Categories
Africa Entertainment Obama U.S.

Why Obama ordered the Navy to kill three Black teenagers

Depending on how old you are, you may, or may not, remember stories about Somali “pirates” that emerged around 2009. One story that got international attention happened over five days in April 2009.

Four Somali teenagers took over the American Maersk Alabama cargo ship and took its captain, Richard Phillips, hostage in one of the life boats until the U.S. Navy showed up and killed three of the teenagers. They captured the leader and brought him to the U.S. where he was tried and sentenced to 33 years in prison. Below is a letter I recently mailed to Abdulwali Muse:

March 25, 2021

FCI Terre Haute, FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION, P.O. BOX 33, TERRE HAUTE, IN  47808

ATTN: Abdulwali Muse, register #: 70636-054

Brother Abduwali,

I recently read more about what led to you serving your current sentence. What happened to you shows how unfair the U.S. justice system is, especially to Black people…wherever they’re from.

I co-lead the 613-819 Black Hub, an Ottawa, Canada-based Black advocacy group. We work on issues of systemic anti-Black racism and discrimination and, although we act very locally, we think globally. We think about why we only found out about you because of the movie Captain Phillips. We think about why the movie, as its title illustrates, is focussed on the white man’s experience instead of you and your friends’. We wonder why we heard lots about Somali “pirates” attacking ships, apparently out of greed, but little of how, for many years earlier, countries illegally fishing off Somalia’s coast and dumping toxic waste depleted the fish stocks and robbed Somali fishermen of their livelihood.

We ask why they tried you as an adult when your mom said you were 16 at the time…And why did they sentence you to 33 years in prison, for a crime where no one was killed except your friends, in a country whose own president gets off free after inciting a treasonous insurrection that left five people dead?

We have stories here of young brothers ending up dead after turning to activities that put them in harm’s way because they felt they had no other choice. Eighteen-year-old brother Manyok Akol, shot dead in Jan. 2020, rapped under the name FTG Metro and spoke about how he and his friends had few choices in their west end Ottawa neighborhood.

But things changed last year with George Floyd’s death and the pandemic.

Anti-Black racism has been exposed in a way that can never be reversed – because Black activists won’t let it be. Here in Ottawa, we’re fighting to get our city council to freeze our police budget and invest in social services, like housing and employment. I’m mentoring a young brother who’s a refugee from Rwanda and wants to go into nursing. This Saturday I have arranged for him to speak to a local Black surgeon to help the brother expand his ambitions and perhaps aspire to becoming a doctor himself. People of African descent are spreading positive Blacktivity all over the world. And we will not be stopped. 

Stay strong my brother.

Barack Obama was president in 2009, having been elected for this first time in November 2008. In his 2020 book, The Promised Land, Obama wrote about the incident and the deaths of the three teenagers – which he authorized:

“The news elicited high fives all around the White House. The Washington Post headline declared it AN EARLY MILITARY VICTORY FOR OBAMA. But, as relieved as I was to see Captain Phillips reunited with his family and as proud as I was of our navy personnel for their handling of the situation, I wasn’t inclined to beat my chest over the episode…I realized that, around the world, in places like Yemen, and Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, the lives of millions of young men like those three dead Somalis (some of the boys, really, since the oldest pirate was believed to be nineteen), had been warped and stunted by desperation, ignorance, dreams of religious glory, the violence of their surroundings or the schemes of older men. They were dangerous, these young men, often deliberately and casually cruel. Still, in the aggregate, at least, I wanted somehow to save them – send them to school, give them a trade, drain them of the hate that had been filing their heads. And yet, the world they were a part of, and the machinery I commanded, more often had me killing them instead.”

If Obama wanted to save these kids, why didn’t he commute Muse’s 33 year sentence like he reportedly did for 214 federal prisoners in August 2016, about five months before he left office?

Did countries then, and do they now, have rules to ensure that their companies don’t buy fish for us to eat that were caught illegally? Do we ask the stores where we buy our fish the same thing? Do countries have similar rules about where their toxic waste gets dumped? If they have such rules, do they enforce them?

Why were young men like Muse immediately labelled as “pirates” when, initially, they were simply trying to protect their livelihood?

The 2013 movie Captain Phillips, starring Tom Hanks, is based on the memoir by the real Captain Richard Phillips, A Captain’s Duty. Although Phillips is portrayed as a hero who risks his life to save his crew, lawsuits filed by some of his former crew suggest a different story. In October 2013, the lawyer for nine of the 23-member crew who sued the company that owned the ship gave the Business Insider a different picture of Captain Phillips: “To make him into a hero for driving this boat and these men into pirate-infested waters, that’s the real injustice here. The movie tells a highly fictionalized version of what actually happened.”, said attorney Brian Beckcom. Phillips was not named in the suit.

I tried to find out how much money Columbia and Sony paid Phillips for the rights to his book but even the mighty Google couldn’t tell me.

Muse’s story is an international version of what has been happening to young Black men in the U.S. and Canada for decades. Systemic anti-Black racism leaves few choices that herd them down the path to criminality. The systemic racism is ignored but they’re harshly punished for their crimes. Then their pursuit and capture is turned into lucrative entertainment through TV shows like COPS and movies like Captain Phillips.

