Rotten Foundations
Oumar and Nicholas discuss the recent school shooting in Texas and its relevance to Edmonton’s school resource officer program. We also discuss the violence and challenges in Chinatown, as well as the tendency from politicians and the community to support further enforcement of the same system that causes those challenges.
Addressing Listener Feedback + Media Support for Police in Schools
🎵 Intro Music – “Not Alone” by Melafrique
Oumar Salifou (Host)
Since it’s still May, we wanted to do a labour episode for the podcast. But given that we’ve had a lot of things happening in Edmonton recently, we thought that there were more timely things that we could touch on. There’s been so many things happening on the violence front in Edmonton. We want to revisit a few things, and also talk about the police and how they fit within this conversation. And yeah, just a lot of news stories.
And I’m joined by Nicholas today to break things down.
Nicholas (Producer)
Hi everyone. Yeah, we just thought we could do a little “fireside chat” here rather than our usual, more structured episode format. And we’re recording this late at night because we had to wait for the honking to stop after the Oilers won. But luckily they ended the series, so we won’t be getting any more of that honking at least for a few days here.
Oumar
God bless.
Nicholas
And you can probably tell how we feel about the Oilers, but we maybe will not say anything here, so as to avoid backlash.
Oumar
I can agree with that. I don’t want to be characterized as the only Oilers hater in Edmonton. Or at least we don’t want that characterization, so we’ll stop it there.
Nicholas
Yeah. We’re not Oilers haters though. But yeah.
Okay. So I think one thing in our last episode, that we touched on, is just the conversation on school resource officers. Obviously, friend of the show Bashir had helped put together a research project that released data, earlier this year, on the harmful effects of school resource officers and having police in our schools.
In the last episode, we detailed some of that as well as critiqued the media’s tendency to cover the school resource officer program in a very favourable way, and in a way that parrots police talking points and doesn’t really hold that institution accountable the way the media should be holding institutions accountable. So basically the critique that we have for the media every time.
And, Oumar, we got some interesting listener feedback actually last time which, by the way, the fact that we even have listener feedback, we were like overjoyed. Wow! Someone’s actually listening to the episode, reaching out, engaging. Yeah. We’re really happy about that.
Oumar
Yes.
Nicholas
So if, by chance, you’re hearing this, we would love to hear from you too.
Oumar
Definitely. I will even drop my email in here. It’s my first name, oumar@isthisforreal.ca. That’s O-U-M-A-R at isthisreal.ca. Love to get engagement, yeah. Thank you for saying that, Nicholas.
But this engagement was a little bit special because it was, I guess, negative feedback. I’ve definitely had a pretty long history of freaking out about negative feedback in my journalism days, especially when I worked at The Gateway. Let's just say that when you tie your personal value or your sense of self in the work that you do, and people criticize it mercilessly, that can definitely take a toll.
I’m not in that place anymore. But the feedback that we got was about this SRO episode. And essentially what this person was saying in a very long-winded way, was that our coverage — they found it kind of crossed the line and was “quite inconsistent and bordering on dishonest.” These are pretty big accusations, pretty negative feedback.
And this person kind of went through, in a point by point way, to dissect things that were said on the podcast that characterize the media in what they thought was a narrow way that ignored other things that were fair. The media did a fair job of covering the SRO issue in their eyes, and we did an unfair job of characterizing them.
But what I think is really missing here from the overall intention in this email is the larger issue at hand, and how we view coverage of police in Edmonton, not through this narrow lens of how the police are being covered, but also within the larger sense of what else does the media cover?
There’s a larger idea of what’s covered, what’s not covered, how those decisions are made, and why those decisions are made. So when we talk about, for example, how the police write an article when the SRO program receives awards or the media gives the police a platform to celebrate themselves, we shouldn’t just look at this within a police context and within that conversation. We should also look at how other people are treated or how other organizations or institutions are treated. And I think when we look at that broader picture, and we look at the broader point that we’re trying to make, that’s what’s important and that’s kind of the spirit of the podcast, essentially.
