never changed the way police brutalize and murder the people in our communities.

The state has a long history of maneuvering around the demands of protest movements. In the 1990’s, the Black Action Defense Committee (BADC) agitated against the Toronto Police to stop the police’s investigation of police, which led to the formation of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU). However, provincial and municipal governments have always found ways to protect the police because the police are accountable to the state, not the people. Today, the SIU is filled with people who are ex-cops and apologists who do nothing but uphold the current system of exploitation that allow these murders to happen in the first place.

We have to ask ourselves: what is it going to take to build strong and independent communities, to disrupt police brutality, and to challenge state power?

Basics Community News Service members have been working with the families of the victims of police brutality for almost a decade now from Alwy al-Nadhir to Junior Manon to Sammy Yatim to Jermaine Carby. In spite of increasing public awareness, the law continues to drag its feet year after year in the case of Jermaine Carby, who was murdered in December 2014. In the case of Sammy Yatim, the law was used to justify the clearance of murder charges against Officer James Forcillo.

“We are not going to eliminate imperialism by shouting insults at it” – Amilcar Cabral

Despite vocal protests against state violence, the demands formed during Tent City will not provide the people with any way of protecting themselves from being brutalized, because the demands are not focused on building up our own power and capacity – they rely on the state agreeing to change for the better. BLMTO organizers frequently chant “the system isn’t broken, it was built this way”. But if the system is working the way that it is supposed to, why do we insist on asking this very system–directly responsible for the oppression we face–for small and incremental changes that don’t address the root of the problem?

The law will never go after the cops who killed Andrew Loku last July, even if they are identified, because that’s the way the system works.

We cannot ask to participate in the colonizer’s power. ‘Freedom’ does not look like black consultation with the SIU or a new body that will replicate the same incompetence. A number of public meetings that were held throughout the province last year had a resounding message: eliminate the practice of carding immediately. But even with all of these public meetings and promises that were made by Yasir Naqvi, the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services, carding has merely been ‘regulated’ and in some cases temporarily suspended while under review.

But the practice of racial profiling and police targeting black people and people of colour still continues. What will these new meetings on anti-blackness in policing reveal that we didn’t know already? What can they change if the enforcement completely relies on the state and police to follow through on their empty promises?

Do we want to be on their investigation committees after they shoot our families and friends, or should we make sure that another pig does not dare kill another one of our own? Our power and freedom will come from protecting each other, and from creating our own autonomous communities that maintain the livelihood of the people within them.

“Whether it’s in America or the rest of the African world, black lives will never matter until we attain BLACK POWER; which is power in our hands to determine our future for subsequent generations to come.” – Black is Back Coalition

The people who are incarcerated by police know that they are human and deserve justice. What they don’t have is an organized community that has their back. We cannot ask the state to recognize the value of our lives; we cannot ask them for power. Black lives have never mattered to the Canadian state, and they will never matter, regardless of how much we plead for recognition.

For police violence to end in our communities, we must work towards building genuine people power that can be organized to prevent or respond to state violence. Building genuine people power means that we create alternative structures that directly challenge the repressive power of the state.

We don’t ask to be accommodated in the system or try to hold it accountable to the people. You don’t ask your enemy to solve your problems for you — especially when they are the ones who created the problem in the first place.

These tactics have proven successful in communities throughout the city including in the Esplanade, Dufferin and Eglinton and in Jamestown. Community members have made significant interventions the moment cops attempt violence on the streets.

In the Esplanade, when the TPS attempted to falsely arrest a young black man, accusing him of committing a murder that he had no involvement in, the Esplanade Community Group (ECG) intervened and prevented his arrest. When the community faced ongoing harassment and brutalization by constant police patrols, ECG members organized a cop watch and systematically intervened by gathering people around the police and recording video of police interactions. When a member of the ECG was targeted by police who attempted to throw him down a set of stairs, once again the community was there to protest police violence. Actions cannot just invite community members to attend, support and then leave, but must actively integrate them into the organizing.

In the neighbourhood of Dufferin and Eglinton, the police of 13 Division had targeted and terrorized the community to the point where black youth could not move freely in the community. If youth were in groups larger than two people, police would stop them and subject them to pat down searches and other forms of harassment. Youth who were most impacted by this police terrorism decided that they had to organize to change these conditions.

They began meeting regularly in the basement of a local bookstore to discuss the issues of police harassment and engaged in political education including knowing their rights when dealing with the police. This organizing work led to the creation of the Black Fist Defence Brigade in the community, and after a period of six months of organizing, youth would be able to walk the streets in their neighbourhood in groups of five, ten, or more without fear of police harassment. The police could no longer stop and harass these youth, because they had an organization to back them up and the support of elders their community.

In Jamestown, the TCHC regularly collaborates with the police at 23 Division, permits police to conduct searches of tenants’ homes, and uses the police to enforce evictions. When families came under attack by these two state institutions, local organizers in the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) mobilized their members and community supporters to defend them from being kicked out of their homes and put out on the street. InPDUM engaged community members directly with the understanding that the police are an institution of the state, which was built and maintained through the theft and destruction of Indigenous, African and other exploited peoples. With this understanding, InPDUM members did not ask the police to reform their tactics or improve their interactions with the community. Instead, the people recognized that in order to make change, they needed to be organized to contend with the power of the state and police.

