Sankofa
Chief Mark Saunders @torontopolice has acknowledged “we cannot arrest our way out” of a gun or gang problem. Yet @cityofto spends more on policing ($1 billion +) than affordable housing, education, homelessness, childcare, parks & rec services, arts & culture... COMBINED.
In his TEDx talk about how Tupac inspires better policing, Anthony Morgan emphasizes that increased spending on cops has not (and *cannot*) solve violence.
Instead of a war on poverty
They got a war on drugs
So police can bother me
- Tupac Shakur
@AnthonyNMorgan describes his journey from being over-policed as a Black youth, to lawyering for Black lives, to his current role in public service that centres Black lives. He proposes a culturally responsive framework to address systemic disparities faced by Black Canadians.
Sankofa is a principle derived from the Akan people of Ghana. It translates as “To reach back and get it.” Sankofa recognizes that while we are all equal, we are not all the same.
In questions of charges being laid or judicial sentencing, the Africentric principle of justice asks police, Crown prosecutors and judges who have an African Canadian suspect, accused or convicted individual before them to apply a Sankofa analysis. Factors to consider include:
Did the individual live in or was he or she arrested in a highly policed community?
Was he or she streamed in school towards less academically rigorous programs?
Was he or she ever suspended or expelled from school, or did he or she ultimately decide to drop out?
Has the individual or any of his or her primary caregivers experienced serious mental health challenges?
Did he or she experience child poverty or come from a family reliant on social assistance?
Was he or she ever a Crown ward within the child welfare system?
Did the individual grow up in or does he or she still live in a low-income household?
Does the individual have an incarcerated or absentee parent?
Did the individual or his or her family arrive in Canada as refugees or through some form of forced displacement?
We need to think long and hard about our spending priorities. We must improve social determinants by properly funding affordable housing, education, mental health, free transit, after school programs, etc. Every dollar spent on police should be heavily scrutinized.
Police cannot be relied on as the primary means of making communities safer. It is false security.
There is plenty of room to rethink the status quo. The starting point is to wholeheartedly invest in the populace, which will allow communities to flourish and thrive. A better world is possible.
Reality is wrong
Dreams are for real
- Tupac Shakur