Yeah, just wanted to talk a bit about that feedback, and how the goal of the show and what we talk about is to try to reinforce these main ideas that we have about failing institutions, about the problems and the struggles that people face being impacted by these institutions, and our belief that doesn’t have to be this way that they’re all that there are alternatives. And that’s the crux of everything we do, so it’d be good to focus on that and have a discussion on that instead of all the nitty gritty little things that can be discussed forever while the world basically burns in the background of that very chin-strokey, intellectual debate that can happen.
Nicholas
Yeah. And I think that’s where we really see the problem, even just with this idea of objective journalism, right? Like this listener in their scathing feedback kind of took us to town for not being “objective” in our journalism. And I think when we were thinking about how to respond to this person — because we did respond and we do respond to any feedback we get. So again, please reach out and send us feedback if you have any.
When we were thinking of how to respond to this person, we really didn’t want to dive down the rabbit hole of really what is objective, and how to be the most fair and balanced, and how to cover “both sides,” so to speak, most equally. Because I think actually our critique of the media is in that idea of objective journalism. We view these institutional immediate frameworks as harmful and supportive of oppressive powers. And they position themselves as objective, and get to define what “objective'' means, but they're still biased and you can see that in how they cover issues and what they choose to not cover.
Oumar
Definitely.
Nicholas
And so actually our critique of the media is a critique of this idea that objective journalism is the goal. So we’re also in our critique of that, not trying to uphold those ideas.
Oumar
No. The world, I think, would be better if we had less so-called objective journalism, Aad we actually started talking about the reality of what’s going on here. Because I think there’s so much time spent on asking what do both sides believe? Can we find this supposed middle ground, or this supposed objectivity, this supposed removal from the situation, or this dispassionate analysis. When in reality that’s just fake. This is just like a way to really give these people legitimacy, or even authority, on matters that largely impact our lives.
I don’t know if a lot of people who are in control of the media or who are in these positions to get puff pieces or get their press releases run — how much are they impacted by programs like the SRO program? What situation are they in, when we talk about the opioid crisis, or when we talk about affordability… a lot of other things?
Nicholas
Yeah. And I’m just going to read this, just cause I’m reading it now and I think it’s actually just a pretty good way of almost summing up our mission. This is just a paragraph from our response. So what we said is:
“Our project doesn’t have a central goal of appearing balanced to those who are already beholden to mainstream media and passively support systems that have worked against our communities. Rather, we’re interested in validating and amplifying community perspectives and experiences, especially those being held down by those systems.”
So yeah, I think that basically sums it up. And what we were pointing out in that previous episode as an example of this media bias was an old article where an incident at an Edmonton high school prompted a response from the good sergeant, Michael Elliot, speaking in support of the school resource officer program, of course, and using that violent incident to make an argument for why we should be supporting police presence in our schools.
And I’m sure everyone was aware of the tragic killing that happened at McNally high school in April. I think something really disturbing that we saw in the aftermath is more of the same kind of coverage where, immediately afterwards, we see Michael Elliott calling for more support for school resource officers.
So there’s this article, from CTV News, “Deadly McNally attack 'begs the question' if officers should be back in schools: police assoc.” And Michael Elliot says, “My heart does go out to the family and to the community for this, but it does beg the question of should the SRO program be looked at again because of the positive effects it can have. I can't tell you if the SRO would have prevented this incident from occurring. But what I can tell you is that I do know that the SROs, when working in the schools have received notices, quite frequently, unfortunately, that students will come up, slip notes, contact them on Reddit, tell them in private that there is going to be an incident after school, please be on the lookout.”
So it’s the same kind of parroting of the police talking points that we just tried to bring up in the last episode. And just to be fair to our listener, that provided feedback last time, in case you’re listening now — the article does highlight that the family of the victim says they don’t believe SRO’s would have prevented the attack. They say “I don't support that. I don't think having police at the school would have made a difference. Children don't feel comfortable approaching them on a good day.”