These interactions with the police were successfully challenged because there was already a clearly outlined protocol in place for community members to follow. The efforts of InPDUM and the residents of Jamestown reflect how organizing – specifically, having meetings with the most affected, working class members of the community, establishing goals collectively, and demanding responsibility from each other rather than the state – all play a crucial role in developing our capacity to be leaders and protectors of our own communities. This is why organizing tactics must focus on creating trust and reliability of members within the community – our only strength is in our unity and organization. We must recognize this in order to combat a state that exists to eliminate indigenous people, brutalize people of colour and exploit the working class.

Organizing to resist and combat the violence inflicted on our communities by the police is not a simple task. But there are more of us than there are of them.

“We ain’t gonna fight no reactionary pigs who run up and down the street being reactionary; we’re gonna organize and dedicate ourselves to revolutionary political power and teach ourselves the specific needs of resisting the power structure, arm ourselves, and we’re gonna fight reactionary pigs with international proletarian revolution. That’s what it has to be. The people have to have the power: it belongs to the people.” – Fred Hampton

On Friday April 22nd, organizers from Filipino groups such as Anakbayan, Migrante and the International Coalition for Human Rights held a silent protest inside the office of the Philippine Consulate General of Toronto, condemning the killings of peasant farmers demanding food relief in the Kidapawan Massacre at the hands of soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Their shirts read “BIGAS HINDI BALA” – “RICE NOT BULLETS”, calling on the Filipino diaspora to pay attention to deaths of two farmers, Enrico Fabligar and Darwin Magyao, as well as the injury, starvation, and detainment of many more, including pregnant women and the elderly. This action was the third in a series of actions that have taken place over the month of April, all with the aim of informing the public about the violent undermining of basic human rights and exploitation of peasants in the Philippines.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) had announced as early as September 30, 2015 that a ‘strong’ El Niño would disproportionately affect the Philippines. By January 20th, North Cotabato, a province on the island of Mindanao, had declared a state of calamity under which the Provincial Government is supposed to allocate at least 5% of its internal revenue as calamity funds to be given to those most affected by the drought. The Filipino state gave many declarations but no provisions for the starving farmers. Currently, no funds from the Calamity Fund have reached the farmers.

By the end of March 2016, 40% of the country had experienced the drought; by the end of April, it would be 85%. The Peasant Movement of the Philippines, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), which is part of a larger network of organizations known as Bayan, mobilized its chapters in Mindanao to compel the state to address the drought. From March 28th to March 29th, 6,000 farmers and their families from different towns protested near the National Food Authority Office and the Spottswood Methodist Center in Kidapawan City, North Cotabato.

The farmers called upon the government for the release of 15,000 sacks of rice to respond to the drought; the subsidy of rice, seedlings, fertilizers, and pesticides until the drought ends; an increase in farmgate prices of agricultural products; the pullout of military troops in their communities; and the investigation and disbandment of the Bagani paramilitary group being formed by Rep. Nancy Catamco, who are used to terrorize and control the farmers.

Instead of providing them with rice and seedlings, the Philippine National Police and SWAT personnel violently forced the peasants to leave the area by gunning them down, hitting them with batons, throwing stones and blasting them with water cannons from their fire trucks. After the compound was cleared, it was surrounded by some 200 police and the 39th Infantry Battalion of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

The drought and violent treatment of farmers is connected to a pattern of reactionary state violence from the Filipino government, who depends on exploiting farmers at home with the aid of rich Western governments. Petronida Cleto, one of the organizers of the protest, connects the treatment of Filipino farmers to those who migrate to countries like Canada: “The system in the Philippines is very export-oriented. They facilitate the movement of people by forcing peasants to sell their possessions to pay multiple fees, forced to sell land to go abroad. And for what? To get Permanent Residency after two years of slavery?!”

Rich Western nations like Canada go to the Third World to extract the resources and labour power of countries like the Philippines. Due to the conditions in their country caused by this resource extraction, Filipino people are forced to leave their homes and families behind in search for work in order to survive. Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program is one way this exploitation takes place because it enables the Canadian State to exploit the labour of Filipino migrants, while at the same time stealing land from peasants, all for its own economic gains.

Organizers aim to raise awareness about the oppressive political climate of the Philippines, where “farmers are not allowed to own their own land, and are killed when they try to stand up and defend it,” said Jesson, one of the main organizers of Friday’s action in Toronto. “This action was about showing that the Filipino community condemns this State-sponsored terrorism and the stealing of land from peasants.”

According to the final report of the National Fact-Finding and Humanitarian Mission (NFHM) of Kidapawan City, it is estimated that 1% of the population in the country own 20% of the total 13.34 million hectares of agricultural lands. Farmers toil day in and day out to produce crops only to have them taken away by huge multinational corporations like Del Monte. They are unable to sustain themselves and are then killed when they ask for what is rightfully theirs to begin with. These are the types of inequalities that the private ownership of land and goods results in, where a small portion of the population profits from the exploitation of the majority who are farmers and peasants.

