Protesters’ message must lead to action
At the halfway juncture of 2020, the world suddenly seems a smaller, more connected but vastly more troubled place.
Virtually no country, no human life, has gone unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic that began last winter. That’s a given.
But in more recent days, the brutal police killing of a helpless Black man in Minneapolis has sent new shock waves around the planet, inspiring people in unprecedented numbers to speak out against systemic racism. Angry and aroused, they’re demanding action to eradicate a different but also lethal kind of virus — the virus of race-based hatred.
Those shock waves reverberated in Waterloo Region on Wednesday, when thousands of protesters peacefully paraded through downtown Kitchener. The K-W Solidarity March for Black Lives Matter was one of the largest, local mass demonstrations in recent memory. Although police offered no official estimate of the crowd’s size, some observers reckon between 12,000 and 20,000 demonstrators participated.
On the minds of everyone present was the horrifying death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer last week. A terrifying and heartbreaking video showed the officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes while, before he died, Floyd pleaded he couldn’t breathe.
As we said, the world is a more connected place than ever. The K-W Solidarity March protesters were clearly denouncing the injustice of Floyd’s killing by a law enforcement official employed by an American municipal government.
But the protesters were not simply finger-pointing at another tragic example of racial oppression in the United States. They were protesting systemic racism in Canada. They were indignant about the abuses of police power that have occurred in this country and that have disproportionately harmed racialized minorities, in particular Black and Indigenous people.
The pictures and videos of the K-W Solidarity March are instructive. The crowd was diverse. It included Black individuals who testified to the wrongs they’ve personally suffered. But the crowd also included many white individuals who were there showing support, signalling they share the outrage of their racialized neighbours and that they, too, seek change.
All these are hopeful signs. The solidarity march showed that Black members of this community are not alone in this struggle. They have the backing of thousands of people from different racial backgrounds who have not personally experienced the pain of racist abuse.
It’s too soon to know where all this is going. The fact that similar protests have filled city streets not just in the United States and Canada but in Mexico, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, France, Denmark, Italy, Syria, Kenya, New Zealand, Australia and elsewhere suggests a great awakening.
This is authentic people power, which is what democracy is all about. Governments at all levels should listen carefully. They should also act.
Clearly, the people on the streets of downtown Kitchener this week are crying out for change. We urge the governments of Waterloo Region to recognize as never before the inequalities that tarnish even this affluent and, in so many other ways, progressive community. Open new channels of dialogue. Empower more people. Act on their advice.
We expect change, too, from the Ontario and federal governments. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been unconscionably slow in implementing the recommendations to improve the lot of Indigenous people that came out of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
There can be change. There must be change. Today’s world is too small, too troubled and too interconnected for it not to happen.