Can’t Sit With Us
We’re diving into some ways that our system of governance tries to control or eliminate threats to their power. From a deliberately inaccessible public civic engagement process amid budget deliberations, to local pundits endlessly pushing for a return to the status quo when we never left in the first place.
Oumar interviewed Calgary community organizer Taylor McNallie about the relentless attacks she’s faced from police and the media’s ignorance.
How the System Eliminates Threats
🎵 Intro Music – “Not Alone” by Melafrique
Oumar Salifou (Host)
Hey, how’s it going? Welcome to the podcast. This is our 20th episode and also… probably the first time since 2020 that we’ve recorded during the daytime. So I can see Nicholas in this nice bright sunlight here. It’s pretty fun.
Nicholas
Yeah, we usually end up recording the podcast in the middle of the night. Maybe you remember there was that one episode where there was all the honking from the fans driving home after the Oilers playoffs. But yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know why we never end up recording during the day. But yeah, maybe that’s an interesting metaphor for something?
Oumar
Yeah (laughs), maybe someone can parse that out. The night versus day recording. What does that mean?
Nicholas
Yeah, we’re shrouded in secrets.
Oumar
Yeah, exactly. We’re wearing dark cloaks over our heads right now. Really? Leaning into it.
Nicholas
Yeah. So the theme of this episode is how different institutional branches of our governance try to control or eliminate threats to their power. So we’re talking about municipal government, local media, and of course, the police. So basically three things that we try to focus on a lot in the show.
Later in the episode, we’re going to be talking about the upcoming city budget discussions, and how the municipal government approaches public engagement in a way that really just tries to control or eliminate challenges or threats to their power. We’re also going to be talking about how the local media covers our current municipal government and how their framing ends up shaping the approach to government.
And we’re going to be actually starting off with the police because Oumar got to do a really great interview with Taylor McNallie, someone that we’ve wanted to talk to for a long time.
Oumar
It’s definitely been a long time that I’ve wanted to have this conversation. I think it’s a necessary one. Taylor is a community organizer in Calgary who’s been the target of just relentless attacks from the police over the last couple of years. She’s faced criminal charges several times related to protesting police violence, specifically protests that happened after the death of Dalia Kafi.
What happened with Dalia Kafi was a situation where she was found to be in breach of a curfew that was put on her. Court mandated curfew. During the arrest process, there was video released after she was brutally thrown to the ground by the police officer. Picked up while she was handcuffed, off of the ground and just slammed onto a concrete floor, and sustained pretty serious injuries.
And after that, in the complaints process was definitely… I don’t know what exactly happened in that situation, but I’m almost sure that —
Nicholas
Well yeah, so the incident happened in December 2017. And the officer, Alex Dunn, who assaulted Dalia, wasn’t charged until May 2019, and he was found guilty in 2020. And then he was just handed a 1-month sentence, which means he would serve no time in jail, but it would just be house arrest, followed by house arrest with a curfew.
And the case was presided over by a white judge, of course. And the judge said “there is no evidence that race is a factor in the actual assault.” So you can just imagine what Dalia went through throughout this whole situation, being basically gaslit by those in power here. And then she died of an overdose just 2 days before the sentencing was announced.
Oumar
So the situation with Dalia was what Taylor was protesting at the Calgary courthouse when she herself was thrown down and arrested by Calgary police in an assault that she was later given criminal charges for.
So these criminal charges are on top of other incidents, like an assault in Red Deer when, after Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 erupted, Taylor and other organizers wanted to travel across Alberta to have important conversations about race and racism, and they received constant threats from far right groups. And when they arrived in Red Deer, they were assaulted. Taylor was in a situation where she was being filmed and after knocking down a camera, was charged with assault against the person who was filming her.
So these are all things that we’re going to talk about later. And Taylor is going to give her own story and kind of explain what happened.
Nicholas
Yeah, it’s — everything that she went through, when you compare that with a situation here in Edmonton with Duncan Kinney, another friend of the show — not that these are equal or to lump them together, but there’s some really interesting context that becomes important later in the interview when it comes to how that situation has been covered by local media versus how Taylor’s experiences have been covered by local media.
So Oumar, I think you know a little bit more about this. Do you want to give a little bit of a brief recap of the situation with Duncan before we play the interview?
Oumar
So Duncan Kinney is a local independent journalist with The Progress Report, and he was charged with a few vandalism charges stemming from a spray paint of a Nazi general or some kind of military figure in Ukraine that was given a statue. And I’m not going to say any more about that, just some useful context for things that are going to be discussed later in the interview.
Retaliation From All Angles (Interview with Taylor McNallie)
🎵 Intro Music
Oumar
If it’s okay with you, we can just start with introductions. So for any listeners who may not know the work that you do or who you are, can you just give us a little rundown of who you are and maybe some of your past history in Alberta?
Taylor McNallie
My name is Taylor McNallie. I live in Calgary, Alberta. I’ve been in Calgary for 16 years, I think. Yeah. Mom, community organizer. I have a business doing branding and marketing, that is what pays the bills. I have an organization, Inclusive Canada. I also do work with a collective called Walls Down Collective that is newly — the name is newly formed, but the work is work that has been ongoing for many years.
My history in Calgary and Alberta, what I’ve been doing, has not always been so-called “activism” work. I was very much involved in the music, arts and entertainment industry for very many years. And in 2020, when the global protests for Black Lives Matter sparked over the murder of George Floyd, I decided I would kind of use my platforms for something else since I had a following, since I’ve made connections, all these things.
And naive me was like, “yeah, all these people, these are great people that I know! Black Lives Matter, and they’re going to want to make change.” And then I very quickly realized that that was not the case. And that this fight is much harder, obviously, than I think any of us truly know, especially if you are somebody who grew up in predominantly white spaces in Alberta and kind of out here floating around on your own, and until 2020, not necessarily realizing that this is like a collective experience that Black people are feeling and facing and experiencing.