So technically you could say the article is fair and balanced. But this quote about how the victim’s family doesn’t support this police perspective is at the very end of the article after everyone has clicked away. And I already read the headline of the article earlier which is “Deadly McNally attack 'begs the question' if officers should be back in schools: police assoc.” So imagine, as this article is shared out there on social media, as it appears on CTV's homepage. What everyone is seeing is this headline, “Deadly McNally attack 'begs the question' if officers should be back in schools: police assoc.”
That’s the view that CTV’s putting out, and that's what we're talking about when we say that the media parents police talking points.
Oumar
Yeah, I think it’s very disturbing to see things like that, and especially in the context of this specific murder at McNally, this violent crime that happened. Because the circumstances and the context around that crime are complex and I’m sure involve details that are unique to that community. But this tragic event gets taken out of its context, and gets completely used in a sense to advance this SRO program across basically hundreds of schools in Edmonton, because one school had a really tragic event happen there.
School Shooting in Texas + the Myth of Canadian Exceptionalism
Oumar
And this is all also happening in the backdrop of what’s going on in the US too. We’ve been witnessed to 20+ people being murdered in Texas recently, and also witnessing how police reacted to this event. And it’s really difficult to hear how the gunman was basically left in a classroom and police essentially did nothing. Leaving it to teachers to defend kids, leaving it to parents to try to challenge police only to get arrested and tasered. And I think also just leaving people with deep questions about what police are there for.
And these are questions that so many people have asked themselves for hundreds of years. Black people, Indigenous people, just so many people. But to see it happen in this way with these people in Texas, I think brings the conversation to a different place. Because something could have changed this from happening, and that something was police… potentially. And what they chose to do was essentially nothing.
Nicholas
Yeah. I mean, we’re not going to try and spin a tragedy to fit our narrative, of course. But I think one potential takeaway from the tragedy in Texas — not even a takeaway, but obviously police were there. Numerous police were there. And what did that do to keep people safe? What did that do to keep the students safe? I’m just reading from an article here about this shooting:
“At a press conference on Thursday afternoon, Texas authorities confirmed that the shooter had been locked inside a classroom for an hour before he was confronted and killed. He committed all his 21 murders inside that room — including 19 children and two teachers.”
So the police barricaded the shooter in that room, and that’s where he committed all of the murders. So what did the police do here to help? I mean from reading that, it really just seems like they almost did the opposite. And the article continues:
““Numerous” police officers had assembled just outside the room, the authorities admitted, but did not make any attempt to break through the door during that hour. Instead, they decided to pull back and wait until a specialist tactical unit arrived, while evacuating other children and staff from the building.”
So yeah, just bringing it back to the calls for police presence in schools here in Canada. I think the question that we obviously need to ask is where is the link between police presence and student safety? And taking, of course, into consideration the harm that the presence of police in schools has on students, as demonstrated by the research that we talked about in our last episode and mentioned here… Taking that into consideration, as well as the potentially actively harmful role that police can play in the event of a violent incident, what strengths does that argument have?
And the media is obviously not treating it critically, but I think we have a responsibility to really question that view.
Oumar
Definitely. And I think what you said is also very important about how using these issues to simply bolster an argument that was had before, or to use it as a “good example” for this like both sides debate or for a typical left / right political argument. I think it’s pretty cheap and isn’t necessary.
But I think when it’s thought of in a larger context and also thought of in the sense that institutions and organizations and even people influence each other, especially now on a pretty mass scale… A department in Texas may seem like it’s very far and distant from a police department in Ontario, or even in Alberta. But conferences exist, practices are passed down through research, through policy adaptations. And these mass shooting events we already know are largely inspired by different mass shooting events, even ones that we see in Canada.