There often isn’t a bright side, but there is one to this story…

For his role as Muse in the film, Somali-born, Minneapolis-based actor, Barkhad Abdi, was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actor, the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and a Golden Globe Award. And he won a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor. Abdi was born in the Somali capital, Mogadishu but fled to Yemen with his family when he was six or seven, when the Somali Civil War broke out. In 1999, Abdi and his family relocated to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where there is a large Somali community. He sold mobile phones at his brother’s shop at a mall, worked as a limousine driver at a relative’s chauffeur company and as a DJ before landing the movie role. Neither he, nor his three friends who played the other pirates, had ever acted before.

Adbi has since appeared in several other films, made his directorial debut with the Somali film Ciyaalka Xaafada, and directed several music videos. He now splits his time between Los Angeles and Minnesota.

After the Maersk Alabama hijacking, shipping companies instituted new security measures that have reduced attacks to nearly zero.

So ships deliver their goods to us unhindered as the world continues ignoring where our toxic waste is dumped as long as it’s not in our backyard.

But we will not be ignored.

Categories
FBC House negroes Small Claims Court

The Federation of Black Bullies

Len Carby and Richard Picart, two of the original members of the Federation of Black Canadians (FBC) steering committee, are suing me for $45,000 and $35,000 dollars respectively. In fairness, I sued them first, but Carby is also suing the Black single mom, who served my libel suit papers on him, for $35,000. He’s suing her for “falsifying” the document she served on him because she made a couple of mistakes that were quickly corrected. That’s right: Len Carby is suing a Black single mom for doing her job. And he hired a Black woman to help him – Shala McDonald, a paralegal with Okola Law which is owned by another Black woman, Stephanie Okola.

Carby’s law suit against me and the single mom are the latest in confirmed and alleged bad behaviour by former FBC steering committee members.

In my post, Tales from the Plantation #2, I talked about how I was on interchange with the FBC from January to May 2019. Shortly after starting, I began questioning behaviour I felt demonstrated a lack of transparency, competence and connection to community concerns. On May 27, the FBC terminated my interchange. In their email to my department announcing my termination, the FBC made 10 allegations against me including that I had “physically threatened my direct report” at the FBC, a completely false claim. Len Carby sent the email so I launched a $6700 libel suit against him. His $45,000 counter suit alleges that I libelled and slandered him, including calling him a house negro (which I did, but that’s not libel as it’s an opinion…with which Carby clearly disagrees).

On March 27, 2019, when I was working with the FBC, I noticed an item in the minutes from the last meeting about the FBC getting approval to use some funding they had gotten from the Michaelle Jean Foundation (MJF) to support the FBC’s membership growth. As Carby was in charge of finance at the time, and had asked me to work on an application for federal government funding, I asked him how much the MJF funding was. This was relevant because the federal funding application asked what other sources of funding we had.

After several evasive answers, in which he never told me the amount, Carby wrote:

“I suggest you think about these relentless emails. They amount to attempts at bullying and I will not have it. If you copy [your colleague] on any conversation that does not relate to anything he is working on, your email will be ignored. You have a reporting relationship with the FBC though (sic) me and your personal relationship with [your colleague] has nothing to do with that. I am clear with my instructions about the Funding (sic) application and you have everything you need to complete your work.”

He considered my request for transparency as bullying when, in fact, he was the one doing the bullying because he had the power, being my boss.

I called both Carby and Picart house negroes because, in my view, they were behaving like Samuel L. Jackson’s character Stephen in the movie Django Unchained. Stephen is one of plantation owner Calvin Candy’s house negroes. When Stephen realizes that former slave Django is trying to trick his master, he tells his master and gets Django captured and nearly killed. In one scene, with Django hanging upside down, naked in chains, Stephen tells him that they’re not going to castrate him because he would bleed out. Instead they’re going to send him to a work camp where he will be worked to death.

When Carby emailed my department, knowing what I said my white managers had done to me, he was, in my view, engaging in house negro activity like Stephen.

These days, to be considered house negro activity, the activity must benefit those doing it, it must harm the Black community or impede things that could help the community and the people must not reply to – or aggressively resist – questions of accountability.

The topic of house negroes was also raised in March 2021 during the Ontario Judicial Council’s second hearing into judicial misconduct of FBC founder and former Chair, Justice Donald McLeod, a long time friend of Carby. (McLeod was cleared of perjury allegations.)

Justice McLeod’s defence team raised the topic of house negroes on the last day of his 2nd hearing. They called Dr. Wendell Adjetey to testify as he had at McLeod’s first hearing. Adjetey is a McGill University historian who specializes in the post-Reconstruction United States, specializing on the African American experience. Like he did at McLeod’s first hearing, he gave a short outline of the history, and current state, of systemic anti-Black racism in Canada. However, this time, McLeod’s lawyers specifically asked him to explain the significance of the term house negro to the all-white panel. Adjetey then did so, but used the term house n-word instead. McLeod’s lawyers didn’t say why they asked him to do this.

Many folks in the Black community, especially supporters of Justice McLeod, say myself and others, like journalist and author Desmond Cole, shouldn’t write posts like this that “air our community’s dirty laundry in public”. They tell us we should “talk it out in private”.

Did Carby attempt to talk to the single Black mom before deciding to sue her for doing her job?

If Carby cares so much about the Black community and justice, has he asked his employer, the Royal Bank of Canada, why they weren’t among the more than 450 companies that originally signed the Black North Initiative pledge to work to remove corporate Canada’s anti-Black systemic barriers or why a petition was recently launched against RBC for “climate destruction and violation of Indigenous rights”?