And so I very quickly shifted my focus, and it seems like this is just where I will be for the unforeseeable future. Doing this work, and that’s necessary.
Oumar
Just to zoom in a bit on the work that you do. I think you said the Walls Down organization and I know that you are also very active on social media when it comes to mutual aid. What is your approach to the work that you do, and how does it take shape in the world, in Calgary, on the streets, every week, basically?
Taylor
Yeah. I mean, the focus is a better life for everybody. Even within the Black Lives Matter movement, I think — I mean, even still, a lot of people think that we are only out here fighting for Black lives, or that what can be gained through dismantling anti-Black oppression and racism can only benefit Black people. That is not the case.
I forget the quote right now. I wish I had it up or I could remember it. But that the moment we dismantle… Anti-Blackness is the foundation of white supremacy. You cannot have white supremacy without anti-Blackness. That is a reality. And when we are able to uplift those most oppressed and marginalized within our society, automatically everybody benefits from that.
So this work is just based on wanting a better life for everybody. Even though this society is literally built for white people, capitalism and white supremacy is not benefiting anybody. That’s the reality. Capitalism isn’t benefiting anybody. Even if you think you are doing well and you’re out here living your life, you’re not. We could be living so much better.
And just amplifying the needs and voices of those who are not being heard, those who are not having their basic needs met, trying to redistribute our resources throughout our communities, whether that’s financial or material items. And just trying to, unfortunately, still educate people.
In 2020, it was a lot of heavy focus on educating white people, and then realizing white people don’t even want this education. It’s not like this education has not been here for hundreds of years. I mean, Angela Davis is still out here doing seminars and y’all ain’t listening to her. So it’s kind of still providing education, but also shifting the focus on how we are caring for ourselves and our own communities, because that is where our empowerment and the liberation will lie, is us working together and fighting for ourselves.
Oumar
Some of the problems, or some of the challenges that come with the work that you do — can you maybe talk about what happens when community members decide to take their lives into their own hands or collectively really put caring into action in some ways? What are some of the challenges that come up? Because I know that there have been splits in groups of people who are doing this kind of work. So maybe for listeners who are interested in taking this on for themselves and their own communities, what’s your experience been and what are the outcomes from situations that arise?
Taylor
Yeah, wow. Yeah, this work is heavy on its own. And being oppressed people ourselves so that are really taking on this work. Black and Indigenous folks, other racialized people. We are hurting individuals. We have trauma, we have stresses. Not only are we trying to do this work, but we’re also experiencing the same oppression that we are trying to fight.
And so it can get messy at times. Between each other, between our communities, inter-communities and our relations. I was with Bear Clan for nearly 3 years. This would have been my third Christmas with Bear Clan. Myself and nearly 40 other people decided to stop working under the Bear Clan name for a variety of reasons.
And instead of those reasons being taken seriously, having a discussion about them that we have tried for months and months, it ended up being a huge blowout and actually ended up being like “Taylor McNallie is a cult leader and this has taken over Bear Clan,” which is not the situation at all. Unfortunately, because I am one of few Black women in Alberta even, I will say — especially Calgary — putting myself on the line like this and doing this work the way I am, it’s been really easy for me to become a target for people, to become their punching bag.
Even before doing this work though, even when I was doing stuff within the music and arts and entertainment industry, same thing. One of very few Black women, Black people in general in that space doing what I did. And because of white supremacy, because of racism, it’s just a weird relationship of jealousy, or “how is this person getting as far as they are with all of these struggles along the way?”
It’s just weird perceptions and views on Black people and Black women especially. So yeah, I have become an easy target from the Black community, from the Indigenous community, both communities. Even if you are Black, you can still hold internalized anti-Blackness. And these are things that we need to dismantle.
And not only that, but then also from government officials, including police, becoming a target with that. So not only am I fighting the world, struggling with the world, with white supremacy, anti-Blackness, and racism. But then I also have to deal with that sometimes with the people I’m working with.
Because this is not the only — Bear Clan wasn’t the first group I tried working with either. There was a group called the Alberta Humanitarian Initiative at one point, which was a bunch of different groups that came together from across Alberta and eventually fell apart as well for a variety of reasons. So dealing with the world, dealing with my communities, but then also dealing with some very serious shit from government officials like the police.
So it comes at all angles all of the time. And I’m sick of being called “strong.” I’m sick of being called “resilient.” It’s like there’s just no other choice. I’m not just going to wake up in the morning and keep doing it, the other choice is just not waking up in the morning. You know, I have a child. I’m leaving my child behind, so I’d better figure it out. That’s not resilience. That’s just trying to survive.
Oumar
I guess —
Taylor
It’s a lot to unpack!
Oumar
Yeah no, it’s a lot. It’s definitely a lot. And I think it’s important for listeners to maybe get a better understanding. When you say targeting from government officials, specifically the police, you have a lot of videos, you have a lot of… There’s official cases happening right now, defamation lawsuits, criminal charges.
But for people who aren’t aware, what does police harassment look like on a day to day basis in your life? What shape has it taken, and what steps have you taken to protect yourself, to manage this targeting?
Taylor
Before 2020, I’d never been charged with anything before. I was sitting here thinking about that last night. I was like, “damn. It’s only been like 2 years. Okay.” And now 2 years later, I have under my belt 13 criminal charges and 2 defamation suits. And I’m only going to assume there will be more charges coming in the future because they are monitoring me.
They are trying to find what they can, especially with my trial happening. Because what makes them look better than when I walk in a trial and I have all these other charges, that I look to continue looking like a threat. And so 2020 was the first charge. I don’t know if you remember the situation in Red Deer.
There were a few of us who had organized an anti-racism community discussion. My organization in 2020, part of what we did was we literally just traveled around Alberta because I’m from rural Alberta. So I figured, let’s take the conversation of racism to rural Alberta. Terrible fucking idea.
