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Maybe the problem does not lie in race, but in TPS culture: why do they feel they have the right to stop and request ID from young people who are doing nothing wrong?
This has nothing to do with "TPS culture". I am white as they come and grew up in Toronto's suburbs. We also were stopped by the Durham Regional Police and questioned on the street on a regular basis. Based on my experience growing up in Whitby, I really don't understand why the black community feels this only happens to them.
I've been following this debate in the media, and I'm surprised at how little historical perspective has been included in the discussion.
Understand first, that I'm as white as the driven snow. I was also a teenager in the 1970s (when Toronto was still pretty white), and I didn't hang with the best of crowds. It was not unusual for my unsavory buddies and I to be hailed by a passing police cruiser at any hour of the day or night, and asked to produce ID. If we all checked out (and we always did), the questions would start.
"Where are you guys going?"
"I dunno. Fran's?" [A famous Toronto chain restaurant, open 24 hours.]
"What are you going to do at Fran's?"
"Eat something."
"What are you going to do after you leave Fran's?"
"Dunno. Go home?"
"Make sure that you do."
And so on. We white kids in those days had the same questions as black kids nowadays do: why are we being stopped and carded and questioned by TPS as to what we're doing, when we're doing nothing wrong?
Maybe the problem does not lie in race, but in TPS culture: why do they feel they have the right to stop and request ID from young people who are doing nothing wrong?
The 1970s may have been pre-Charter, but the rights were the same at common law in those days: without reasonable suspicion, no Canadian, of any age, could be detained and questioned by police. Nowadays, I'm a lawyer, and this kind of Charter problem is my bread-and-butter. I respect the police, but they need to understand that there are constitutionally-defined limits to what they can do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fusion2
I am white and have also been stopped and asked a similar line of questioning on two separate occasions for reasons I still have no clue as to why. In one of them I wasn't asked to produce I.D and in the other I was. It was extremely awkward, intimidating and just plain weird and you're always thinking in the back of your head "Am I going to get arrested for something here for something I don't know about."
I think you bring up an interesting point about this being something more deeply rooted in their culture that goes back a long time. With respect to race, I think if I were black that two times probably would have been quite a few many more though and it goes far beyond just which racial group is involved in the most criminal activities on a per cap basis! I really am surprised that the TPS has been given a free pass with this for so long to be honest.
Thank you both for sharing those thoughts.
I think it would be naive to believe that racial profiling started and ended with people of colour. Racial profiling has been an issue for many years, even before Toronto had much of a black population as Chevvy pointed out. So I suppose it is "our turn" so to speak, I wonder who will be next.
Just a question to you Chevvy. You noted that you ran with a pretty rough crowd when you were profiled in the past. Do you think that contributed to you being targeted in any way? The issue for the black community in Toronto is that you do not need to run with a bad crowd or dress a certain way to be targeted. Look at Desmond Cole who fits the clean cut journalist look to a T. Or someone like myself who dresses very conservatively, has no criminal record but has been carded numerous times.
You also must note that many of the encounters with people of colour are not as polite as what you are fusion noted in your posts. They are typically much more aggressive, threatening and borderline physical.
The statistics from the Toronto Star study are pretty difficult to ignore. Black and Brown people in Toronto are carded on average 4 times more than whites in all 72 patrol areas throughout the city. So I agree that this is a cultural issue within the TPS, but race undeniably plays a significant role and exasperates the problem.
All I know is that if its only people of colour sharing these stories, nothing will change. But if everyone else joins in we may force them to do something. So please pass along these stories to your city council member.
This has nothing to do with "TPS culture". I am white as they come and grew up in Toronto's suburbs. We also were stopped by the Durham Regional Police and questioned on the street on a regular basis. Based on my experience growing up in Whitby, I really don't understand why the black community feels this only happens to them.
No one has said this only happens to black folks, it just happens significantly more often.