The state steals and sells the labour of the people to western multinational companies, but the Filipino people do not stand unorganized. The NFHM was conducted within a matter of days after the massacre. Bayan and the KMP mobilizes the peasants based on the fact that they are the farmers of the land. A third of the Philippines’ population is made up of agricultural workers – revolutionary organizations awaken the power of the masses, who already have the skills to maintain their own survival.

When the government watched their people starve, organizations within Bayan like the KMP mobilized 6,000 people to rise and demand that the state open up its stolen resources to the rest of the population. When Gov. Taliño-Mendoza refused to meet the farmers’ demands, offering only three kilos of rice per family once every three months, the peasant leaders unified to reject this offer. The peasants are not asking for charity or handouts; they are demanding the resources they produced from their own land and labour.

Landlords, just like the state, did not miss the opportunity to watch peasants starve. Some have even gone so far as to hoard tonnes of rice in order to drive up prices and increase their profits. The government of the Philippines has done nothing to address this issue, but the New People’s Army (NPA) has taken direct action to reclaim the rice that had been produced by the peasants who are now purposefully being starved by the government and shot at by its army.

The NPA strategically targeted Helen Bernal, who was hoarding more than a tonne of rice. They stormed her warehouse and confiscated 1,384 sacks of rice, along with CCTV monitors, sanding tools, and other electronic equipment in Valencia City, Bukidnon in the country’s southern region. The NPA then redistributed the stolen possessions directly to the places that were most affected by the drought, giving farmers the much needed rice that they had been demanding from the government but were denied, having been served bullets instead.

The deeply organized peasant class, in cities such as Kidapawan and Valencia, along with their comrades in Canada, have the power to hold the corrupt Filipino state accountable. This confrontation clearly shows that organizing and collectivist action is the only way for the peasants to survive and empower themselves during disasters, both “natural” and government-inflicted. The people, when united, will never be defeated. They will only grow stronger.

Photos by Nooria Alam

The opening of the 2016 Grammy Awards shows Kendrick Lamar stepping to the stage to receive his award for Rap Album of the Year. While up there, he states his win was a win for real hip-hop. This year Kendrick Lamar received 11 Grammy nominations, just short of Michael Jackson’s historic 12 nominations in a single year for his album Thriller in 1983.

With a total of 20 Grammy nominations since releasing his album good kid, m.A.A.d City, Kendrick is breaking new ground in the hip-hop world. In this year’s Grammy Awards, he led all other artists in nominations, with Taylor Swift and The Weeknd coming closest at only 7 nominations each.

By the end of the night, Lamar racked up 5 Grammy Awards out of his 11 nominations, an impressive total. His nominations were diverse, in that his name appeared almost twice in just about every category. However, Kendrick only ended up winning in the “rap” categories. For example, Kendrick won awards like Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song, Best Rap/ Sung Collaboration, and Best Rap Album. Yet he lost in the other more important general categories he was nominated in like Song of the Year and Album of the Year.

This demonstrates the existence of a “stay in your lane” mentality against hip-hop artists in the Grammys, consistently being snubbed and overlooked even though their genre has been the most popular in music for decades. After heavy criticism from the 2014 and 2015 Grammy’s awarding and nominating blonde pop stars Macklemore and Iggy Azalea in the Best Rap Album category, should we consider Kendrick’s success a victory?

Even when it came to the Best Music Video award, Kendrick Lamar won for his collaboration with Taylor Swift on Bad Blood and not for his own music video for Alright. Along with Kendrick’s achievements comes rightful skepticism of the Grammys true intentions in nominating him for the number of awards they did this year.

In a time where North American society is becoming increasingly aware and critical of the racial climate, with the Black Lives Matter movement gaining ground and expanding its membership, it has become easier for us to call out white dominated institutions and award shows like the Oscars. But whether or not this actually makes any difference for oppressed and exploited peoples in North America is a different question that we must consider.

This year, the Oscars were heavily criticized by the public for the lack of people of colour in their awards categories, and it could be said that the Grammys have taken notice of the backlash and put forth their best attempt at distancing themselves from any similar criticisms. As a result, the Grammy Awards outdid themselves to fill the gap in diversity, musically and racially, by throwing Kendrick Lamar into every category they could. But as we have seen time and time again, that does not mean they will allow the black hip-hop act to win the most prestigious prizes the night has to offer.

Yet the content of Kendrick’s album To Pimp a Butterfly is significant as it comes at a time where police brutality and racism towards blacks in America has become extremely visible. He addresses these issues as well as the systemic challenges of being black in America, black dysfunction, “hood politics”, spiritual yearning and many other topics in his lyrics. It is a concept album filled with jazz, blues and soul samples and honest, uncomfortable content.

During the Grammys, Kendrick stepped to the stage and delivered one of the most powerful Grammy performances in recent memory. Chained and suited in a blue jail uniform, Kendrick aligns himself with several other black men positioned in prison cells and raps a medley of his aggressive album cut “The Blacker the Berry” and hit single “Alright” and another never before heard song.