I mean, there were some good things that came from it. We made some really good connections. We did have some really good conversations. But it was incredibly dangerous because people want to assume that we don’t have white supremacists like in the United States. No baby. They are born and raised here. We have them. We have Proud Boys, we have Soldiers of Odin, we have Canadian Combat Coalition. We have these things.
And so immediately I was first targeted by white supremacists, and actual white supremacist hate groups who wear the vests, patches. I was stalked by them, I was doxxed by them, I was harassed by them, online and offline. And so this community discussion happened in Red Deer. And days leading up to it, we had people like Pat King making live videos showing videos of somebody in the US chasing down an Antifa member. I put “Antifa” in quotations, I don’t know if this is going to be on video or not. And then slapping this person around and Pat King saying,”if you come into our communities, this is what’s going to happen.”
For days leading up to us going there, there were death threats online. People going to shoot us, people going to run us over. They were making plans to show up. We already knew. The main organizer of the event and Red Deer had contacted the RCMP and said, “hey, we’re holding this anti-racism event. This is the threats we have. So we’re just letting this is what’s going down.” And obviously they didn’t really respond to her. They didn’t get back to her.
We ended up changing the location last minute to try and deke them out, that did not work. We showed up, and it was like a scene out of the 1930s in the south of America. In the distance you could hear truck horns and yelling, and the megaphones, and then you see the trucks flying up. They have their flags, American flags, Trump flags, Confederate flags, everybody coming up.
And they park, they get out. And I have this video of them parking and walking up and attacking. And within, I don’t know, 2 minutes of them walking onto the grass. We’re standing, they are already punching people. And this you have RCMP right here, and you have Soldiers of Odin with their vests right here. And ain’t nobody doing anything.
A situation happened where I had thrown a camera to break it, because it was somebody who has organized a lot of these anti-mask protests, all of these things. There’s a video of him at city hall in Calgary throwing heil Hitler, Hitler salutes. And this man is here videoing me, trying to get in my face.
I take his camera, throw it to break it. The camera hits him. And then I’m charged with assault with a weapon. That was my first charge. But luckily, that charge was dropped. And it wasn’t until the next charges at our prolonged protest outside Calgary Courts Centre. We were out there for 3 weeks for Dalia Kafi.
The Constable Alex Dunn had violently arrested her, thrown her to the ground. She had since passed away. And he got a 1-month sentence, half of it to be at home and the other half on curfew. So we decided to protest, and it ended up with me receiving 7 criminal charges that ended up with a 5-day trial. My trial was supposed to be last week, and then it got adjourned. The trial may not happen until spring of 2023.
And last week, the day before that trial, I got another call from my lawyer. Police had called him saying I was being charged with assault from another situation, a situation where I was assaulted. I was punched in the face by 2 different men. And the only person being charged with assault out of that situation is me. And even the friends I was with were attacked and assaulted. So it’s constant. They time things… This happened a month ago, why are you calling me a day before my trial saying I’m going to be charged with something else and arrested.
So those are some things. But what happens in between that, because I do a lot of boots on the ground work. So when I’m downtown and I’m walking by and a cop walks by me or rides by me on their bike, a part of their intimidation tactics is to look at me and say, “hey, Taylor.” Or, “hello, Miss McNallie.” I don’t know about anybody else, but if you walk down the street and a cop walks by you and addresses you by your first and last name, I mean, does that happen to anybody else? Because I’m willing to bet no.
It doesn’t intimidate me. It’s just fucked up, because we’re not on a first name basis. Why are you talking to me this way? My lawyer did get a FOIP request on me from Calgary police dating 2020 – 2022. So I got to see even within that how much they’re talking about me, how much they are monitoring me.
Any situation where I’ve spoken with a cop is in this FOIP request, they report it right away. They ain’t doing that with other people. If you see a cop at a grocery store and say, “hey officer,” they’re not reporting back to Jimmy at the station.
One more situation where, because I went and had to turn myself in for the new assault charges that I’ve just received. So that was yesterday. I went in, I sit down. Of course they’re trying to interrogate me, all these things. Before I leave, they bring in the new hate crimes leader for Calgary Police. His name is Matt Messenger, man from the UK. And I like to point out this part because the previous hate crimes leader is also from the UK, and Calgary police has really close ties to police forces and people and groups in the UK, which is really messed up. And so they keep bringing in these dudes from the UK for the hate crimes unit.
The dude sitting in front of me, leader of a hate crimes wearing a thin blue line pin, which is interesting. You’re a hate crimes leader and that’s what you’re choosing to do. Okay. And he was investigating me on anti-white rhetoric that was spray painted on garbage cans and like parking cement blocks saying like, “kill white babies, stop having white babies.” “Kill white people, kill white supremacists.”
I was like… Not that anybody has video or a photo of me doing this, but because people in that city who don’t like me or the work I do have called in to Crimestoppers to tell them that they’ve either seen me doing it or that they think I’m doing it based on what I talk about online. And to them, what I talk about online is hating white people because they can’t seem to distinguish the difference between racism, white supremacy, and just white people in general.
So it’s very interesting that this work has come to this. I don’t want to say it’s interesting in a way that’s shocking, because when you are fighting the system this way, you’re going to expect the system to fight back. It’s just really tiring when it’s a handful of people really committed to doing this work, because then we become targets even easier, and the system begins to win because we begin to get tired.
And either we get tired and burnt out where we stop or we die, whether that is by suicide or by murders. You ask about what measures I’m taking, or how do I remain my safety? Which is a good question, because I am scared all of the time. I have an alarm on my door. I’m setting up cameras. I just got a dog. I have to be careful where I go, who I’m going with, what time of day I’m going. Even if I’m sitting down somewhere, I will not put my back to anywhere I can’t see behind me.
I don’t know what’s going to roll up behind me. Because quite honestly, we don’t know what these police are capable of. We have an idea, but we don’t know for sure. We don’t know what these white supremacists want to be planning. We have seen them attack people. We have seen them attack places of worship. We have seen them do all of these things.