So I think it also makes it even more difficult to see things like this tweet by Catherine McKenna who’s a former minister of environment and climate and Canada. After the previous shooting before this one, the Buffalo shooting that killed 10 Black people, this tweet that comes out and says:
And I have to add too, there’s a heart emoji here and there’s a Canadian flag emoji.
Nicholas
She wouldn’t choose anywhere else, probably because of the spicy food?
Oumar
Wait, this joke went way over my head. Maybe you can explain the joke to me and I might get it.
Nicholas
It’s just that she said “I wouldn’t choose to live anywhere else.”
Oumar
Oh, because of the spicy food. That’s true, yeah.
Nicholas
Yeah. I’ll cut that.
Oumar
Yeah. I think if McKenna ate some Sriracha sauce, she would need like 5 glasses of water. This is like a low spice, low culture tweet. Very bland chicken seasoning tweet.
But yeah, also incredibly disrespectful and incredible tone-deaf. But I think this level of lack of self-awareness, especially in the context of Canadian identity, is only possible here. Because so much of our country is built on denial, and is built on this performance that we’re better than America or that we’re exceptional and that we bring these unique things, while we just crush marginalized groups regularly. So I have no sympathy for people who are this tone-deaf and are this removed from the reality that so many people face in this country, and that just choose to be cheerleaders for this fictional place that they might exist in. But I don’t know who else does… I guess the answer is other white people.
Nicholas
Yeah. Canada is truly unique in that we simultaneously inherit or actively mimic just so many of the oppressive systems in the United States. We simultaneously do that and compare ourselves favourably to the United States in order to deny the existence of those issues.
And that tweet that you read, that was after the…
Oumar
That was after the Buffalo shooting.
Nicholas
But that shooter copied or was inspired by the Quebec shooter, obviously here in Canada.
Oumar
Yeah, the great replacement theory. And not only the Quebec shooter, but this is something that Rebel News…, like, I watched a video recently that recounted the history of this great replacement and specifically how it was tied to Lauren Southern, who’s basically a former Rebel News personality.
But this was like being pushed heavily in 2015, 16, 17. All these videos are wiped off of YouTube now, but these videos inspired people to go into mosques and kill people. To go into sh to go into grocery stores and kill Black people. So yeah, I don’t know what to say about this Canadian and exceptionalism. It leaves me speechless to just think that people in this country think that we’re immune or that we have no participation in any of this hate or violence. It just doesn’t make any sense.
Nicholas
Yeah. People committing those kinds of atrocities with those kinds of manifestos obviously don’t do it without those ideas being a part of the public conscience. And that obviously happens through the media, through people in power. Obviously the fact that that happened here and served then as the inspiration for the shooting in Buffalo that that tweet was reacting to, is just incredibly ironic and just probably the perfect illustration of that kind of ignorance that we have here.
Challenges in Chinatown + Municipal Failures
Oumar
Yeah. Speaking of things that we have here, this is a good segue to maybe talk about something we were talking about before. Relating to the recent murders in Chinatown and Edmonton, me and Nicholas were talking basically about Chinatown generally and our experiences in that space. But also how the larger downtown has been gentrified and there’s billions of dollars of investment, literally 2 blocks away from what essentially amounts to the city’s unwanted or — how could I say this? This is a place where the city has decided it’s acceptable to neglect and it’s acceptable to essentially discard a lot of people, a lot of communities, into one place so that we can see our billion dollar investments for what they are — clean, sanitized, problem-free spaces. So people can watch Oilers games. People can go about their business while, until recently, we could ignore all the problems that are going on in Chinatown. Because what’s been happening is nothing new. It’s only reached a boiling point, so people feel the need to address it.
Nicholas
Yeah, and this is obviously not just in our Chinatown. Like Chinatowns everywhere kind of just become this convenient way for cities to sweep away their issues from the places that they want to make palatable. Such as our arena area and Ice District.
