YOUTH AGAINST CARDING
Remarks to police board were just the start for activist duo
Two Grade 8 students who addressed the police services board over carding want to mobilize the city’s youth,
Meghan Sage-Wolfe and Sapphire Newman-Fogel definitely stuck out at the Toronto Police Services Board presentations earlier this month.
The pair, who both gave remarks on the board’s revised carding policy, aren’t police officers or community members who’ve experienced carding themselves.
They’re just two Grade 8 students from City View Alternative Senior School — and they’re only 13 years old.
“People of any one skin colour are not born more likely to commit crimes in our city. The Toronto Police are here to ‘serve and protect’ our community, so why are they targeting black people and contributing to a very serious divide in our city?” Newman-Fogel questioned in the pair’s deputation to the board on Thursday.
And they’re not stopping there. The two Toronto residents are now launching a “Youth Against Carding” campaign in hopes of bringing together young people of various backgrounds — including black and brown youth — to take a stand against the controversial policing tactic.
Sage-Wolfe and Newman-Fogel say they’re partnering with other community groups, particularly those connected with the city’s black and brown communities, and various local schools, in hopes of conducting “know your rights” workshops to teach youth about their rights during encounters with police. “In reality, they have the right to walk away and remain silent, but not a lot of youth know that,” Sage-Wolfe says.
Last week, the Toronto police board passed a revised policy on carding, a practice where officers stop, question and document citizens — which a Star investigation found had disproportionately targeted young brown and black men.
The policy was rushed through before chief Bill Blair left on Friday and has been criticized for lacking citizen safeguards sought by the board a year ago.
Speaking to the Star downtown on Blair’s last day, Sage-Wolfe and Newman-Fogel say their interest in the contentious policing practice stems from a documentary on carding they produced in school, and their own experience witnessing a friend seemingly being racially profiled on the TTC.
The two girls, along with another white, female friend, went through one day with transfers — while their other friend, a black male, was stopped and questioned.
“That’s just sort of an early sign of how racism can affect somebody like our friend,” says Sage-Wolfe.
Both acknowledge that they can’t speak for people from Toronto’s black and brown communities, but say racism is a universal issue.
“When our friends and community members are affected, we’re affected too,” says Newman-Fogel. “It’s something we all have to stand up for.”
“People do say, ‘You’re two white girls talking about an issue that really doesn’t have to do with you,’ ” SageWolfe adds.
Yes, both girls look white. But SageWolfe identifies as aboriginal and Newman-Fogel as Jewish, and both say they have an understanding of racism thanks to their backgrounds.
“I grew up hearing about what my grandmother had to deal with in residential schools,” Sage-Wolfe explains.
Social justice also runs in the blood of these two lifelong friends who’ve known each other since they were 2 years old.
Sage-Wolfe says her mother is a criminal defence lawyer who sits on a committee focused on stopping racial profiling. And one of NewmanFogel’s moms — she has four, technically, since her mothers split up and now have new partners — is a feminist and professor of sociology and gender studies, while another one of her moms is a teacher who helps children with addiction problems.
Both girls are also attending a westend alternative school focused on social justice and activism best known for opening the Toronto District School Board’s first all-gender washroom in 2013 after a petition from students. It’s no surprise, then, that these two girls are taking a stand against a practice they see as racist and detrimental to the community. But, they stress, it’s not about them. “It’s not Meghan and Sapphire against carding,” Newman-Fogel says. “It’s youth against carding.” With files from Star staff