And I don’t need to sit around trying to find out. So yeah, there’s a lot of measures to be taken in safety. Do I feel safe with these things even? No, I don’t. I don’t ever feel safe. Even sitting here in my house, I don’t feel safe. So yeah, a lot. A lot to unpack. I apologize.
Oumar
No, please don’t apologize. That is a lot. And I’m grateful that people will get the chance to listen to everything you just said. And I understand the limits of awareness and awareness politics and how that definitely has its limits. But at the same time — this is your story, and everything that happened to you is happening at the same time as Shannon Phillips, this NDP MLA who was harassed by police in Lethbridge, Duncan Kinney, who was harassed by police here in Edmonton.
And then we have a situation where Canadaland — which is a Toronto-based publication, they do a lot of podcasts, independent media — they released a podcast episode with Jesse Brown and Jeremy Appel talking about the Duncan Kinney situation. I haven’t listened to the podcast yet, but you were featured in a small segment that touched on the protests that you made.
And because I haven’t listened, I can’t comment on it too much. But I did see you had a lot of concerns with how that was framed. Did you want to maybe walk through what happened with that podcast episode, and how that story is being covered and how your story is being covered?
Taylor
Yeah, and it’s interesting you bring that up too. Because I posted that like a week ago now, and Canadaland just sent me an email yesterday like, “hey, we saw your concerns and we’d like to address that. If we did something wrong, let us know.” And it’s just like me just sitting here, wheels turning because it’s like — again, it’s so much to unpack that people, especially white people, just really don’t understand or realize.
Number one, where do I even start with that? The situation with Duncan Kinney. Duncan Kinney is a white man in Edmonton, he is a reporter or journalist, and a heavy police critic. He does a lot of work. He highlights a lot of stories. I do not in any way want to diminish the work that Duncan does, because it is important work.
That said, so many of the stories that we see and we read and we hear of are always focused from a white perspective. And it’s always focused on white people. So Duncan Kinney got charged with property damage, vandalism as well, on some Nazi statue. And immediately Twitter blows up. Everybody in support. White man in trouble, run to his aid.
When people see police brutality against white people, or people see a white person being treated badly, unjustly by the system, immediately something sparks because they can see themselves now in this situation. And people don’t like to get activated or involved in things until they relate to it in some way.
There’s a situation with Sean Chu, a police officer here in Calgary. He was a police officer. He molested a young woman, and also pulled a gun or something on his wife. And now he is a city councillor in our city. And the person who was molested and assaulted by this man has come out. She’s made — or they’ve made, I will not assume gender.
They have made an anonymous Twitter account and have now been sharing their experiences, sharing screenshots. They be sharing some deep, deep tea. And everybody should be paying attention to this. At the same time, what we’re now seeing in something like Break the Blue Wall of Silence, which is a movement that white women that are current police officers or previous police officers are now coming forward with their stories or coming forward with their support.
And it’s just, at what point do Black people get that type of support? At what point are our plights, our struggles, our assaults, our murders that have been happening for hundreds of years. At what point do we get that acknowledgement, that show of support, whether it’s physically, financially, mentally, spiritually? When do we get to be seen as human and have people be able to just amplify us in the way that we deserve?
And I don’t say these things to be like, “oh, I’m mad, somebody else is being seen and not me,” because number one, it’s not about me. It’s not about me. It is so much bigger than one person. It’s the way whiteness continues to be centred, despite Black people showing over and over again what has been happening to us, and everybody fighting us like “police aren’t that bad.”
But suddenly, police rape somebody. Well yeah, we’ve been telling you how fucking trash they are. And y’all are still fighting us on defund. Y’all are still fighting us on abolition. And nothing is being done until y’all are able to see yourselves in the situation like, “oh wait, something’s wrong here.” Yeah, something’s wrong here. We’ve been telling you that.
We’ve been telling you and we still don’t see that. Even my situation that happened yesterday. I posted something, and even the support on that compared to somebody like Duncan Kinney is very mild.
So Canadaland does this podcast and it is 2 white men talking about the Duncan Kinney case. and then talking about another situation that was also disgusting and how they handled that situation was disgusting. And in between that, they put in a 1-minute little excerpt of me and my situation. And what Jeremy had said was basically false anyway. Like you could obviously tell he has not been paying attention. He didn’t talk to me about fucking anything. He just said whatever he thought was going on and like, “hey, I did my job ticking the box.”
First off, don’t put me on your podcast because your podcast is trash. Second, don’t talk about me on your podcast, especially if you ain’t got all the information and you do not care to reach out and have those conversations with me to begin with, and be like, “hey, is it okay if I do this? Hey, I’m going to say this. Is that okay? Hey, would you like to be on this podcast and talk about your situation yourself? God forbid we amplify the voices of Black women.”
So yeah, again, it’s a lot to unpack. So when I open this email from him and I’m just like, “I ain’t got the time to respond to this, because it’s going to be more than just a little reply to an email.” And then I’ll be the angry Black woman, or not using the right tone or… God, fuck.
Oumar
Yeah no, it’s a lot to unpack. And very unfortunate situations. I’m not necessarily sure where to end this conversation, because we’ve talked about so many different people, institutions, movements, whether it’s the work that you do or people organizing against you. But as ambiguous and as big as this question might be, what do you look forward to in the future?
What’s 2023 going to hold for you moving forward? And I guess, what ways do you hope to personally adapt, or what ways do you hope other people will adapt to create better outcomes for these situations?
Taylor
Yeah, when I think future, I definitely don’t think 2023. I think 2023 will be more of a disaster than 2022, and 2021, and 2020. I think of the future and I do hope for some form of peace. I hope more people step up and remain committed to the work so that myself and others are able to, I don’t know, take a week vacation, relax a little bit.
I really would love to start doing art again, or start up Taylor Made Radio again. I would love to do these things, and feel in a way that I can’t for many reasons. A lot of it is also capacity. By the time I’m done doing everything else and fighting everything else, I’m tired. I want to go to sleep. I ain’t got time, energy to do anything else.