Okay... I know this comment may not be exactly on point with this thread, but I thought it was sort of relevant. Last night I was at the Nicky Minaj concert that also featured Meek Mill (when he finally got there) and Rae Sremmurd. I will fully admit I really do not know too much about the other people, I only know about the headliner. I have been to several concerts at the Molson Ampitheatre this season and when first entering the venue I found it insulting that the security for this even was much more .... let's say aggressive for this event... ex. At all the other concerts at this venue they let you keep the caps on your plastic bottles. At this event they remove them before you could enter the venue. I have been to other venues like this, but this venue was not doing this for the other 3 concerts I went to in June. The bag searches were much more through and took at lot longer. Guys were being actually patted down. I did not notice any women being patted down. I totally have never seen that at any concert I have been to. So I was a bit puzzled. To me the crowd looked not much different than the Lana Del Rey concert, but security was sooo much more visible and agressive. Then during the concert I totally understand why .... you got a bunch a silly people in their late teens and early 20s that are smoking pot, getting drunk and acting like complete fools trying to act ghetto because they think acting ghetto is cool. Not even 1/2 through the concert the entire venue was completely skunked up and was engulfed with a bunch of doped up white kids, trying to twerk it up and pretend their hoods ... when the joke is they have Oakville, Ajax and Maple written all over their faces. As the concert progressed I was like thank god the security was so aggressive because these are just the type of little foolish people that try to bring weapons in to places like this because they want to pretend to be bad a##! I have no problem with people drinking, smoking, dancing and having a good time... but I have a problem with your drunk stoned a## throwing up on me, causing a fight to break out and doing stuff to get injured and spoiling everyone else's good time. About 1/2 way through the concert there was a guy who look likely on something (drunk/high/ stoned) on the floor with the back of his head cracked open and bleedings (not black may I mention), several DRUNK white chicks that could hardly stand needing to be carried out of the concert by security and swarms vanilla gangster want to bees trying to be cool and hide their joints from the police officers walking around. Having fun vs being stupid. The question that this sparked for me is that if these kids were visible minorities .... wonder how this would have turned out? As someone who grew up on the edge of one of Toronto's notoriously bad areas .... I never seen this level of non sense before in my area ... why you may ask because when you have ethnic parents ... for the most part you learn to control your behaviour in public places like a concert because if you ever got in trouble with the police ... you would be better off in jail then having to deal with your PARENTS!!! When dealing with the police you supposedly have rights ... not the same with you get your butt home and have to deal with ethnic immigrant parents. If I ever got caught acting like that in public my parents were not going to be sending me to therapy and hugging it out. You may wonder why I think that these people are not from the working class areas of Toronto ... lets see.. the fact that 1/2 way through the show judging from the number of empty beer cans on the grass they had downed at least 4-5 bottles each and at the cost that the venue charges per beer ... not likely any teen/ early tweenty something from a working classes family is going to be crazy enough to blow that kind of money on over priced beer ... also concert tickets are not exactly cheap. When our little vanilla gangster want to bees are misbehaving it seems to me that there are certainly different standards applied? Regardless of anyone's race/ appearence if you are doing drugs, getting drunk and doing things that threaten the safety of other people around you ... when you get roughed up by police (please note that I do not mean shot/killed as that is a whole other level action) because you are acting agressive towards them ... you make it difficulty for people to feel sorry for you. People also need to be accountable for their own actions.
