Mammoliti’s language is chilling
Well before they took to their machetes in 1994, Hutu extremists on hate radio in Rwanda had a dehumanizing name for the Tutsis: they were called the inyenzi or “cockroach.”
When the time came, the call for action was broadcast on radio, ordering Hutus to rise up and kill the “cockroaches.”
That equating of humans to insects or vermin was important to aid the majority group into rationalizing the genocide that was to happen, leaving 800,000 people dead.
History has well documented this pre-genocidal step of dividing people into us and them.
In recent days, we’ve heard the U.S. president — whose racist rhetoric is too long to list here — dehumanize various people by calling them “dogs” and resort to racist stereotypes by calling Black congresswoman Maxine Waters “an extraordinarily low IQ person.”
In continued debasing of the language, Toronto Mayor John Tory used the words “anti-social sewer rats” to describe suspects of gun violence. Then this past weekend, Ward 7 Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti escalated anti-Black rhetoric by voicing again a term he had used earlier in August, while urging the eviction of “killers” and “drug dealers” from community housing in the Jane and Finch area. People living in poverty live in community housing and, in Toronto, poverty disproportionately impacts Black communities. The 2016 census data shows the Jane and Finch neighbourhood is predominantly populated by Black people.
“I see it like spraying down a building full of cockroaches,” he said on Rebel Media. “The cockroaches are just going to scatter, right? So start evicting them. Let them scatter.”
Cockroaches. I don’t know whether Mammoliti knows the deadly significance of that word that he doubled down upon on Wednesday. His intention is not under discussion here. The outcome of his language is.
In the context of rising white extremism, and provincial and municipal governments favouring increased policing and surveillance of Black communities, Mammoliti’s language is chilling for those listening closely.
Equally chilling is the lack of alarm in mainstream media and therefore wider society; the lack of censure, the indifference.
After all, many of the blasé folks will point out, why take seriously a man with one of the worst attendance records at city council, a man the integrity commissioner found had violated the councillors’ code of conduct by accepting $80,000 in relation to a fundraiser?
Shrugging off this latest transgression as bombast, however, shrugs off the harm caused by hate speech.
The brushing off of Donald Trump’s candidacy on those very grounds is not that far back in history, but we just don’t like to learn.
According to the international organization Genocide Watch that lists the eight stages of genocide, No. 3 is “dehumanization.”
Cockroaches. Dogs. Gangsters. No. 5 is “polarization.” The needless optics of two white men (Mammoliti and Corrections Minister Michael Tibollo) parading around Jane and Finch in bulletproof vests in July.
No. 7 is “preparation: victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity. Death lists are drawn up. Members of victim groups are forced to wear identifying symbols. Their property is expropriated.” Evict them. Can we see why this language and the subsequent indifference are frightening? Mammoliti may well say he simply wants to evict the bad guys. That would make it the world’s first homelessness-as-rehabilitation policy.
Even if you were to follow this puerile logic, how would he identify the bad guys? Those with criminal records? They cannot be punished again if they’ve served their time. Those dealing drugs? There’s legal recourse for that. Those hanging around? “Loitering”? Of course Mammoliti is a proponent of carding: the police system of stopping, questioning and documenting the information of disproportionately more Black and brown-skinned citizens, even if they are not suspected of criminal activity.
Already Toronto’s plan to place 200 more officers in “priority areas” in the evening is going to place restrictions on the movement of Black people at night.
Never mind that experts have said over-policing of communities and unfairly criminalizing its members work against policing crime in the long run.
An open letter this week by a group of physicians and public health researchers says dehumanizing language not only engenders racism but also poses a public health risk for racialized communities.
This is no time for discomfort with confronting racism. This is the time to build empathy, to organize and stand up for the most vulnerable among us.
Let’s be clear: they are under attack.