And for adapting… Black people have been adapting and moulding to our surroundings wherever. It’s a form of survival. I don’t want us to have to adapt anymore. I don’t want us to have to mould anymore. I want us to be able to exist peacefully, joyfully, receiving love, giving love, just living our best fucking lives. We don’t need to adapt anymore.
And I don’t want to say that white people should have to adapt either. Maybe adapt to the reality that yes, hello — we are no longer on the plantations anymore. We live out here, and you need to learn how to live with us peacefully. Treat us with fucking respect, provide us with love, caring, understanding, acceptance like you do everything else.
I don’t know. Half of me always feels hopeful for our future that we are doing something and we’re going to see change. And the other half of me is always just like, “it has to get worse before it gets better.” And I think that’s more the reality of the world and where we’re in, because history has shown us over and over again that things have to get worse before they get better.
So I’m just here for the ride and doing whatever I can to make my experience and those around me a little bit easier, a little bit happier, a little more joyful. And that’s all I can hope for, personally.
Oumar
Yeah. That’s a good place to end. This is probably the best conversation I’ve had, definitely this season so far. And I don’t want to throw shade on our previous guests, of course. I love everybody. But yeah, a lot of very important, relatable things that were brought up. Is there anything that I missed that you want listeners to know, or anywhere that people can follow you on social media or otherwise if they want to hear more of your work or see what you’re up to?
Taylor
Yeah, I definitely think Instagram and Twitter are the best places to follow me. Right now Instagram is my favourite platform. I think I might just get rid of Facebook. That’s where I’m at with Facebook. And yeah, the way to support me right now personally is definitely financially with legal fees, because the legal fees are not stopping there, these charges are just going to keep piling up again.
Right now I have 12. So that’s where I’m at. And collectively, we will have all of our Walls Down Collective social media platforms fully out. They are up in the world right now, just nothing is on them yet. We’re waiting for our logo and stuff. But wallsdowncollective@gmail.com. If people want to support us in mutual aid work, I also have a mutual aid page on Instagram where I try to distribute funds to different folks within so-called Canada.
So obviously redistributing wealth is huge right now. We say money doesn’t buy happiness, but it sure does help put roofs over people’s heads and food on the table and clothes on their back. So if you have the funds to do so, please contribute financially. Yeah.
Overlooked Reality of Anti-Black Violence (Interview Debrief)
🎵 Intro Music
Oumar
Just to repeat myself, and not to throw any shade or disrepute onto any of our other guests, but I really enjoyed the interview that was done with Taylor. And I feel like a lot of the things that were said are not talked about enough. And this is a reality for a lot of Black and Indigenous communities that are challenging institutional norms, that are trying to see some substantial change in the justice system, in policing.
The media kind of ignores it completely. It’s like a black hole, and it’s just a lot of silence. And it’s interesting because they don’t always ignore it. So you know that there is an understanding of what’s happening. But then when it gets mentioned, like in the Canadaland situation, it is done in a very — it’s kind of put it in a box, or completely ignored.
Nicholas
Well, it’s not ignored when it’s happening to a white person, right? I think that’s what that Canadaland situation shows. It’s ignored until a white person is able to be centred in that story. Then it becomes a real story, because it’s a real full human being going through this, right? Obviously a big takeaway there is white allies and that kind of unwillingness to actually acknowledge lived experiences in the community until it’s them being centred.
Oumar
That is very unfortunate, but it just happens in so many different situations. And there’s a lot of room for improvement when it comes to just acknowledging that fact that there only seems to be a reaction, there only seems to be uproar or condemnation when it happens to a white person. And it can be the exact same thing.
Like another example that happened earlier this year was, I think it was Bell Media firing one of the reporters, ostracizing her for her age, really sexist, very awful situation. But then a few weeks or a few months later, a Black woman in the same newsroom in Toronto opens up about her discrimination, about how her career was held back in different but similar ways.
And it’s very sad to see how much smaller, how little room there is in the discourse or in public attention for the concerns, for the worries, for the problems that Black and racialized people face. Black and Indigenous people, anyone who isn’t white, basically.
Nicholas
Well, and it’s very revealing too, the lack of understanding, even in a supposedly progressive space like Canadaland. The kind of lack of understanding there, where Taylor said afterwards they reached out and it’s that kind of familiar gesture of, “well, what could we do? What could we do to fix this?” Like there’s no demonstration of empathy or understanding there.
It’s still centred around like, “oh, how can I fix this? I wasn’t aware. Just tell me what to do,” and kind of putting the work back on Taylor, back on the victimized person. That’s a situation that’s obviously familiar for any person from a marginalized community who’s tried to bring up an experience of that marginalization impacting them interpersonally.
Oumar
It’s a very accurate way to summarize the situation. And I feel like it’s very simple and basic, but the real kind of basic empathy of like, putting yourself in a marginalized person’s shoes. Like, if you are in a progressive political position, or if you are in a progressive media organization — or supposedly, either or — it’s that simple exercise of “what would my reaction be if I was Taylor?”
Or, “if I was in a situation of being Black in Alberta and vocal against the systems,” with all of the other knowledge that you have. I think if these exercises are done, maybe the results will be different. Maybe the emails sent will be different, maybe the narrative or the conversation will be different.
Nicholas
How you sequence your show, right?
Oumar
Yeah!
Nicholas
Maybe we should give our guests equal footing! Or maybe we don’t need to downplay this Black victim’s experience by giving it like 5% of the time of the previous white guests. So yeah, there’s definitely a takeaway there for any, I guess you could say allies out there or working in media just to avoid the urge to centre yourself in these situations.