Okay... I know this comment may not be exactly on point with this thread, but I thought it was sort of relevant. Last night I was at the Nicky Minaj concert that also featured Meek Mill (when he finally got there) and Rae Sremmurd. I will fully admit I really do not know too much about the other people, I only know about the headliner. I have been to several concerts at the Molson Ampitheatre this season and when first entering the venue I found it insulting that the security for this even was much more .... let's say aggressive for this event... ex. At all the other concerts at this venue they let you keep the caps on your plastic bottles. At this event they remove them before you could enter the venue. I have been to other venues like this, but this venue was not doing this for the other 3 concerts I went to in June. The bag searches were much more through and took at lot longer. Guys were being actually patted down. I did not notice any women being patted down. I totally have never seen that at any concert I have been to. So I was a bit puzzled. To me the crowd looked not much different than the Lana Del Rey concert, but security was sooo much more visible and agressive. Then during the concert I totally understand why .... you got a bunch a silly people in their late teens and early 20s that are smoking pot, getting drunk and acting like complete fools trying to act ghetto because they think acting ghetto is cool. Not even 1/2 through the concert the entire venue was completely skunked up and was engulfed with a bunch of doped up white kids, trying to twerk it up and pretend their hoods ... when the joke is they have Oakville, Ajax and Maple written all over their faces. As the concert progressed I was like thank god the security was so aggressive because these are just the type of little foolish people that try to bring weapons in to places like this because they want to pretend to be bad a##! I have no problem with people drinking, smoking, dancing and having a good time... but I have a problem with your drunk stoned a## throwing up on me, causing a fight to break out and doing stuff to get injured and spoiling everyone else's good time. About 1/2 way through the concert there was a guy who look likely on something (drunk/high/ stoned) on the floor with the back of his head cracked open and bleedings (not black may I mention), several DRUNK white chicks that could hardly stand needing to be carried out of the concert by security and swarms vanilla gangster want to bees trying to be cool and hide their joints from the police officers walking around. Having fun vs being stupid. The question that this sparked for me is that if these kids were visible minorities .... wonder how this would have turned out? As someone who grew up on the edge of one of Toronto's notoriously bad areas .... I never seen this level of non sense before in my area ... why you may ask because when you have ethnic parents ... for the most part you learn to control your behaviour in public places like a concert because if you ever got in trouble with the police ... you would be better off in jail then having to deal with your PARENTS!!! When dealing with the police you supposedly have rights ... not the same with you get your butt home and have to deal with ethnic immigrant parents. If I ever got caught acting like that in public my parents were not going to be sending me to therapy and hugging it out. You may wonder why I think that these people are not from the working class areas of Toronto ... lets see.. the fact that 1/2 way through the show judging from the number of empty beer cans on the grass they had downed at least 4-5 bottles each and at the cost that the venue charges per beer ... not likely any teen/ early tweenty something from a working classes family is going to be crazy enough to blow that kind of money on over priced beer ... also concert tickets are not exactly cheap. When our little vanilla gangster want to bees are misbehaving it seems to me that there are certainly different standards applied? Regardless of anyone's race/ appearence if you are doing drugs, getting drunk and doing things that threaten the safety of other people around you ... when you get roughed up by police (please note that I do not mean shot/killed as that is a whole other level action) because you are acting agressive towards them ... you make it difficulty for people to feel sorry for you. People also need to be accountable for their own actions.
KLM, could you please parse this into paragraphs? As it is, while I think you may have something to say, I cannot understand the "wall of text."