People like Carby and Picart don’t want to air our dirty laundry in public or in private – because they’re the ones dirtying it.

We must praise our leaders when they do good and hold them accountable when they do wrong. And we must all realize that we all can step up to lead ourselves in big and small ways.

Notes: Former FBC Chair Dahabo Ahmed-Omer is now Executive Director of the Black North Initiative. My comments apply only to former FBC steering committee members not current ones or staff.

Sometime after this was posted, the Black North Initiative removed all trace of the Pledge or who signed it from their website.

Update – On Oct. 18, 2021, Carby served me with an amended claim in which he revised his claim against Ms. Hylton to $11,017.

Categories
Financial literacy

Financial literacy: the key to building wealth – and keeping it

Many of our efforts as Blacktivists focus on helping Black Canadians improve their economic situation. However, if Black folks aren’t financially literate, any money they get will go in one hand and out the other – and the hand it goes out to likely won’t be Black. Financial literacy is crucial to building inter-generational wealth. But what does it mean to be financially literate?

Well, in addition to basics like budgeting, financially literacy means knowing how to:

  1. Break the cycle of falling prey to predatory lenders
  2. Find out, and improve your credit score; and
  3. Reduce your taxes.

Avoid payday loans

Predatory lenders like payday loan companies target working people on low incomes. “Their ads pop up on computer screens and phones, offering fast access to cash”, according to Cathy O’Neil in her 2016 book Weapons of Math Destruction. A payday loan is a short-term loan with high fees and interest rates that make it a very expensive way to borrow money. You can borrow up to $1,500. You must pay the loan back from your next pay cheque. If you can’t pay it back on time, you face more fees and interest charges that increase your debt. Payday loans are meant to cover a cash shortfall until your next pay.

The Government of Canada has information about pay day loans including the graphic below that starkly shows their high price compared to other forms of borrowing.

Learn your credit score

Credit lets you get goods or services before you pay for them, based on the trust that you’ll pay for them in the future. Credit cards let you buy relatively small things like groceries, and loans, lines of credit and mortgages let you get bigger things like cars or houses.

Your credit report is a summary of your credit history. It’s a record of when you’ve bought things on credit and how well you’ve done at paying things back. How well you’ve done is represented by your credit score, a three-digit number that comes from your credit report. It shows how well you manage credit and how risky it would be for a lender to lend you money.

Why your credit history matters

Financial institutions look at your credit report and credit score to decide if they will lend you money. They also use them to determine how much interest they will charge you to borrow money.

If you have no credit history or a poor credit history, it could be harder for you to get a credit card, loan or mortgage. It could even affect your ability to rent a house or apartment or get hired for a job. If you have good credit history, you may be able to get a lower interest rate on loans. This can save you a lot of money over time. (For more info see Credit report and score basics and Improving your credit score from the Government of Canada.)

Reducing your taxes

Two ways to reduce your taxes are to claim deductions and tax credits on your taxes. Deductions reduce the amount of income you get taxed on, called your taxable income. Tax credits then reduce how much tax you pay on your taxable income.

One of the most common deductions comes from putting money in things like a Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP). You can deduct money you deposit in an RRSP, up to a limit based on, among other things, the income you earned in previous years.

Other deductions include:

  • child care expenses for children under 16 years old;
  • expenses a person with a disability paid to earn income or go to school; and
  • support payments to a spouse, common-law partner or child under a separation agreement or court order. (More info on federal deductions)

Tax credits reduce the tax you pay on your taxable income. The more tax credits that apply to you, the more you can reduce your income tax.

The best known tax credit is the Basic Personal Amount (BPA) which is used to ensure that people making a certain amount, or below, don’t have to pay any federal tax. In 2020, the BPA was $13,229 so anyone making $13,229 or less didn’t have to pay any tax. People earning above this amount were able to claim 15% of $13,229, or $1,984.35. (More info on Tax Credits.)

So increase your financial literacy and share what you learn with others in your community so that everyone can get better at achieving goals like buying a house or paying for their children’s education.

Together we grow stronger – and wealthier.

Categories
Home ownership Small Claims Court

Small claims, big results: the power of suing our oppressors

Of all the tools Black employees can use to battle the discrimination they face in their federal government jobs small claims court is, by far, the most powerful. There are several reasons for this but the simplest is: when people discriminate against Black people – because we’re Black – they break human rights laws and/or codes and that often means we can sue them. Small claims is also much cheaper and faster than a full trial and includes a mandatory, confidential settlement conference that brings the two parties together with a judge to find a solution and, hopefully, avoid a trial.

Filing a small claims suit in Ontario cost about $100 and can be done online. Once you file your suit, and serve the papers on the defendant (i.e. delivers the papers to them physically, which you can do yourself or hire a bailiff to do for around $100), the defendant has 20 calendar days to respond or they can be found guilty and be required to pay you the amount you’re suing them for. The maximum amount is $35,000.

If they don’t file a defence, you can have them found “in default” which can lead to you having the right to collect your money using a collection agency or even garnishing their wages from their employer. If they file a defence the next step is a mandatory settlement conference that, as mentioned above, brings the two parties together with a judge to find a solution and, hopefully, avoid a trial.