And I just wanted to point out some ways that you can support Taylor or keep up with her work. So she’s on Twitter @TaylorMcNallie. You can also follow her on Instagram @TaylorMadeYYC or her mutual aid page that she runs called Mutual Aid Canada. So she has these things called Mutual Aid Mondays where basically, if you want to just have an easy way to keep up to date with where you can send direct support to people who need it in the community, that’s just a really great way to stay informed.
A Budget Consultation for None of Us
Oumar
So again, the theme of this episode is how institutions try to neutralize or control and eliminate threats to their power through certain narratives. And a really good example of that we’re seeing right now is through city hall and what’s happening with the budget process.
We can look forward, in the next month and also in the new year, to budget deliberations. So we’re going to have public consultations happening in December, on December 1st, on the 2nd, on the 7th, on the 9th, and then most days of the week for the week of December 12th. And the City Council is also meeting on December 5th officially. And then the budget, if everything goes according to plan, the budget might also be passed during a council session on January 31st.
So this is all to talk a little bit more about the way that Council designs the public engagement process, and how that process inherently is not very accessible, and is very difficult for people to engage with. So there are a few examples of that in this year’s budget process.
Again, this year the police are the highest budget item in the city council budget breakdown. But because line items have changed this year, certain other line items or other city departments have either been swallowed into different categories or are completely different. So it makes it very difficult to actually understand how we’ve gotten to where we are now, or how things might be going in the future. If everything in the budget, line item wise, is always subject to change?
Nicholas
Well yeah, as a member of the public, obviously it’s your money that’s going to fund the various municipal services. So what you want to see is a breakdown of where that money is being spent. And over time, you want to understand — is more money being allocated to things that I think need to be addressed more effectively? Is less of my money being spent on things that I don’t actually think need to be addressed, or that I think too much money has gone into in the past?
And this way of reporting where basically they’ve got like a pie chart in each budget that breaks down where all the money is going — if the items in that pie chart are changing year to year, it really neutralizes the ability for anyone in the public to easily digest and then criticize or comment on what is happening. How can anyone in the public know how they feel about how the allocation of money is being changed or updated going forward, if they can’t actually compare it to what was happening previously?
Oumar
Yeah, I listed off all the dates earlier for when city council is having a budget consultation. And another thing that I definitely find — I found this out when I did some work, or I went to the police commission a few times when they had the meetings online and also in person the last Thursday of every month at noon.
It’s very difficult to block time off to actually speak and it’s very inconvenient for people who have issues with city council, with the budget process, with the police commission because of the timing. Most regular, normal people have 9 to 5 jobs, right? So you can’t take time off, or doing so is very difficult. And there aren’t almost any mechanisms to make sure that these consultations… Or, when the public is being asked to engage, there aren’t many ways to change what’s happening now with the scheduling.
And this is apparent in one of the situations that city council decided to ban shisha indoor smoking in Edmonton. And now a reversal on that decision is being proposed. And in that reversal, the public is being told about how, when the original decision was made, the only people who spoke in favour of the ban were consultants who worked with an advocacy group against smoking, against secondhand smoke and tobacco.
There are a lot of community members — there are a lot of African community members, there are a lot of Arab community members — who ran businesses around shisha, who use shisha. But they didn’t show up to city council. Nobody can speak.
Nicholas
Well because it was scheduled during the day, you mean.
Oumar
Exactly. Because it was scheduled during the day.
Nicholas
Yeah. That method of scheduling just inherently tips the balance in favour of industry, right? Or in favour of, like you say, consultancy groups. Anyone who actually has a daytime job to advocate for certain things. So inherently, the community perspective is going to be underrepresented because the people who hold the community perspective are working during that time. Whereas the industry prospective or the institutional perspective employs people to advocate for them during that time.
Oumar
No, that’s literally what it is. And it makes it so that when community does show up — for example, I think of the taxi community when Uber and ride sharing was happening, huge turnout at City Hall. In 2020 after George Floyd was murdered, large online turnout for City Hall meetings. But then that becomes the narrative, that it’s surprising when hundreds of people decide to talk to council.
Nicholas
Yeah, it’s surprising that public engagement actually happened. Because this system was designed to prevent it.
Oumar
Literally (laughs).
Nicholas
Yeah. And I mean, we’re just talking about scheduling, right? But scheduling aside, there’s also just risk or safety concerns about being in that kind of space and amongst that kind of power dynamic as someone from the community. Who’s going to advocate for themselves amidst everyone who holds power in that system that’s holding them down, right? Who’s actually going to feel safe going into that space who would hold that perspective?
Oumar
That’s a great question. And speaking from my own personal experience, I personally don’t feel very comfortable. But I know it’s necessary. I know that it’s important sometimes to physically show up and participate. But no, there aren’t a lot of steps to make you feel welcome or comfortable. You gotta go through a lot of security, a lot of metal detectors. Obviously city hall is very nice, but these are all deterrents. These are all things that are just telling a large portion of the public that they aren’t really wanted or welcomed or very safe in those places, right?
Nicholas
Yeah. And just turning to social media, it’s been interesting seeing the approach that the mayor’s office is taking to engaging the public on the city budget. Mayor Sohi has been putting out these videos where he says things like, “oh, did you know that your city tax dollars go towards snow removal, rec centres, public transit, (whispers) police, firefighters…”
And there’s this kind of implicit acknowledgment that police are controversial or harmful. Obviously, the mayor knows that there’s a lot of dissatisfaction with police amongst the public. So he tries to frame the city budget as only going towards the things that everyone’s on board with that are more wholesome and less controversial. And then this framing is used in the service of basically setting it up to make the case for increasing tax dollars.
And obviously, the city has committed to a lot of things like the LRT, an expensive new rec center in the west end, and they want to be able to stick to these commitments without decreasing the police budget. So by framing the city budget as kind of primarily going towards snow removal, rec centres, public transit — despite, as you said, Oumar, the police budget being the single biggest line item year after year in the city budget — they want you to get on board as a taxpayer with the idea of paying more to support these more neutral, wholesome services without thinking about the idea of taking some money from the police budget.