So really, the issues and then the subsequent violence that you see in areas like our Chinatown really are a consequence of that system of neglecting and sidelining vulnerable communities. And then of course, the pattern that we just see endlessly, those issues then become used in arguments to further support those same systems.
So what we saw here in response to the violence in Chinatown and downtown and in LRT stations is calls for greater police funding, more police officers in the downtown area. And it’s hard not to feel like that’s very, very deliberately and sinisterly engineered. Like for a politician to support the idea of more enforcement of the same systems that cause those issues in response to those issues… it just feels ridiculous that that’s even real.
Oumar
It really does. And I feel like a lot of the time reading the news that comes out, it’s very maddening. It’s very confusing because at the same time, we have this new decree by the Minister of Justice Shandro. And essentially what he’s saying is that the city needs to invest directly into police, and they need to do it and have a plan ready within 2 weeks. And this is the same provincial government that is essentially banning safe injection sites and banning harm reduction as a policy, which we know is directly connected to the homelessness problem, which we know has a part to play in violence that’s happening, but also has a part to play in this narrative of safety that is a big driver for more funding for police.
When people talk about safety on the LRT, a lot of the time what you hear people say is there’s open drug use here. Why is there open drug use? Because there are no safe injection sites! Because literally in the media, homeless people are being quoted saying that they’d rather inject in a busy LRT station where someone might be able to find their body if they overdose on a toxic drug supply. We know we can provide these people with a place to use, and safer drugs, and potential even for recovery.
But if our approach is guided by a denial of reality, which is essentially what’s going on — and that’s not to say that like realism is the only arbiter for policy or what to do, but when there’s like such a disconnect between what marginalized people are facing and this kind of like policy that’s coming in that always circles back to giving police more money, it doesn’t make sense to me. Yeah, it’s just very problematic.
Nicholas
What you’re talking about is interesting, because the mayor put out a response to that just earlier today, and as part of that, he says:
“We know that the reason we are seeing so much disorder downtown, in Chinatown and on the LRT is due to a lack of investment from the provincial government.”
I don’t know. You kind of just mentioned putting the province at blame for the lack of safe consumption sites. So to what degree do you agree with the mayor, also just pinning this on the province and saying that it’s out of the city’s hands to do anything about the situation downtown?
Oumar
It’s a vicious cycle. It’s a vicious game of pointing fingers to abdicate responsibility essentially on these very serious issues. Because I think it’s very easy to simply say that it’s the provincial government’s fault. They aren’t giving us enough money, or they aren’t taking responsibility to fund and implement programs or institutions or resources where we need them.
But fundamentally, I think not only is that an easy thing to do, but it abdicates responsibility for who is responsible for this issue being solved. And simply pointing the finger definitely absolves that responsibility from the people who should be in charge of solving this problem.
And I think it’s also very glaring, the fact that the city isn’t incompetent when it doesn’t want to be. I think they’re very capable of making a lot of things happen for a lot of people. Yet on this file specifically, it’s time to point fingers. It’s time to ask other levels of government what they’re doing for us. But ultimately, like I said, we’re responsible for our own citizens. We manage our own safety, at least on this level of government. We’re legislated by the provincial government, they have some control and some mandate. But ultimately, this is our city, or at least it’s the councillors' city that they manage. I think it’s a lazy excuse. I really do.
Nicholas
That’s a good point. Like it is really revealing when they choose to start pointing the fingers as the reason for inaction, versus what they really can move mountains for. And I mean, we were just talking about the Oilers and what they’ve been able to organize downtown, what they’ve been able to corral police resources for in order to facilitate large, raucous gatherings of Oilers fans from St. Albert and the suburbs.
Oumar
Yeah. And it brings up so many hypotheticals for me where I’m just like: if hypothetically the city was missing money to build the arena downtown because the province wouldn’t invest, are you telling me that they would completely abandon the project or continue to play this blame game while diverting responsibility for building it.
