On Salt Spring, crowd kneels for George Floyd

More than 200 people gathered in Salt Spring’s Centennial Park for an anti-racism event Saturday afternoon.

The two-hour event, called Black, Indigenous and People of Colour Lives Matter, featured storytelling, music and poetry and was organized by BIPOC Community Collective, a group that formed recently in response to antiracism demonstrations around the world.

Ki Gay, one of the group’s founders, said she got involved because she was tired of being silent.

“I was tired of hearing my daughter say she was afraid to die,” said Gay, who is Black. Her daughter, Lilyanna, is five years old.

Gay was one of several speakers who shared personal stories of racism they’ve experienced in their community on Salt Spring and elsewhere. Gay spoke about racism in public education and the need to include anti-racism learning in the school curriculum.

She advocated for defunding the police and to reallocate funds to mental-health professionals and social workers to respond to non-criminal 911 calls.

The event included eight minutes and 46 seconds of silence to honour George Floyd, a Black man killed by a white Minneapolis police officer; Breonna Taylor, a Black woman killed in her own home by police in Kentucky; and Chantel Moore, an Indigenous woman who was fatally shot by police conducting a wellness check in New Brunswick.

While the crowd kneeled for nearly nine minutes, organizers read out the names of victims of police brutality.

Gay said people struggled to kneel for eight minutes and 46 seconds, which is the length of time the former Minneapolis officer knelt on Floyd’s neck, ignoring his “I can’t breathe” cries.

“Legs were shaking, their bodies were perplexed. People were uncomfortable. How could you not feel uncomfortable?” she said.

The event also recognized the many missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada.

Organizers asked everyone attending to maintain two metres of distance, wear masks if physical distancing wasn’t possible and stay home if sick.