The settlement conference is key to the power of small claims court as it gives the defendant a clear choice: settle, pay you and keep it all confidential or go to trial which will be much more expensive and lengthy, where they’re likely to lose because they broke laws and where everything they did will be made public. Given that choice, most will pay and, if they don’t, you can always take them to trial or drop the suit.

An employee I worked with sued the investigator her department hired to back up some bogus claims against her with an equally bogus report. The investigator got a lawyer to send her a letter saying her suit was “without merit” and threatening to sue her for lots of money if she didn’t drop it. When she ignored the threat, the investigator filed a defence and was then required to attend the mandatory settlement conference which he did with two lawyers. The employee attended by herself. She had sued the investigator for around $7000. When the judge asked her what it would take to settle, she realized she hadn’t really thought about it because it wasn’t about money for her, it was about principle. She blurted out, “$2000”. After it was all over the investigator agreed to pay her $2000.

Since you must physically deliver, or have delivered, your claim documents to the defendant, you must know either their work or home address. With many people working from home during COVID, another likely small claims cost is paying someone to find the address of the person you want sue. I have used a private detective agency twice, for $687 each time. Always include costs like this and hiring a bailiff in the amount for which you’re suing.

Black people across Canada could start making the legal system work for us instead of against us, as it too often does, by suing our oppressors and investing our winnings towards home ownership. We could then teach other folks in our communities to do the same.

Call it the courthouse to our house pipeline.

Now, that would be power.

Categories
Accountability FBC Leadership

Don’t judge people on their character…judge them on their actions (all of them)

I spent most of the last two weeks glued to the Ontario Judicial Council (OJC) hearing into a second complaint about the conduct of Federation of Black Canadians founder and former chair, Justice Donald McLeod. McLeod is facing claims, still unproven, of perjury, political lobbying and giving legal advice – all stuff judges aren’t supposed to do. McLeod’s defence, by both his legal team and his supporters on social media, can be summed up as, “Justice McLeod is a great guy and didn’t do any of this bad stuff or, if he did, it was for good intentions because, like we said, he’s a great guy.”

The problem with this is that it focuses on what McLeod is instead of what he does (or allegedly did), and discussions about what someone is often offer only two choices: good or bad. People’s defenders spend time giving examples to prove their guy (or girl) is good while their opponents do the opposite. The argument is that, if the person is bad, they deserve whatever happened to them and if they’re good they don’t.

One of the most recent, and most horrible, examples of this was comments by Black conservative commentator Candace Owens in videos like I DO NOT support George Floyd! And here’s why. In this video Owens says she doesn’t “support George Floyd” because she doesn’t support “turning criminals into heroes”. Meaning she doesn’t support turning “bad guys” into “good guys” just because something bad happens to them. She doesn’t say Floyd deserved to be killed. In fact, she says, “What I’m saying is not any defence for Derek Chauvin [the cop who killed Floyd]. I hope that he gets the justice he deserves and that the family of George Floyd deserves justice.” However, she also says:

“The Black community is unique. Not every Black American is a criminal, not every Black American is committing crimes, but we are unique in that we are the only people that fight and scream and demand support and justice for the people in our community that are up to no good.”

The implication is clear: Floyd was a bad guy who had gotten “up to no good” too many times and, therefore, doesn’t deserve the global outpouring of rage that followed his death.

One of the main problems with this “good or bad” thinking is that it only requires tarring someone with one bad act, real or implied, to label them as all bad. That’s why the term “known to police” in media reports about Black men is a problem. The person could be “known” simply because they got carded once but it’s enough to label them as “bad”, and deserving of their fate, in too many readers’ minds.

This same thing is used in reverse.

When COVID first hit, our group supported a young Black man who had been confronted by Ottawa school board trustee Donna Blackburn. During the confrontation Blackburn made some racially charged remarks and was eventually sanctioned by her fellow trustees for acts of anti-Black racism. In her defence, several of Blackburn’s supporters brought up that she has a Black daughter, suggesting that she, therefore, “couldn’t be racist.” (We countered that idea by saying Blackburn could have committed the racist acts in the morning then read a bed time story to her Black daughter at night – but that wouldn’t make her earlier actions any less racist.)

Another example of this was the July 2020 coverage of the heavily armed white man who drove his truck through the gate of the Governor General’s residence where Prime Minister Trudeau and his family live.

In the initial CBC story, Corey Hurren was described as an active member of the military who serves as a Canadian Ranger. It said he ran a meat products business called GrindHouse Fine Foods. It mentioned he was past president of his local Lion’s Club, an active volunteer in his community of Bowsman, north-west of Winnipeg, and that his group of Rangers were on call to be part of the military’s assistance with the COVID-19 response. In other words, Curren was a nice guy just having a really bad day – and was treated accordingly by the RCMP officers who apprehended him that day “without incident” and took him into custody for questioning.

Donald McLeod’s defenders, like Justice for Justice McLeod, want the OJC review panel, and us, to believe that McLeod is a good guy who did everything for the community and that his critics are bad people who misconstrued his actions and landed him, unfairly, in front of the OJC once again. They cite all the great work he’s done with programs he helped start, like the 100 Strong Foundation which aims to produce strong, ambitious leaders by changing the narrative of African-Canadian boys. They gloss over the facts that are the basis of the charges and, instead, stick to one narrative: he’s doing great stuff so he obviously couldn’t have done the bad stuff.