I really don’t think that would happen. And obviously we’ve seen cases where cities do push back and they don’t choose to invest in these, in my opinion, superfluous projects, when we have so many other things that are more dire and pressing to address. But in Edmonton’s case specifically, I would bet a lot of money that the city would find a way, and that they know their priorities, and that they know what they can do and what they can’t do.
And ultimately what they can do is basically let upwards of 2000 people out of shelters when they close, because the winter is over. There’s no more emergency. And have no concrete plans or any attempt to house these people, to figure out shelter space, to have more sustainable and realistic encampment policies.
Those things are “impossible,” but you need a new space to watch the hockey game? We can make that happen in a couple days, it’s not that difficult for us to make that happen.
Nicholas
Yeah, and the mayor will be there as well.
Oumar
Oh yeah. You get a personal visit for sure, 100%.
Nicholas
It’s because those are the opportunities that politicians like to create for themselves to be visible. I think what’s also interesting is that in this same statement from the mayor, he says “I want to highlight some of the specific things that we are doing.” So he kind of lays out some different amounts of money that have been allocated to different responses to the violence. One thing he mentioned is “in February, we approved a Transit Safety Strategy which includes $3.9 million to add more transit security officers and social workers to the Community Outreach Transit Team. And then starting May 22, so earlier this week, the Transit Community Action Teams will have a more consistent presence throughout the transit networks. These teams will reduce and prevent crime and disorder in our transit system.
Well okay, so let’s break that down. We’re spending $4 million to add transit security officers. So we’re investing in more law enforcement in these areas and, starting this week, they’re going to have a more consistent presence through the transit networks. So based on what we just talked about, does that go any way towards addressing the issues. Or does that even potentially worsen the issues, because now you have more law enforcement personnel who are going to be potentially on top of people for just really petty things? And you’re actually now increasing the presence of people in the transit network when, Oumar, you just talked about how people, due to a lack of safe injection sites, are specifically doing drugs on the LRT or in transit areas because there are people there.
Oumar
Yeah, it’s pretty difficult to contend with everything that’s going on and the city’s perspective and the city’s policies on this. Just seeing how much is being pumped into police when we know that they’re a very reactive solution, and that so many of these problems are stemming from neglect from just abdicating responsibility on issues and just piling on the funding for police to potentially make the problem worse for people.
Nicholas
Yeah. And then he also mentions another thing: “I also made a motion last week to approve $5 million to improve safety in downtown, Chinatown, and at transit stations. This money will help to hire social workers or mental health specialists to work with Edmonton Police Service to respond to safety issues in downtown, Chinatown, and on the LRT.”
So $5 million for social workers and mental health specialists to specifically collaborate with the Edmonton Police Service. Okay. Well, first of all, how is that not just the same as increasing the police budget by $5 million? Is this a euphemism for that almost? I also think like the way this is worded, when he says “$3.9 million to add more transit security offers and social workers,” it’s almost just worded in a way to say, “oh well, social workers, you like that! Well look, $3.9 million is going to transit security officers and social workers. So you should be on board with that.” Same kind of thing here — “we’re giving $5 million to social workers and mental health specialists in this area. But they have to work with Edmonton Police Service and within their purview.” And I mean, of course you know who has the power in that relationship.
So again, how is this not just adding $5 million to the organization that’s just a part of the system creating these issues? So anyways, $3.9 million to transit security officers, $5 million to social workers that are going to work with Edmonton Police Service. And yet, we can’t do anything about the source of the disorder itself. That’s just due to a lack of investment from the province. Oh, we can invest millions in law enforcement to respond to the violence, but we really can’t do anything to address those issues due to a lack of investment from the province.
Oumar
Yeah, it’s very saddening to see. And this basic retreat I think also fits within the larger context of living in Alberta too. Of living in a place that’s embraced austerity, that’s embraced conservative politics so much where it’s completely acceptable and in some ways, normalized.