Kendrick’s performance for the 2016 Grammys

He screamed lyrics like “I know you’re evil, you want to terminate my culture” and “I want you to know I’m a proud monkey…you vandalize my perception but can’t take style from me” in front of a clapping crowd that has undoubtedly participated in appropriating black culture.

Kendrick’s conscious way of framing black identity is refreshing in today’s hip-hop realm and speaks to American racial issues as well as is a major reference point for the #blacklivesmatter movement. Kendrick not only became a strong voice for oppressed black communities in music but has done so in the largest ways possible; selling platinum albums, topping billboard charts and most recently and impressively, racking up an unprecedented number of Grammy nominations this year. His commercial success represents huge wins for the genre of hip-hop, but it’s going to take a lot more than going platinum to make the change that Kendrick raps about in his music.

It has been over five months since the victory of Liberal party leader Justin Trudeau in the Canadian federal elections, ending Stephen Harper’s nine-year rule of tyranny in Parliament. Canadians rejoiced, thinking that there has finally been an end to the racist fear-mongering tactics of the Conservative party leader. But what has actually changed so far under the leadership of the Trudeau government?

Was the appointment of a “diverse” cabinet, one which supposedly “looks like Canada” according to Trudeau, but is only made up of people making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, really worth celebrating?

The appointment of Harjit Sajjan as Minister of Defense made many celebrate the racial diversity of Trudeau’s new cabinet. Sajjan, a Sikh man from India was paraded around by media as a “badass” Canadian hero, earning his chops by being the biggest “Uncle Taj” in the Canadian military.

Working in a position of authority in the Canadian military intelligence body, he was aware of the ongoing torture of civilians but did nothing to address or stop it. Far from being a hero, his experience in the army shows that he is responsible for the deaths of many innocent civilians in the war in Afghanistan that can never be justified and continues to this very day.

G.I. Sajjan, A “Real Canadian Hero” By: Jason A. Das

The appointment of an Afghan refugee, Maryam Monsef, to Minister of Democratic Institutions means that there will be no mention of the reason why she had to flee her country in the first place. Her swearing in is an oath of submission to the monarchy, and there will be no recognition of the attempts made by the British military to invade her country.

As the imperialist war against the Afghan people continues, Monsef is used as a tokenized tool of her own colonizers. Let us keep in mind that the Liberals voted for the “Barbaric Cultural Practices Act”, a racist law that specifically targets people who look just like Maryam Monsef.

So what do these Cabinet appointments mean for the people of Canada? Faces and policies may change but our material conditions remain the same; with poor housing, precarious work, and overall exploitation. As much as Trudeau might present himself as a Prime Minister of the people, when working class people continue to struggle to make enough to survive on a monthly basis, what difference does it make if our cabinet is more diverse?

While Trudeau’s public relations and media team distract us with people of colour in exploitative leadership positions, we cannot forget the programs that routinely exploit working class labour.

Let us not forget that the Liberal party was the one to create the Temporary Foreign Worker program, a form of labour exploitation that tears apart families and has people working many years in indentured servitude.

Real change will not come from a swap in power within a system built upon genocide and theft. That change can only come from the people themselves. The Liberal and Conservative parties of Canada are two sides of the same coin. It’s not just about stopping Harper or other Conservatives; it’s about collectively challenging systemic issues that are engrained in the very system that Canadians are celebrating because it includes some semblance of diversity.

The participation of minorities within a capitalist system, which seeks to exploit the very people it continually excludes, is not a solution. It is not “real change”, as much as Trudeau may like to throw those words around. The so-called lesser of evils is still evil.

Featured Image from Time.com

On December 9th, taxi drivers from across Toronto staged a series of protests against the rival company Uber. Protesters shut down four high traffic areas before finishing with a demonstration at City Hall, calling upon the mayor to ‘bring justice’ to drivers by stopping Uber from operating illegally. These disruptions reverberated throughout the city as thousands of commuter vehicles came to a resounding halt.

Uber is a company that uses online software to connect customers to drivers, often for much cheaper than what many licensced taxi competitors offer. Since Uber’s conception in Silicon Valley only a few years ago, it has spread to cities across the world—much to the dismay and protest of local taxi drivers. Both the Uber company and its software seem to represent where capitalism is headed right now. Many companies like Uber are moving toward a model in which they focus on the delivery of goods and services as efficiently as possible to middle class consumers using a combination of cutting edge technology and easily exploitable and disposable workers who are conveniently labelled independent contractors. The broader ‘Uberization’ of the economy is already underway, as the Uber platform is now being used from everything from package deliveries, to health care, to snow removal.

In Toronto during the December 9th strike, drivers pointed out that Uber drivers don’t pay licensing fees and undergo minimal training. As the Ontario Highway Traffic Act makes it illegal for any taxis to operate without special licensing, drivers questioned why city officials had yet to impose any restrictions on Uber operations. Mayor John Tory had indicated on several occasions that such plans were in the works, yet none had materialized.