But this reasoning ignores the simple truth: people do good and bad things and deserve praise for the good stuff and to be held accountable for the bad stuff. McLeod’s supporters only want to praise his good deeds and vilify those who try to hold him accountable for his bad ones.

But, as McLeod’s second hearing shows: if we don’t hold our leaders accountable for the bad things they may have done, eventually someone else will, and the result won’t be good for anyone in our community.

Categories
GoC Legal

A class act: Black federal employees sue the government for decades of discrimination

On Thursday, December 3, 2020, 12 Black former and current federal government employees launched a class action suit against the Government of Canada. The Black Class Action home page lays out the claim’s details:

“A class action lawsuit has been filed in the Federal Court of Canada on behalf of all Black employees. This action concerns systemic racism in the Public Service of Canada, directed at self-identifying Black individuals who work for or with the Public Service of Canada – this includes current employees and those who have been employed within the past 50 years. This systemic racism includes the wrongful failure to promote, intentional infliction of mental suffering, constructive dismissal, wrongful termination, negligence, and in particular, violations of employment law, human rights law, and Charter breaches. ​This action alleges that as a result of systemic discrimination, Canada has failed to achieve equality in the workplace, such that no person shall be denied employment opportunities or benefits for reasons unrelated to ability. In the fulfillment of the goal of workplace equality, this action alleges that Canada has failed to correct the conditions of disadvantage in employment experienced by Black Canadians.”

There’s no question that the suit is politically and socially well timed but how strong is it legally? One way to assess this is to examine past precedent setting cases.

LGBT purge

The LGBT Purge was one of the longest and most harmful campaigns of discrimination conducted by the federal government against the LGBT community. The campaign, to identify and purge LGBT federal public servants on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression in the federal public service and military, began in the 1950’s and continued for decades. Many of the injured persons suffered in silence for many years. That class action suit ended the silence.

Three plaintiffs, Todd Edward Ross,  Martine Roy and Alida Satalic, launched the suit on March 13, 2017. On June 22, 2018, the Federal Court approved the Final Settlement Agreement with up to $110M in compensation. Most eligible class members were expected to receive between $5,000 and $50,000. Between October 25, 2018 and April 25, 2019 individuals submitted claims for compensation and/or Individual Reconciliation Measures. There were 719 claimants: 629 military, 78 public servants and 12 RCMP.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Harassment, Abuse, & Discrimination

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) began officially accepting female recruits in 1974. Unfortunately, since that time female officers – as well as non-policing staff and volunteers – suffered sexual harassment, abuse, and discrimination at the hands of their male colleagues. In 2016, the RCMP settled a suit brought by over 3,000 female officers for $100 million. Another class action for civilian employees and volunteers had 41,000 claimants. However, after three times as many women submitted claims for compensation than expected, the amount available was increased to $150 million. Another class action lawsuit seeking compensation for women in non-policing roles was settled in 2019 for $100 million.

Indian Residential Schools Lawsuit

In the 19th century, the Canadian government created a system of residential or boarding schools to educate the children of Indigenous peoples. However, instead of education, assimilation was the goal of this program. Attendance at residential schools was mandatory. Children systematically suffered physical, emotional, and sexual abuse; isolation from peers, family members, and tribal customs; exposure to  disease; and overwork. Teachers and staff at the schools were often underpaid and unqualified, amplifying the mistreatment and neglect Indigenous students experienced.

Nora Bernard, a survivor of the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School in Nova Scotia and an activist for Indigenous peoples rights, led a group that sought justice for the pain and hardships Indigenous children suffered in the schools. Survivors of other residential schools joined this lawsuit against the government of Canada.

The Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement was the largest class action settlement in Canadian history. Reached in 2006, the agreement created a fund of $1.9 billion for survivors of institutional abuse and neglect in the residential schools system. The settlement also included provisions for assessment of compensation for individuals.

So, given that history shows the government tends to settle large class action suits about historical mistreatment of marginalized groups, the Black class action seems to have a good chance of ending up with the government agreeing to pay up. The question is, how much?

The claim is for $800 million in total, but is that enough? How do you put a price on the destruction of someone’s mental health, or someone being denied promotions for years? It will be challenging to put an exact number on it but one thing is certain: it should be a really big one.

Note: much of the information on the RCMP and residential schools cases comes from the article Top Class Action Cases in Canada by Klein Lawyers LLP.

Categories
Financial literacy Investing

Financial literacy: a license to print money

Ok. I admit that the title of this post isn’t entirely true – but it got your attention didn’t it?

What would seem to be true is that one thing keeping Black folks on the bottom on the Canadian economic ladder is lack of financial literacy. I say “seems” because I couldn’t find any data on financial literacy of Black Canadians. I did find a May 2019 article titled, The State of Financial Literacy in Canada: How Much Do We Know? that cited the 2015 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Survey on Measuring Financial Literacy and Financial Inclusion. The survey measured respondents’ financial knowledge, attitudes and behaviours and ranked Canadians’ overall financial literacy third out of 29 countries. The article also cited info from the Canadian Financial Capability Survey showing differences based on gender, age, and education level. However, neither of them mentioned race. So, we must work with anecdotal evidence and assumptions. The first assumption is that a key indicator of the financial literacy of average members of a community is the overall financial health of that community.

The headline of the August 2020 Summary Portrait of Ottawa’s Black Community in Comparison to the General Population, by the Social Planning Council of Ottawa stated the financial situation of Ottawa’s Black community in starkly clear terms, “The Black community has significantly higher rates of poverty and inequitable employment outcomes in comparison to the general population.” The chart below from the study gives more sobering details.