Nicholas
“Conservative” politics, we mean that with a small C, because we really have all conservative parties.
Oumar
That’s a very good point.
Nicholas
Just to be clear, I think we really try to avoid being partisan on this podcast, not in a both sides…
Oumar
Maybe what you’re trying to say, not that we’re on one side and the other side is evil, but I think acknowledging… Or, not in a “both sides are also bad” but in acknowledging that both sides are largely the same and largely have similar goals, work within a similar ideology, and I think have very similar interests to rule in a very similar way.
Nicholas
Yeah. That’s such a great way of putting it. It’s not that both sides are bad — both sides are the same.
Oumar
It’s the same. It’s the same. Yeah. And I think once that acknowledgement is made, then you can move beyond a lot of the unnecessary distraction of partisan politics, and talking about how we need to criticize the conservatives, or we need to bolster some left political party, in this case I’ll say the NDP because we’re in Alberta.
Ultimately, all you find from discourse like that is either a distraction, or you’re actively contributing to these institutions and these parties that are the same or are just actively working against the interests of people who are supposed to be taken care of by the government, taken care of by these institutions.
Nicholas
So yeah, when you talk about conservative policies and this lack of investment in the kind of supports and community initiatives that would actually keep people safe, it's really ingrained in our system and our — I’ll say our culture here, but I don’t mean that nobody wants that stuff. It's just that people are so used to it being framed in a way that they view as antagonistic.
And then the last thing the mayor mentions in his response here is “just two days ago, city council approved $300,000 for the purpose of addressing the immediate and unique needs of Chinatown. We’ve had two meetings with community leaders to collaborate on actions to ensure safety and wellbeing in the community, with another one to be scheduled for June.”
I think I’ve been pretty happy to see responses from the community or perspectives from the Chinatown community, making a point how police presence doesn’t address the issues that are being faced in Chinatown. Acknowledging the harmful impact of police on marginalized communities, and also combatting the idea that defunding police results in violence.
I think what I kind of see as red flags are calls for building trust in institutions. I just listened to a panel discussion today on hate crimes and police response to hate crimes. And I think there was a lot of focus on how a lack of trust in the police is an issue and also lack of access to reporting hate crimes or accessing the police is an issue. And I think there’s maybe not enough criticism of the police’s existence as an institution or the police’s role in society. What are your thoughts on that?
Oumar
I guess within this conversation about whether or not we should rehabilitate police and equip them to handle these situations, or whether or not they should be removed from these situations and we find adequate alternatives. It’s a difficult thing to propose when there are reforms on the table that claim that they can make the situation better by simply changing the way the police operate.
I think what’s really important to note is how insular and how self-controlling the police are, and the number of different events that show clearly how unreformable the police are. And I think from that perspective, and from understanding the kind of historical place that the police have had in Edmonton, it makes me really hesitant when the binary is placed. Where all we need to do is get police to be better, or all we need to do is fix trust with police and that will bring the results that we want. Instead of seriously and critically looking at alternatives that don’t involve police, and spending the energy that we would spend on reform on things that we already know that are controllable in our own hands — which is coming up with these clear, measurable, and I think attainable alternatives to something that we know is already completely reactive and I think it causes a lot of harm.
So it’s, it’s almost like having, I wouldn’t say a blank sheet, because there are places where I think police have a role, but those places in my opinion are very few and far between, at least in the current existence that we have.
Nicholas
Yeah. Did you end up seeing the Batman movie?
Oumar
I did, actually.
Nicholas
Oh, you did? Okay. So this obviously has me thinking about that. In addition to known critics of the police, we are also known critics of film. And my big critique, and what I would say ruined the movie for me, at least from a story perspective, is that kind of bait-and-switch where it seems to be making a systemic critique of the police and whether the people can actually even be served by this a system that really is just set up to to serve to serve power and oppress the vulnerable. But then in the end, they kind of switch to the whole “we need to rebuild trust in our institutions.” And that’s actually, I believe, a quote right from the film where the newly elected mayor says “we need to rebuild trust in our institutions.”