Okay... I know this comment may not be exactly on point with this thread, but I thought it was sort of relevant. Last night I was at the Nicky Minaj concert that also featured Meek Mill (when he finally got there) and Rae Sremmurd. I will fully admit I really do not know too much about the other people, I only know about the headliner. I have been to several concerts at the Molson Ampitheatre this season and when first entering the venue I found it insulting that the security for this even was much more .... let's say aggressive for this event... ex. At all the other concerts at this venue they let you keep the caps on your plastic bottles. At this event they remove them before you could enter the venue. I have been to other venues like this, but this venue was not doing this for the other 3 concerts I went to in June. The bag searches were much more through and took at lot longer. Guys were being actually patted down. I did not notice any women being patted down. I totally have never seen that at any concert I have been to. So I was a bit puzzled. To me the crowd looked not much different than the Lana Del Rey concert, but security was sooo much more visible and agressive. Then during the concert I totally understand why .... you got a bunch a silly people in their late teens and early 20s that are smoking pot, getting drunk and acting like complete fools trying to act ghetto because they think acting ghetto is cool. Not even 1/2 through the concert the entire venue was completely skunked up and was engulfed with a bunch of doped up white kids, trying to twerk it up and pretend their hoods ... when the joke is they have Oakville, Ajax and Maple written all over their faces. As the concert progressed I was like thank god the security was so aggressive because these are just the type of little foolish people that try to bring weapons in to places like this because they want to pretend to be bad a##! I have no problem with people drinking, smoking, dancing and having a good time... but I have a problem with your drunk stoned a## throwing up on me, causing a fight to break out and doing stuff to get injured and spoiling everyone else's good time. About 1/2 way through the concert there was a guy who look likely on something (drunk/high/ stoned) on the floor with the back of his head cracked open and bleedings (not black may I mention), several DRUNK white chicks that could hardly stand needing to be carried out of the concert by security and swarms vanilla gangster want to bees trying to be cool and hide their joints from the police officers walking around. Having fun vs being stupid. The question that this sparked for me is that if these kids were visible minorities .... wonder how this would have turned out? As someone who grew up on the edge of one of Toronto's notoriously bad areas .... I never seen this level of non sense before in my area ... why you may ask because when you have ethnic parents ... for the most part you learn to control your behaviour in public places like a concert because if you ever got in trouble with the police ... you would be better off in jail then having to deal with your PARENTS!!! When dealing with the police you supposedly have rights ... not the same with you get your butt home and have to deal with ethnic immigrant parents. If I ever got caught acting like that in public my parents were not going to be sending me to therapy and hugging it out. You may wonder why I think that these people are not from the working class areas of Toronto ... lets see.. the fact that 1/2 way through the show judging from the number of empty beer cans on the grass they had downed at least 4-5 bottles each and at the cost that the venue charges per beer ... not likely any teen/ early tweenty something from a working classes family is going to be crazy enough to blow that kind of money on over priced beer ... also concert tickets are not exactly cheap. When our little vanilla gangster want to bees are misbehaving it seems to me that there are certainly different standards applied? Regardless of anyone's race/ appearence if you are doing drugs, getting drunk and doing things that threaten the safety of other people around you ... when you get roughed up by police (please note that I do not mean shot/killed as that is a whole other level action) because you are acting agressive towards them ... you make it difficulty for people to feel sorry for you. People also need to be accountable for their own actions.
I don't think it has anything to do with ethnic people vs vanilla people you see many, many, many ethnic people who obviously haven't learned by their ethnic parents how to control their behavior in public places
about the parenting thing its called having strict parents, those can come in any shape or color.
Just a question to you Chevvy. You noted that you ran with a pretty rough crowd when you were profiled in the past. Do you think that contributed to you being targeted in any way?
Good question, Edward.
First of all, we were not bikers, nor an identifiable "gang" of any sort. We were just kids, 16 years old and up. Yes, certain of us smoked marijuana (I did not), and thus had "connections." We lived at home, with our parents. All we were, were kids out to smoke a little dope, have a beer if we could find some, and try to pick up chicks. The latter at which, we all failed miserably. Still, we were North Toronto White Kids, who were constantly hauled over by TPS (or as we used to call them, "Metro").
No, I don't think we looked out of the ordinary. We were just kids out for a night on the town, looking for as much fun we could have within the limits. (In those days, the drinking age in Ontario was 18, though we sure tried to press the issue at pubs that were lax on ID requirements.) So, where could we get beer, where could we smoke our drugs in secret?
Yet, all it took was three or four white guys (I was one) in a group at the corner of Yonge and Eglinton for Metro to demand ID from us. This would have been 1977 or so; about 3:00 a.m. Fran's was nearby, so Fran's was a good excuse.
Last edited by ChevySpoons; 07-31-2015 at 01:53 AM..