So, based on the data above, we can assume that many folks in Ottawa’s Black community could use better financial literacy. Yet, during Black history month 2020, I attended many events that were all well attended, except the one on financial literacy. About eight people showed up, about four of whom were members of the presenter’s family. Also, we had a Black Hub Freedom School meeting in September on financial literacy with guest speaker Duane Francis. Duane works with Canada’s only Black billionaire, Michael Lee-Chin, so we thought folks would turn out to hear what he had to say. One person showed up.

In 2003, comedian Dave Chappelle did a sketch called Reparations on his short lived but classic Chappelle Show. The sketch is a satirical news report about Black folks in the US getting their first reparations cheques. It shows Black people gleefully lining up at a liquor store and has a white correspondent reporting from Wall Street on sharp stock price increases for gold, diamonds and fried chicken. The correspondent ends his report with, “Cadillac said they sold 3000 Escalade trucks this afternoon. These people seem to be breaking their necks to give this money back to us.”

Like all good comedy, it’s funny because it reflects some truth. One truth the sketch reflects is that, when Black folks get money, they spend way more of it on short terms gains than they invest for the long term – if they invest any at all.

To be clear, there are many systemic barriers that hamper Black folks from getting money in the first place. But the continuing inter-generational economic challenges of Black communities suggest that, when Black folks overcome those barriers and get some money – they break their necks to give it back.

We need to stop doing this. We need to see financial literacy as essential as basic literacy. No Black parent would not teach their kids to read. So why do so many of us not teach our kids – or ourselves – how to grow wealth over the long term?

It’s time to start financial literacy groups where Black folks regularly meet to increase our financial literacy – together. We need to stop buying lottery tickets with the unrealistic and vague goal of “getting rich” and start setting specific goals, like buying a house, and helping each other create realistic plans to achieve them.

Talking with a financial advisor is good start. They charge for detailed personal advice but many would agree to share general advice with you or your financial literacy group (they might get some paying clients out of it). You can also use online investing tools, or “robo advisors”, like Wealthsimple or CI Direct Investing. I recently signed up with CI Direct Investing that asked me some basic questions about my investing goals and my risk tolerance. It then let me choose a conservative, moderate or aggressive portfolio (only 3 choices which made it easy). The fee is 0.6%, annually, of what you invest. So, if you invest $500, your fee for the year would be $3 – a lot more affordable than most financial advisors.

So what’s stopping you? Set up a group, get online and start learning – and earning.

Categories
Abdirahman Justice Police

Abdi trial verdict shows benefit of the doubt is the ultimate white privilege

On Tuesday, Oct. 20, Justice Robert Kelly cleared Ottawa Police Service Constable Daniel Montsion of all charges in the 2016 death of Abdirahman Abdi.

Canada’s justice system is supposedly built on the principle of people being innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proof is on the prosecution to demonstrate that the accused did their crimes, “beyond a reasonable doubt”. Justice Kelly said that, regarding the charges of manslaughter, aggravated assault and assaulted with a weapon against Montsion, the Crown had failed to prove that.

If Abdi had been arrested and gone to trial he would have had the same right to the presumption of innocence. Anthony Aust, who fell to his death when Ottawa Police raided his home Oct. 7, would have too, if he had been arrested. But they didn’t get the chance.

They didn’t get the chance because such force was used to apprehend them that they ended up dead. Montsion was cleared of any wrongdoing by Justice Kelly and we fully expect the Special Investigations Unit will do the same for the many officers who raided Aust’s place.

White people, especially white cops, get the benefit of the doubt that Black people often don’t. Our kids don’t get it when they get suspended or expelled from school, sometimes for simply questioning unjust behaviour. Black drivers don’t get it when they get disproportionately pulled over, sometime for offences they haven’t even committed, like the Ottawa man recently stopped by an Ottawa police officer for expired plates – that weren’t expired. And Black people with mental health issues, like Abdirahman Abdi, don’t get it when they are treated like violent threats instead of what they are: people in need of compassionate help.

All these actions are based on the assumption by white people that Black people aren’t innocent until proven guilty, but guilty until proven innocent – or killed.

But back to Montsion…

He’s now free and, no doubt, would certainly have us think he believes deeply in the concept that led to his freedom: the presumption of innocence. If that’s the case, we must assume two things: he presumed Abdi was innocent and he felt he had to punch him several times in the head with metal gloves for Abdi’s safety and that of his fellow officers. Given the verdict, we can assume he’ll do the same thing next time – and that his fellow officers will feel enabled to do the same. And they expect us to simply wait for the next Black person to be beaten to death…

On the day of the verdict, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson issued a statement in which he said, “I also want to take this opportunity to re-iterate my full confidence in our justice system. We are privileged in Canada to have a justice system that strives to render verdicts based on the facts and evidence before the courts – a system that upholds the rule of law.”

What the system strives to do is irrelevant. What it actually does is disproportionately penalize, imprison and kill Black people. It does uphold rule of law. The only problem is that the rules were designed to oppress Black people – and still do so with fatal efficiency.

Categories
black death OPS Police

Ottawa police fail to serve and protect Anthony Aust

On Wednesday, Oct. 10, 23-year-old Anthony Aust fell to his death after several heavily armed officers with the Ottawa Police tactical unit burst through the front door of his 12th-floor Ottawa apartment.