In their protest, taxi drivers staged city hall demonstrations, road blocks, and a hunger strike. Frustrations were clearly running high: in one widely circulated video, a taxi driver was dragged down Queens Park Crescent by an Uber car; in another, a driver compared Uber to ISIS. Still, the sentiment of the protest is relatable.

Uber receives an unfair business advantage due to lack of regulation, and its introduction to Toronto has brought dramatic changes to the lives of already poorly paid taxi drivers—more than 80% of whom are working class immigrants. It is not uncommon for taxi drivers to have seen their incomes halved since the advent of Uber. “I’ve been a taxi driver for 25 years,” said one driver from Scarborough, “and this is the biggest change I’ve seen in my income over the shortest amount of time.”

Uber drivers have fared no better. Many were tempted by the flexibility of owning their own business and scheduling their own hours—something that the company advertises as a key selling point. Uber calls its drivers ‘business partners,’ only requiring them to have access to a car and a license, making it a highly accessible low-skilled job. As economic opportunities are scarce enough for those at the bottom, it’s not surprising to learn that many Uber drivers—especially those who drive for the lower-class ‘UberX’, and especially those who rely on Uber for most of their income—are working class immigrants who live in Toronto’s suburbs.

Since Uber cut its prices in 2014, many drivers now claim to work much longer hours and still struggle to make minimum wage from their fares. Even though drivers own their cars and pay for car insurance, gas, repairs, and so on, Uber still pockets 20% of their income as an access fee to the market of transporting people.

Uber drivers also depend on their customer satisfaction star-ratings, and rarely speak frankly about the conditions of their exploitation. For example, if they hold an average rating of less than 4.7 (out of 5) in many cities, they can be fired. Uber drivers have begun to organize in parts of the USA, demanding fairer working conditions and a living wage.

Parallels can easily be drawn between exploitation of both taxi drivers and Uber drivers by their respective employers. All drivers are faced with the burden of paying for the maintenance of their own vehicles. They also face daily, sometimes violent, racism. The companies that employ these drivers refuse to raise their wages, even as their livelihoods are threatened by economic insecurity. All are working longer hours and even taking on other jobs to make ends meet. Importantly, so many drivers are immigrants who came to Canada, the so-called land of economic opportunity, only to find themselves racialized and forced into cheap labour markets.

There is no doubt that the Uber corporation is worthy of contempt. Nevertheless, something missing from the recent taxi strike was a working class perspective. By directing complaint at the illegality of Uber, the protests missed the point that taxi drivers and many Uber drivers actually share a common struggle. It also shifts responsibility away from the exploitative taxi companies who continue to profit from their drivers’ labour.

Still, in the so-called Uberizing economy taxi and Uber drivers alike should take stock of the incredible power they sit on, as demonstrated by the traffic-blocking protests. In Toronto, a city where business demands the fast-moving uninterrupted flow of people and goods, taxis (and Ubers) are a vital part of the transportation infrastructure. Organizing a city-wide shutdown is undoubtedly a useful way to make one’s voice heard.

Featured image from The National Post

Over the last year in Toronto, we’ve seen disbelief and anger swell amongst people as they’ve learned that the police in this city have “carded” some 1.2 million people between 2008-2013, with young black men being the most targeted group.  What has shocked people has been both the illegal and violating nature of the whole practice.  If you haven’t been a victim of this practice, just imagine what it must be like to be profiled, stopped, harassed, questioned about where you’re going and who you know.

Now, imagine if that invasion of your privacy extended right to your front door. Imagine living in a place where your every movement in and out of your house was tracked, viewed, and the recordings controlled by someone else.  Now, imagine that the people who control these cameras can be sitting at home, on their couch, watching you in real time.

Welcome to 3400 Eglinton Ave East, where the superintendents can watch the comings and goings of every resident from the comfort of their own living room.

As reported by BASICS recently, the conditions in this 16-story Scarborough high rise at Markham and Eglinton shock even those who have lived in Toronto’s “low-income” hoods most of our lives.  Water leaking from hallway ceilings. Rampant roach and bedbug infestations. Carpets that hadn’t seen a steam cleaner in years, and only finally ripped out this past November to leave exposed deadly slippery flooring. Elevators are in a chronic state of disrepair.  The father of one Caribbean family on the 6th floor recently told BASICS that he “got stuck halfway between the basement and first floor [back in October] with a pregnant woman and a kid. I had to pull them all out.”

Yet, with very few funds flowing to repairs, last year Premax Management Ltd somehow found the money to install surveillance cameras on every floor of the building.  Pointing in each direction when you exit the elevator, there are cameras recording the comings and goings of every person in the building.

Kim, a resident and mother on the 17th floor, describes her first encounter with these cameras:  “I just came out of my apartment one day and realized that there was a camera facing my door. As far as I know, there at least needs to be a notice put up if your landlord is watching you.”

Kim’s right. According to the guidelines set out by the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, prior to the installation of such a surveillance system, “consultations should be conducted with relevant stakeholders as to the necessity of the proposed video surveillance program and its acceptability to the public. Extensive public consultation should take place.” Such a consultation reportedly never happened.