Oumar
It’s the police. That’s what we spend the most money on. So even if we spend millions, hundreds of millions on other things, framing it as if the police aren’t first, it’s just dishonest in a lot of ways. But I feel like it does also fit within changing narratives around what it means to be progressive and how that fits within also supporting police while not trying to make it seem like other services are being impacted.
Nicholas
Well yeah. And then at the end, they always say “let us know what you want to see in the budget” or “let us know your thoughts on the budget.” And it’s kind of a similar thing to what you were talking about with Michael Janz a couple of episodes back. This idea of putting it back on the community to let elected officials know in these specific forums what they want to see, is almost a way of avoiding accountability to the opinions that you already know are held by the public.
The fact that they’re trying to be quiet or downplay how much money goes towards the police kind of shows that they already know that the public is unhappy with police. But then they try to frame it as like, “oh, yeah, let us know. It’s a blank slate right now. If you don’t let us know in these specific public consultation hearings, then we’re just going to make the decisions completely regardless of community input.”
Oumar
So when people in the public or someone on social media does try to let city council or the mayor’s office know how they feel, if that engagement doesn’t fit within the accepted parameters, city council, the mayor’s office is happy to remove it or just completely disassociate from it in a social media context. When we try to point out some of the… what were we – ?
Nicholas
Basically, the mayor’s office… people were commenting that they were unhappy about the police budget and how many budget raises they’ve gotten over the course of this year. The mayor’s office was just responding with like, “oh, we don’t control the police budget. That’s the police commission.” Which is wrong, of course. City council does fund the police and they were responsible for raising the police budget 4 times this year.
So yeah, we posted something just calling out how they shouldn’t be deflecting to the police commission in order to evade accountability.
Oumar
And they removed the tag. We tagged them in it, and they just removed it.
Nicholas
Yeah. I thought it was a mistake at first, because we posted it and tagged them. And then I went to check the post later the tag was gone. So then I re-tagged the mayor in it and then checked the post a little bit later, and that was gone as well. So they obviously saw it on both accounts and then actively removed the tag, which is really funny when you look at the kind of stuff that they do leave up on their socials.
Oumar
So we’re in Edmonton, and that means that the Oilers are a big part of the city’s culture, Alberta culture, Canada culture…
Nicholas
Certain demographics.
Oumar
Exactly, right? Like certain demographics. Got to point that out. So the Ice District in Edmonton is a recent invention, along with the multi-billion dollar arena, and it’s been…
Nicholas
Was it multi-billion dollars?
Oumar
It’s a multi-billion? I think it’s a couple hundred million at least. But if you include the Stantec Tower, if you include all of the other infrastructure, the casino, the Marriott Hotel, the new supermarket, the Loblaw’s city centre there, it’s been a force for gentrification in an area that really was home to a lot of homeless people. There were a lot of other businesses that were there before.Everything has been pushed out. It’s a very wealthy, very gentrified area.
So in the context of Oilers tickets that are hundreds of dollars, and condos that are even more expensive, the mayor was celebrating the Ice District and posing with a lot of stakeholders. Kaycee Madu from the provincial government, the UCP, another friend of the show…
Nicholas
Good friend of the show.
Oumar
Good friend of the show, yeah! We commented on the post because the mayor said that the Ice District is helping Edmonton, has added a lot. So, we just asked, “who is this helping?” I think the answer is self-explanatory. It’s helping a lot of people with very deep pockets, the Oilers investment group, and a lot of other people who have a lot of money.
The comment was just removed. They just took the comment off of their post. So again, there are very specific parameters and then we try to engage in different ways and it just gets removed. And we’re not the only ones. Of course there are plenty of other people and a lot of other examples, but that was just super blatant and kind of funny almost.
Nicholas
Yeah. It’s a little bit petty. It’s not like we actually care a ton, I guess. But it is revealing about how they actually want to engage with real opinions from the public or from the community. I actually don’t know if our comment was removed, but at the very least it was marked as spam or hidden somehow.
Because I can see it when I look at the post from our podcast account. But when I tried to look at the post from just a personal account, the comment doesn’t show up, and also comments on this post have been limited. So I think you also need to be following the mayor in order to comment on any of the posts, which is also petty, but like just another example of not really walking the walk when it comes being open to real opinions from the public and wanting to hear from all Edmontonians.
Oumar
Yeah, going to the post right now, from my personal account, I can’t see the comment. It says it has no comments.
Nicholas
And that comments have been limited? Or are you following the Mayor?
Oumar
I am not. I am following the mayor, and the comments haven’t been limited. So you have to be following in order to comment.
Nicholas
Yeah. Cool!
Local Media Protects the Status Quo
Oumar
So moving into some media analysis, we are going to be checking out this article from Keith Gerein, who’s a columnist with the Edmonton Journal. And he wrote an article which is like a retrospective on the first year of Sohi’s time as mayor. And the headline reads “Sohi is a different Edmonton mayor for a different time, but is it working? ’Amarjeet has been connecting with people who haven’t always had a voice in our political process,’ said Coun. Andrew Knack.”
So Nicholas, we’re going to take a few quotes. You’re going to read them, and then I’m going to say a few things?
Nicholas
Yep, totally. We pulled out a few quotes from this article, and we’re just going to respond to them and see if we agree or something else maybe. So Keith basically says that he thinks there are two photos that define Amarjeet Sohi as a mayor, and here’s what he says about the first photo.
“It is of Sohi in his private office at city hall, sitting by a big, unmissable, multi-coloured mural of Edmonton landmarks and people from marginalized communities. The bottom of the mural features the words “An Edmonton for all of us,” which was Sohi’s best election slogan last fall when he cruised to a comfortable victory.
“At the time, some voters undoubtedly dismissed that as a piece of campaign lip service. But in Sohi’s case, as the prominence of the mural indicates, it is the principle most foundational to why he chose to run for mayor. When he talks ad nauseam about “collaboration” and “working together,” it is this idea of broad inclusion that informs his governing style on nearly every issue that comes across his desk — from policing and anti-racism initiatives to transit, climate and business development.