An Oct. 10 CBC story said Aust’s family was worried about his mental health and that he was falling into a depression and quoted his mother, Nhora Aust, 50, saying, “He was terrified of his peers, terrified of the police and terrified of jail.” His mom said police told her they were looking for a gun and cocaine. She wasn’t told if they found anything.

She’s not confident that Ontario’s police watchdog will lay charges in her son’s death. Media reports say the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has assigned four investigators to the probe, which will take months to complete. Only five per cent of SIU cases result in charges, the agency said in 2019.

Ottawa is currently awaiting the verdict in the trial of Ottawa police constable Daniel Montsion in the 2016 death of Abdirahman Abdi. The SIU led the investigation.

In 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that such “no-knock” warrants could be used in urgent cases. But in February of this year, an Ottawa judge ruled that the police had violated one woman’s charter rights after raiding her home using “dynamic entry”, as the method is known. Superior Court Justice Sally Gomery said that “police cannot operate from an assumption that they should break in the door of any residence that they have a warrant to search.”

In an Oct. 9 story, the Ottawa Citizen said, “Despite the ruling, the police service has defended the practice and said it will continue using the entry when the service thinks it’s necessary to ensure public and officer safety or if there is a risk that a target might destroy evidence.”

Before he retired in 2018, Jeff Kilcollins was a duty inspector on the Ottawa police force and was on the SWAT team for two decades. Quoted in a CBC story, Kilcollins said dynamic entries are the “bread and butter” of tactical officers because of how common they are. He said most dynamic entry warrants are issued when there is a concern that suspects will try to destroy evidence if police don’t act quickly and with surprise. 

“There are demands from the court system, the judicial system. They like it much better when the accused is in possession of the evidence. Narcotics are generally considered disposable evidence, much like child pornography,” Kilcollins said.

However, CBC also quoted veteran defence lawyer Mark Ertel, who won the February Superior Court case before Gomery. Ertel said search warrants are often granted based on intelligence from unsavoury characters who may not be telling the truth.

“It’s usually informant evidence — information from people who are paid to provide information to police or will have charges withdrawn if they provide information to police. These are people with criminal records and a lot to be gained by providing information.” Ertel also said the ruling doesn’t appear to have curbed the use of surprise raids by the Ottawa police – but Aust’s death could be a turning point.

Given all this, Aust’s death raises a number of questions:

  1. If one of the aims of dynamic entry is ensuring public safety, why did the police seemingly disregard the safety of Aust’s family by raiding his apartment when his family, including his 12-yr-old brother and his grandmother were home?
  2. As Aust was also a member of the public, did the police not have an obligation to keep him safe, even as they attempted to take him into custody?
  3. Given the May 2020 falling death of Regis Korchinski-Paquette, and the fact that, like Korchinski-Paquette, Aust was known to be experiencing mental health issues, why didn’t the police anticipate Aust might jump and be prepared for that with something outside to break his possible fall? Did they speak with his family before the raid to assess his mental state?
  4. Do police keep stats, by race, on how often they use dynamic entry?
  5. Since Aust was wearing a GPS ankle monitor as part of his bail conditions, why couldn’t the police have chosen to work with his parole officer to find a time to apprehend him that would put as few others at risk as possible?
  6. Do the police believe that avoiding lost evidence is worth endangering people’s lives?
  7. How often are the police basing their raids on information from “unsavoury” characters?

The facts would suggest that Aust’s 12-yr-old brother saw him jump to his death.

We will ask Ottawa police chief, Peter Sloly, all the questions above, and one more: how were the police protecting Aust’s 12-yr-old brother by causing his older brother to jump to his death in front of him?

Categories
Anti-Black racism Hate crime Police

Trump-style racism in Russell, Ont.

In 2018, in a ranking of 415 cities, towns and villages, MoneySense Magazine named Russell Township, 40 minutes southeast of Ottawa, as one of the best places to live in Canada. However, based on what happened last week, Russell’s few Black people weren’t home when they did the survey.

On Tuesday, Sept. 22, a 10-yr-old Black youth was biking with a white friend along a Russell street, when they passed two white boys their age, one of whom called the Black boy a nigger. When the boy’s white friend asked if the white boy had said what he thought, the white boy repeated it several times. When the boy’s white friend told the aggressor to stop, the aggressor hit the Black boy in his leg with his scooter, knocking him to the ground. The other white boy then jumped on the Black boy’s arm, breaking it in two places. When the Black boy’s mom found out, around 5:15pm, she immediately called the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) (who cover Russell), but they didn’t come. The officer who did finally call, around 9:30pm, was very rude and dismissive and said, “it was consensual” and “It’s not a crime to call someone a nigger.” The mom then asked for the officer’s superior and spoke to his sergeant, but he said she’d have to speak to the same officer. When she refused, the sergeant finally connected her with an officer who was empathetic. The 613-819 Black Hub immediately contacted the boy’s mom to provide support. 

The principal of the victim’s school said that the principal of the arm breaker’s school said he suspended the arm breaker but she didn’t know what, if anything, he did to the other kid who the mother said also called her son a nigger then assaulted him with his scooter.

With the mom’s consent, we emailed the head of the Russell OPP requesting a meeting to discuss the troubling police response, and the principal of the school the arm breaking kid attends also asking for a meeting. The response from OPP Russell County Detachment Commander, Luc Duval, is below.