A mother on the 9th floor, Benisha, who finally picked up and left the building this past November, told BASICS that back in June 2015 her entire load of laundry was stolen in the direct line of sight of the cameras. When she confronted one of the superintendents, Chamu, she was told that “That camera is not for all that stuff. It’s for when something happens in the building. If you have a problem with that, call the police… What do you want me to do about that right now? I tell you guys when you washing your clothes, ‘stay there, stay there’”.

Click here to listen to short audio segment from resident concerning stolen laundry

BASICS questioned the superintendent Chamu about the purpose of the surveillance cameras in the building, relaying concerns that residents had shared with us. Her response was brief: “Who has complaints with the cameras!? It’s for security.”  Chamu was more concerned with identifying those who were airing their grievances than giving a good explanation for why the cameras were installed. Again, more surveillance.

Abha*, an Indian mother who also lives in 3400, described two incidents where in spite of the existence of cameras, neither perpetrators nor lost property were ever located. “A year ago”, she says, “my friend saw a man looking lost, like he didn’t know where he was going in the building. My friend asked him if he was looking for something. He snatched her chain and ran down the staircase. We never found the chain though.”

Abha also relayed an incident about the cars of multiple residents being damaged in the parking lot. “It seemed as though the damage was intentional, as if someone had hit multiple cars in a row with a sharp rod of some sort.”  In the recent past, other residents have also reported to BASICS instances of their vehicles being damaged, even stolen, under the watchful eye of surveillance cameras. Residents reported that no action was taken by building management.

In six months of social investigation and literally hundreds of conversations by BASICS and allied community organizers, we have not come across a single story of the cameras being used to address people’s legitimate concerns about safety or protection of their personal belongings.  At least two residents specifically reported to us being robbed of their jewelry during building-related repairs.

But the problem at 3400 Eglinton is not that the cameras are going completely unused.

Many have reported that camera footage is indeed being used: used to harass residents about who visits their apartments, what personal consumer objects they own, and even the conversations they are having in the elevators or hallways.

In the spring of 2015, one single mother told a BASICS reporter that Chamu questioned her about a man who visited her apartment late. “She said to me: ‘You’re on welfare, you’re not supposed to be having any men over.’  A teenage girl residing on the 9th floor also reported that her mother was questioned about a man that had been in their unit. This man when her older brother, who came to stay with them for a few days.

A number of residents also believe that the cameras may also be equipped with audio. Karl Murray of the 6th floor told BASICS that: “You can say anything you want in the hallway, and they know about it. A lot of people are saying this. Somehow they know what people are talking about in their private conversations.”  A resident who wished not to be identified in this article backed up this suspicion by reporting that one of the few residents in the building who is close with the super told her earlier this year that the cameras are indeed audio equipped.

The ability of the cameras to record both movement and conversations disturbs many, particularly female residents. A resident and mother from the 6th floor, another Kim, also told BASICS that “I have to be conscious of what I’m wearing – it’s not like I’m wearing anything inappropriate, it’s just that it’s something I have to think about just outside my own home”. Michelle, who lives across from 6th floor Kim, said that “Women in this building do not feel safe… You should be able to have conversations without people using them against you.”

As we were talking to Kim on the 17th floor, one of the superintendents, Chet, arrived and threatened to remove BASICS correspondents from the building.

Though we could not acquire a legal opinion on the cameras prior to the print deadline on this article, a city inspector on site at 3400 Eglinton Ave this past October 2015 commented to a BASICS correspondent that personal surveillance of private activities seemed unlawful**.

Again, according to guidelines set out by the Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, “organizations should ensure that the proposed design and operation of the video surveillance system minimizes privacy intrusion to that which is absolutely necessary to achieve its required, lawful goals.”  

It’s not so clear if harassing residents, threatening people’s journalists, and ignoring people’s concerns about their personal belongings constitutes “lawful goals”, but that’s the law of the land at 3400 Eglinton Ave East.  

But like “the law” in general, as with police carding, when people don’t fight back, “the law” will oppress us. The “lawful” authorities will use illegal, criminal means to keep the people down. So it’s time to stand up.

*Name altered to respect privacy. Unlike the superintendents at 3400 Eglinton Ave E.
**Correction made at 7:36 PM on 27 December 2015. Original article read: “Though we could not acquire a legal opinion on the cameras prior to the print deadline on this article, a city inspector on site at 3400 Eglinton Ave this past October 2015 commented to a BASICS correspondent that the surveillance system seemed unlawful.”

In Toronto, one of the main ways that working class people find work when they find themselves out of a job and need to pay bills is through various temporary agencies. These agencies play the role of middlemen between corporations and workers. Corporations use them for a number of reasons, though they all add up to saving the corporations money. Workers hired through temporary agencies are often paid minimum wage, with the temporary agency making money off of each worker they supply to a company.

While it doesn’t immediately appear this way in any accounting books, what basically happens is that the temporary agency takes part of the money the worker would otherwise be paid for every hour of work. What is even worse about this is that this total amount is often still less than a ‘regular’ full-time employee of a company doing the same job makes per hour.

