By Basics Editorial Committee “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.” – Assata Shakur On Saturday March 26th, over a thousand people gathered for #BlackOut Against Police Brutality to demand justice for Andrew Loku and Alex Wettlaufer …
By Liam Fox On December 9th, taxi drivers from across Toronto staged a series of protests against the rival company Uber. Protesters shut down four high traffic areas before finishing with a demonstration at City Hall, calling upon the mayor to ‘bring justice’ to drivers by stopping Uber from operating illegally. These disruptions reverberated throughout …
By: Steve da Silva & Harshita Singh Over the last year in Toronto, we’ve seen disbelief and anger swell amongst people as they’ve learned that the police in this city have “carded” some 1.2 million people between 2008-2013, with young black men being the most targeted group. What has shocked people has been both the …
By: Noaman G. Ali “I’ve been living here for three years, and last night was the first time I’ve seen anyone come to fix the laundry room,” says a 33-year old resident of 3400 Eglinton Avenue East. The laundry room in the basement of the Markham and Eglinton area building is full of washing machines …
By Saeed Mohammed Scarborough’s very own Abel Tesfaye—or The Weeknd as he is more popularly known—has made conscious choices of the new direction of his career. The goal is simple, as he states in a New York Times article, to become the biggest pop star on the planet. The Weeknd sings in representation of the …
By: Nooria Alam On the afternoon of July 16th protesters from the Black Lives Matter Toronto Coalition disrupted the Toronto Police Service’s monthly board meeting, demanding answers directly from the Mayor as well as the Chief of Police in the aftermath of the death of Andrew Loku at the hands of a Toronto Police Officer a …
by Harshita Singh In 2014, the Toronto Community Housing Corporation issued its annual Performance Report, a document which measures whether TCHC reached its own targets in providing repairs and “sustainable living” conditions for tenants. Last year’s report included a section for Resident Satisfaction. This new section meant to examine whether there was an “increase …
by Ellie Adekur-Carlson When Mark Saunders and Peter Sloly were shortlisted as candidates for Chief Bill Blair’s job, it struck up a city-wide dialogue around diversity and the role of a Black police chief in tackling issues of anti-Black racism within the Toronto Police Service. Communities were proud to watch, for the first time, as …
by Michael Romandel On May 1, 2015, the board of CHRY 105.5 FM—the York University community radio station—fired all of its volunteers and community programmers and re-branded itself as VIBE 105.5. VIBE 105.5 now advertises itself as an alt-urban music station, playing electronic music, reggae, soca, r&b and hip-hop. Upset and offended community residents, …
by Harshita Singh “Two people have been killed since I moved in here. Of course I feel unsafe. I feel more safe in the street than in my home.” This is how Maryam*, a woman in her early twenties and a three-year resident of 3171 Eglinton Avenue—one of the TCHC high-rises at the intersection …