“This is a commendable road to walk, but not an easy one. Sohi acknowledges such an approach can create discomfort for those with privilege, especially when assumptions are challenged about how equitably the city operates.”
Okay. Oumar, what do we think about that?
Oumar
Real Interesting. The attempts to frame the picture as the right but difficult road to walk is striking, because it assumes Sohi has been especially confrontational or ruffling feathers among people in power. But I think the reality is that there’s been a lot of lip service towards things that are more people-centric. So you could debate and I don’t think that there’s a lot of populism in “Edmonton for all of us” as a slogan.
But when you look at the votes, council has basically raised the police budget 4 times in a single year. So they’re about to decrease funding towards what they acknowledged as a climate emergency. And we mentioned before that city council is pumping money into the Ice District, which is a very large force for gentrification in downtown Edmonton. And I don’t think you can say that there’s been a lot of discomfort in people who have a lot of privilege. And you could actually argue that people in power have been made more comfortable — police, oil companies — have been made more comfortable under Sohi’s leadership as mayor.
So the media framing here is a little bit problematic in that sense, because I feel like it tries to move the Overton window further to the right and towards the status quo, while also painting a picture that Sohi’s approach is somehow very progressive. And I think the result is that it definitely softens pressure on Sohi to be accountable to public opinion.
Nicholas
Yeah, totally. And you said there’s been a lot of lip service that’s more people-centric. I wouldn’t even say that. I think a lot of council and Sohi’s rhetoric has been aimed towards downplaying public opinion or dismissing public opinion, and not even really giving lip service to it. Just more kind of like dismissing and a bit of gaslighting. We saw that throughout the year every time they raised the police budget or decided to go back to the funding formula.
Yeah. Moving on, Keith then starts to talk about the other photo that he thinks defines Sohi as mayor. And he says, “the picture in question, posted on Twitter in early October, shows Sohi being driven around in the basket of Coun. Michael Janz’s e-bicycle.
“For those who have felt unease with the mayor’s leadership, the picture has a symbolic quality of how council dynamics have developed. It speaks to a belief that, over the first year at least, this has really become Janz’s council and that Sohi has allowed himself to get sucked into that orbit.
“Whether you agree with Janz or not, he and fellow lefty Coun. Anne Stevenson have been aggressively effective at setting much of the agenda and influencing public discourse, even if they don’t win every vote.
“Likewise, while I think Sohi could be more decisive in keeping the agenda on track, he has been dealing with something Iveson never did — eight eager council rookies who have needed to get up to speed on policy and procedure.”
Okay, what do we think about Keith’s take on this photo?
Oumar
The level that Keith is able to extract meaning out of the photo of Janz riding Sohi in his basket, as if this means that Sohi is progressive, or trying to frame Sohi as a progressive or even a radical, when in reality, like we said before, the status quo seems to only become further entrenched.
Keith is making this criticism from Sohi’s right. So the intent here is to see things move in a more rightward direction. And it’s dangerous in a reality where we’ve already seen the police budget balloon. As difficult as it is to say, Michael Janz has no power in city hall and that’s not a diss to him. That’s not an untruthful thing to say.
He is 1 vote among 12 other votes. And I feel like the narrative of this control or this influence that 1 or 2 votes on city council has over the mayor, over public discourse, is very much so outsized and is made to to be a bigger thing. And that’s being done regularly by the media, by fellow councillors and the police, which we saw the police going after Michael Janz, to make it difficult for him to interact with what were called “known critics” in Edmonton.
So portraying Janz’ impact on council as controlling — the takeaway is that he should be further silenced and dismissed if his outsized control of council is really happening.
And the comment about “eager rookies” is really difficult because I feel like, in the contrast between what Sohi has now and the council with Don Iveson before, it makes it sound like this is a mistake and that there needs to be a reinforced status quo. In this environment that has already been sticking to the status quo, we need to reinforce that even more.
And I don’t understand why there needs to be a distinction between someone who’s been on council for 10 years, for example, in previous councils with Don Iveson as mayor versus what’s happening now with Sohi, other than to dismiss the concerns or the political interests of current councillors in order to, again, reinforce the status quo.
Nicholas
Yeah reminds me of just how they’re always saying this is the “most progressive” council ever. When our current council has not materially been any more progressive than previous councils have been — the same level of just centrist and conservative, and entrenching the status quo — framing them as especially progressive only only serves to try and push them even more right when they are already just the same as what’s come before.
So this kind of perspective is almost arguing for even further entrenching of the status quo when, like you said, that’s already happening. And then yet Keith basically wraps up this article by framing it as a choice between the two photos. Right? He says, “Sohi, I think, is sensitive to both halves of this reality, but I still don’t have a great sense on how he plans to navigate it.
“That’s probably forgivable for the first year, but the leadership he adopts in the coming weeks may go a long way to determining which picture better defines his legacy.”
Oumar
So to reiterate what we said before, the media framing in this article tries to move the Overton window to the right. And it really positions the first picture as somehow correct, and a way for us as Edmontonians to tell ourselves that we’re being progressive and inclusive while we continue to entrench the status quo.
And it really cautions against taking an approach that acknowledges, in any way, progressive voices on council. And that doesn’t even mention or acknowledge the fact that it’s very difficult to get a progressive councillor elected in the first place.
Nicholas
Yeah, totally. We just thought this was a really good example of how the media tries to define or eliminate threats to the status quo, and really controls that narrative. And almost ends up defining public opinion for those in power in order to let them off the hook from being accountable to actual public opinion. If the media’s supposed to represent that, they’re really not doing a good job.
Oumar
Thank you for listening to our episode today, and thank you to Taylor for coming on as a guest to our show. You can support the show on Patreon and you can find us on Instagram and Twitter as well. Thank you for listening to the show.