So obviously, this being a Hollywood movie, it’s very prone to a neoliberal thesis. But I see reflections of that kind of thinking here, just in some of the response from like the Chinatown community, where it’s like “we need better representation around people responding to hate crimes or classifying things as hate crimes,” or “we need better representation on the police force,” or “we need better training in addiction deescalation,” or even like, “we need more social workers working with, or under the purview of Edmonton police officers.” Like these ultimately are not structural changes, and go more of the route of just rebuilding trust in our institutions, rather than questioning our institutions, and skepticism towards our institutions. So anyways, I would hope to see more of that skepticism of police in these conversations with the mayor.
Oumar
Yeah. I don’t know if you have anything else to add. If you do, then you should and we can definitely talk about it, but I think a good way to end the episode might be with this clip that I just thought of after we’ve had this back and forth about ideas coming from Chinatown, about reforming police, and how that fits within finding alternatives to police.
I’m going to make sure I don’t get his name wrong, but Kwame Ture has a really good clip where he just talks about the idea of reform, the idea of abolishing systems. And he puts it through this metaphor of the foundation of a house. And how, if you have problems with that, there are different ways of approaching how to solve this problem that we have essentially. But it becomes difficult if you don’t even get to the point where you acknowledge what the problem is, or if you have a differing view, which I think ultimately is very influenced by the kind of result that is wanted here.
So, if you can blur the lines about how rotten the foundation of our institutions are, if you can deny the fact that to their core there’s been problems here, then propose alternatives that are more reformist. But yeah, I think this clip is perfect and I think it’s a really good way to end the show. But yeah Nicholas, it was great chatting. Do you have anything else you want to add?
Nicholas
Yeah, I’m really glad we got to have this chat and just work out some of our thoughts. Labour episode will hopefully be coming soon. And again, if you have any feedback, please let us know. We would love to hear from you and continue more of these discussions, and hopefully have opportunities to learn from each other. So yeah, thanks!
Oumar
Absolutely, yeah. Thanks, Nicholas.
Kwame Ture
There’s a difference between revolution and reform. Big difference. In reform, a man observing a foundation, observing a system, sees many problems, but he assumes that there’s nothing wrong with the system. The foundation of the system for him is a good system. Thus, what he seeks to do is to change the building as best he can, but he wants to leave the foundation intact.
Example: If I came to this building — it’s Ackerman Hall, is it not? If I came to Ackerman Hall and I looked at the foundation, foundation was falling. It was falling. Couldn’t possibly stand. If I were a reformist I’d say, okay, put a piece of board over that. So we covered the foundation. We haven’t touched it. And then I’ll come here, I say, put the window there, put a door here, put a frame here. Put two rooms where there used to be one.
What I’m doing is reforming the system. I am trying to make it look different, but I’m keeping the same rotten foundation. You must understand that because this country is full of reformers, Black people notwithstanding. And these reformers have a tendency to deceive you to let you believe the things are really being changed when in fact the foundation has not been touched. And the longer it stays, the more rotten it becomes, the more rotten it becomes. A revolutionary comes into the building, observes Ackerman Hall and says — looks at the foundation and says, “hey, this foundation is filthy. It’s rotten, it’s corrupt. It must be torn up. A new one must be put in its place.” Once he makes that decision, and once that theoretical decision which he’s made is demonstrated actively in his day to day life, you have a revolutionary. Thus, a revolutionary is not someone who seeks to reform a system, he is someone who seeks to replace it.
I’m a revolutionary, I’m not a reformist. I want the American system destroyed. It must be destroyed. And it has to be replaced. It has to be replaced. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Again, I’m not calling for revolution. I see it coming, and I wants to be part of the solution. I don’t want to be part of the problem. I’ve been a victim too long, so I want to be part of the solution.