Javeed, a printing factory worker interviewed for this article, explained, “I’ve been working in this factory for eight months and still make minimum wage. The full-time packers make nearly double what I make, while machine operators make even more than that. I’m only working there as a temp so that I can get a job with the company, but it’s getting too frustrating. I have no idea how much money the temp. agency has been making off me, but i know they are making good money. I see the cars they drive there when I pick up my paycheques.”

These temporary agencies operate in different parts of the city, often on a particular ethnic, language or community basis, recruiting exploitable immigrants from all the various communities of Toronto so that companies can make an easy profit without having to worry about taking care of workers.

Sometimes, these temp. agencies attempt to take even more money from their workers by purposely not paying them for the hours they’ve worked and still refusing to pay even after a formal complaint has been made. A case of exactly this kind was brought to the attention of Basics several years ago in Etobicoke.

In this case, a worker named Mohammed was refused several days pay worth over $200 by his temp. agency after he finished working for them. This temp. agency particularly focused on recruiting workers from African backgrounds in the northwest part of the city and was controlled by one man out of a small office located in a strip mall.

However, Mohammed was able to get back his money after contacting the Solidarity Committee of the Industrial Workers of the World, who came out to his temp. bosses office with him and presented him with formal written and oral demands for the wages to be paid. This confrontation was enough to get this temp. agency to pay up.

As workers, many of us have no choice but to work for temporary agencies to pay the bills, though this doesn’t mean we should just accept their parasitical nature as natural or normal.

People should not profit off us by sitting in an office or even their own home and siphoning off money while we work in some of the most physically demanding and stressful jobs in the city, barely being able to afford to get to work each day. The same goes for the big corporations themselves and their executives and managers. All of these parasites make money off us each day and live luxurious lifestyles off the labour we provide for them, for which they pay us as few scraps as possible.

“I’ve been living here for three years, and last night was the first time I’ve seen anyone come to fix the laundry room,” says a 33-year old resident of 3400 Eglinton Avenue East.

The laundry room in the basement of the Markham and Eglinton area building is full of washing machines and dryers, but several residents have complained about them never working properly, gobbling up people’s cash for no return. On hot summer days and especially in cold winter months, when the snow piles up outside the building and on the sidewalks, they have to carry their laundry nearly half a kilometre to a laundromat.

But the night before Monday October 19, someone finally came to take a look at the machines in the laundry room. That might have been because on Monday morning, the 16-storey building in Scarborough Village was being audited by officers of Municipal Licensing and Standards from the City of Toronto.

Makeshift repair of padlock on door.

The building is in bad condition, both inside and outside. Residents frequently complain about an unresponsive management. Repairs and maintenance are rarely done in a timely manner. One couple became so tired of asking for repairs that they repainted and retiled the apartment themselves—“Not because we wanted to but because we had to. We did it to protect our family—we have two kids.”

Another resident had a broken lock on his door, finally replacing it with a padlock he installed himself after waiting months for the building management to make the repair.

The most common complaint of all residents is the dirty carpet in all of the hallways, which is stained throughout and often smells. “When visitors come, they smell it and think it is coming from our homes,” one resident said. The carpet had not been changed, according to some residents, for over ten years.

After the municipal inspectors ruled that the carpets are not kept in a “clean and sanitary condition” management is in discussion about replacing the carpet. They began to experiment with replacing the carpet on the second floor—where the building superintendent lives, and have now removed the carpet on all of the floors of the building.

A surveillance camera monitoring tenants movements in the building, surrounded by hastily repaired ceiling damaged by water leakage.

Leaks are very common in the building. On October 10, the ceiling of the 17th floor hallway was dripping water that we caught on video. When the superintendent was told about the leak, she simply denied it.On the 17th floor, residents say that leaks have led to mould growing in the carpet and floor.

On October 19, one resident showed BASICS her bathroom ceiling, which was caving in due to leaks from the unit above her. A few days later chunks of the ceiling and water actually fell on her, leaving a gaping hole in the ceiling. On November 6, a plumber finally came to “fix” the ceiling—but just seems to have papered over it poorly, with nothing done to actually fix the source of the leak. The area is damp to the touch with bubbles coming out of it. “I can still hear the water dripping,” the resident said. She continues to remain concerned about mould and mildew in the bathroom, a safety concern for her three-year old daughter.

The ceiling of this washroom collapsed on a tenant due to an unresolved issue with water damage from the unit above.

BASICS spoke to municipal officers who said that the state of disrepair in the building was not surprising. Dozens of apartment buildings throughout the city are in horrible condition because the owners simply treat them as a business from which they want to turn a profit.

Despite the municipal officer’s attempts, there was not much they could do about repairs inside units unless they directly received complaints from tenants. But there are many problems, and bringing up units to minimum standards did not mean that they were good standards. The minimum standards require the building to stick to the old code, and not the new one.

For example, the bathrooms in 3400 Eglinton Avenue East all have a passive ventilation system, good enough for the 1950s, but no longer standard—bathrooms now require fans to actively pump the damp air out. The old system not only does a poor job of pushing damp air out, it can even bring damp air in from outside and from other units. This leads to growing problems with mould and mildew.

Many residents do not allow their children onto the balcony because they feel that it is unsafe.