“Hello Robin:

Thank you for reaching out.  I definitely understand your interest in this matter. The OPP takes incidents involving young people very seriously. Due to the ages of those involved, we cannot get into specifics related to those involved in the incident. For this reason, I must respectfully decline your invitation to meet. I am able to tell you that our area Crime Supervisor has reviewed the actions of the officers involved, to ensure proper steps were taken. As the injuries were not life-threatening, officers waited until the medical issues could be dealt with as a priority before responding to the hospital to talk to the victim.  It took one hour from the time of dispatch to the time the officer was at the hospital.  This is not unusual for an assault involving non-life-threatening injuries. We are aware that the incident allegedly started over a racial slur, but cannot speculate on the thought processes or the reasons it happened. As you are aware, under Canadian law, individuals under the age of 12 cannot be charged criminally. For that reason, the OPP is working with the parents of the young people involved and has engaged community support services, including the Intersections program and Valoris.

You can learn more about Intersections at http://improvingsystems.ca/projects/intersections-3. Information about Valoris can be found at https://valorispr.ca/en/about/.  Both families agreed with this approach.

Inspector Luc Duval, Detachment Commander, OPP, Russell County Detachment”

There are a number of problems with Mr. Duval’s response:

  1. He says he can’t meet with us because of the kids’ ages and the fact that he can’t discuss the specifics. But why can’t he meet the family to see how they’re doing and to discuss our other request: what the OPP is doing to address systemic anti-Black racism within the ranks of the OPP, that even Premier Doug Ford has acknowledged?
  2. He says proper procedure was followed and “it took one hour from the time of dispatch to the time the officer was at the hospital.”, when, according to the victim’s mother, no officer ever showed up at the hospital.
  3. He says, “We are aware that the incident allegedly started over a racial slur, but cannot speculate on the thought processes or the reasons it happened.” Really? A white kid calls a Black kid he doesn’t know a nigger and then breaks his arm and they can’t speculate what might have motivated that? Would he say that if a Black kid had called a white kid a honky then busted his arm?
  4. He says “the OPP is working with the parents of the young people involved” but the mother says they weren’t working with her at the time of his reply so he must have meant they were only working with the attackers’ families.
  5. He says nothing about the mother’s claims that the officer, who finally contacted her more than 4 hours after she called 911, was rude, said the attack was “consensual” and angrily told the mother, “It’s not a crime to call someone a nigger.”

But, at least Mr. Duval responded which is more than can be said for the principal. Instead, his school superintendent, Norma McDonald, who we copied on our email to him, responded on his behalf:

“Good afternoon Mr. Browne, I am responding to your email regarding an incident which occurred on September 22nd which resulted in an injury to a student from Russell. Immediately after learning of the incident, a principal’s investigation took place which resulted in appropriate immediate remedial action.  By reason of privacy obligations, I cannot supply you with any details of the steps taken by the Board to address the situation. You have requested a meeting with our principal to discuss the incident.  Unfortunately, I must decline your request.  As I am sure you can appreciate, we are not able to discuss the personal circumstances involving a particular student of the Board. I would add that the Board treats with the utmost seriousness any allegation of racist behaviour by any student, member of staff or any other official of the Board.  [Quotes board policy]. While I cannot speak to the specifics of any matter involving a Board student, I can advise that the Board will adhere to the commitments outlined in its policies and will take all reasonable steps to ensure their application to any student, staff member or other official of the Board who has acted in contravention of those policies.

Thank you for your email, Norma McDonald, Superintendent of School Effectiveness, CDSBEO”

The main problem with Ms. McDonald’s response is the same as with Mr. Duval’s. She cites privacy issues as a reason for not being able to meet with the family and us but doesn’t explain why she can’t meet with us to find out how the victim and his family are doing and to discuss what the school is doing to address systemic anti-Black racism on, and off, school property.

The OPP did finally reach out to the victim’s mother, by phone, to offer support services, including those provided by Valoris that Mr. Duval mentioned in his email. Under “Services”, Valoris offers individual and family mental health counselling. There is also a section called Diversity and Inclusivity with a tag line: For Everyone. However, under that tab, it says, “Pick the topic that interests you”, and offers only two choices: LGBTQIA2S+ and FMIN (First Nations, Metis, Inuit). The chances of the young victim being able to see a Black counsellor through Valoris are about as high as Russell hiring its first Black police chief next week (like Ottawa did last October).

Russell may have been named one of the best places to live in Canada in 2018 but now it’s one of the best places in Canada to see systemic anti-Black racism up close and personal.

From the boy being the victim of a violent anti-Black hate crime; to the police response, first late, then hostile, then blaming the victim; to the school principal not reaching out to the family and continuing to ignore requests to meet with them; to the attackers’ families also not reaching out to the victim’s family to the mom being challenged to find a Black counsellor, Russell has it all.

So, our advice to Black families is as clear as the title of Jordan’s Peele’s Oscar winning movie: Get Out!

Leave Russell and come to Ottawa. We have Ottawa’s first Black police chief, its first Black director of education and its first Black city counsellor. The city has a new anti-racism directorate, the Federal Black Employee Caucus and the 613-819 Black Hub. We would also tell businesses not to invest in Russell until the people in power in Russell do something to address systemic anti-Black racism.

Ottawa is open to Black folks and open for business!