The best and maybe only way that residents can bring about a change, according to the municipal officer we spoke to, is to build community among themselves. That means keeping an eye out for each other and for the building, and holding unresponsive building owners to account through collective action. Limiting actions to filing individual complaints will not push the management to respond. Only through collective action can we actually put pressure on the management and building owner to make the changes that are necessary for the building. 

        he was shot to death twenty-six years ago.

        so many moons it has been. but still he does

        not believe himself to be dead.

        he could never die.

        he would never die.

        how invincible are the boys these days.

        so when the shots rang

        out over hot summer

        west side streets   

        he was sure it

        must have

        been a

        mistake.

        and if a small crowd gathered to

        watch his blood-drenched body

        turn the hot & dirty dark concrete

        a crimson red, he never would have

        known – for he was already        

        high up in the hills – four

        legs bounding – walking

        between worlds,

        scouring the

        dry earth for

        medicine.

Shono

¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York was on display at The Bronx, El Museo del Barrio and Loisaida museums in New York this fall. The exhibit displayed the immense body of art, culture, and politics that the Young Lords produced over the years, a sort of shrine to the radical love that the movement was so committed to.

The Young Lords Party (YLP) was a group of mainly Puerto Rican socialist revolutionaries who organized in cities across America during the 1960s-80s. The party was influenced by groups such as the Black Panther Party. YLP gradually transformed itself from a small network of gang members into a broader human rights movement pushing neighbourhood empowerment and Puerto Rican self-determination as its core missions.

Lining the walls of the Bronx Museum in particular are dozens of copies of Palante, The Young Lord, and Pitirre, the three newspapers produced by the party. These newspapers recounted the stories and culture that gave life to the Young Lords movement, and it is for this reason that the newspapers are still admired and displayed in museums to this day.

The newspapers documented the atrocities committed against these racialized working class groups over the years—violent racism, poor housing conditions, police brutality, and even a CIA undercover program to flood Puerto Rican neighbourhoods with heroin.

Countless other historical examples can be drawn of newspapers acting as a central means of uniting people by documenting struggle—notably, the Black Panther Party paper, which outlined the famous 10-point program calling for ‘Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice, and Peace’ among other demands. Another is the Detroit Revolutionary Union Movement newspaper, Inner City Voice, that was not only the voice of radical politics in working class black Detroit but also published articles on guerrilla movements in Latin America, women’s liberation, and anti-war movements during the 1960s. The titles of the headlines in this paper make it clear the ideological agenda it promoted: “Michigan Slavery”, “Cops on rampage- 14 year old shot”, or “Black worker uprising”, to name but a few. The newspaper here was used as not only as a tool for education and empowerment, but also to counter the hegemonic discourse of capitalist publications that were all but silent on the substantive issues of class, race, or gender.

The culture of revolution: Documenting and archiving the Young Lords struggle in New York circa 1970

While the newspaper can be a tool used for social change, if in the hands of the wrong people it can also be a tool used to control people. The bourgeois mass media—most large-scale television, radio, and newspapers that are run to make a profit—don’t tell the stories that reflect people’s struggles. Rather, they skew and distort stories to make them more palatable, pleasant, and less ‘threatening’ to the social order. This is because the mass media is controlled by people who have a vested interest in the status quo, and whose profit or dominance is threatened by the idea of large-scale social change–that is, they are capitalist enterprises.

Stories that are run by the bourgeois media claim to take a ‘neutral’ stance, but in truth they are pushing a very carefully constructed, de-politicized point of view. They could not, for example, publish an article pushing a specific anti-capitalist, anti-racist, or anti-colonial perspective.

Even the best left-wing journalist enterprises are most often bourgeois media, and because of this their stories are limited in scope and purpose. The Toronto Star is an excellent example of this. The Star can run an editorial on the ongoing genocide of Palestinians by the settler colony Israel but at the same time endorse Liberal leader Justin Trudeau for Prime Minister–a man who is a professed Zionist and apologist for Israeli apartheid.

Likewise, right-wing publications in Toronto appeal outright to populism with no attempt at critical commentary. The Toronto Sun, for example, has strong ties to capitalist think-tanks (the Fraser Institute, C.D. Howe Institute, or Conference Board of Canada to name a few) that are funded by corporations or political interests with deep pockets.

The community newspaper, then, has a duty to expose these faults in the mass media, to poke holes in its ideology at every opportunity, and to document instead the stories that reflect the experiences of the working class.

Archived front pages of Young Lords newspapers on display at the Bronx Museum, New York

It is newspapers like those produced by the Young Lords that recount the story of revolution and a creative imagination of another world that is possible. More than that, it reminds us of the need to document and archive struggle. In many ways this same documenting and archiving drives hip hop’s need to preserve the history and legacies of slavery and racism in America, and other artistic representations of suffering and loss. And, because the newspaper is mass-distributed, it is a useful tool for uniting many of us in a common struggle—to bring people together by documenting the livelihoods, stories, and collective memory of exploitation endured by working-class people.

Archives of Palante can be found online here.

Radio Basics interviewed the Young Lords founder José Cha Cha Jiménez, archived here.