Okay... I know this comment may not be exactly on point with this thread, but I thought it was sort of relevant. Last night I was at the Nicky Minaj concert that also featured Meek Mill (when he finally got there) and Rae Sremmurd. I will fully admit I really do not know too much about the other people, I only know about the headliner. I have been to several concerts at the Molson Ampitheatre this season and when first entering the venue I found it insulting that the security for this even was much more .... let's say aggressive for this event... ex. At all the other concerts at this venue they let you keep the caps on your plastic bottles. At this event they remove them before you could enter the venue. I have been to other venues like this, but this venue was not doing this for the other 3 concerts I went to in June. The bag searches were much more through and took at lot longer. Guys were being actually patted down. I did not notice any women being patted down. I totally have never seen that at any concert I have been to. So I was a bit puzzled. To me the crowd looked not much different than the Lana Del Rey concert, but security was sooo much more visible and agressive. Then during the concert I totally understand why .... you got a bunch a silly people in their late teens and early 20s that are smoking pot, getting drunk and acting like complete fools trying to act ghetto because they think acting ghetto is cool. Not even 1/2 through the concert the entire venue was completely skunked up and was engulfed with a bunch of doped up white kids, trying to twerk it up and pretend their hoods ... when the joke is they have Oakville, Ajax and Maple written all over their faces. As the concert progressed I was like thank god the security was so aggressive because these are just the type of little foolish people that try to bring weapons in to places like this because they want to pretend to be bad a##! I have no problem with people drinking, smoking, dancing and having a good time... but I have a problem with your drunk stoned a## throwing up on me, causing a fight to break out and doing stuff to get injured and spoiling everyone else's good time. About 1/2 way through the concert there was a guy who look likely on something (drunk/high/ stoned) on the floor with the back of his head cracked open and bleedings (not black may I mention), several DRUNK white chicks that could hardly stand needing to be carried out of the concert by security and swarms vanilla gangster want to bees trying to be cool and hide their joints from the police officers walking around. Having fun vs being stupid. The question that this sparked for me is that if these kids were visible minorities .... wonder how this would have turned out? As someone who grew up on the edge of one of Toronto's notoriously bad areas .... I never seen this level of non sense before in my area ... why you may ask because when you have ethnic parents ... for the most part you learn to control your behaviour in public places like a concert because if you ever got in trouble with the police ... you would be better off in jail then having to deal with your PARENTS!!! When dealing with the police you supposedly have rights ... not the same with you get your butt home and have to deal with ethnic immigrant parents. If I ever got caught acting like that in public my parents were not going to be sending me to therapy and hugging it out. You may wonder why I think that these people are not from the working class areas of Toronto ... lets see.. the fact that 1/2 way through the show judging from the number of empty beer cans on the grass they had downed at least 4-5 bottles each and at the cost that the venue charges per beer ... not likely any teen/ early tweenty something from a working classes family is going to be crazy enough to blow that kind of money on over priced beer ... also concert tickets are not exactly cheap. When our little vanilla gangster want to bees are misbehaving it seems to me that there are certainly different standards applied? Regardless of anyone's race/ appearence if you are doing drugs, getting drunk and doing things that threaten the safety of other people around you ... when you get roughed up by police (please note that I do not mean shot/killed as that is a whole other level action) because you are acting agressive towards them ... you make it difficulty for people to feel sorry for you. People also need to be accountable for their own actions.
I dont want to pile on, but I agree that it would be so much easier to read if formatted another way. With that said there is alot of good stuff in here.
To answer the question in bold. If the crowd was mostly visible minority the police response would have been significantly more heavy handed and borderline physical. I know that, because I have seen it first hand.
Conversely if minority kids were acting this way (And I personally think our community has alot of cleaning up to do within itself) then I would be perfectly fine with the police moving in and cleaning up the mess. If you act like an idiot you should be handled accordingly. The mistake the some people make is assuming that once you speak out against the police you are anti-establishment in every way, which is the furthest thing from the truth.
The issue at hand here though is how the police profile and react to regular law abiding citizens who have no criminal record nor are involved in any suspicious behaviour. That is when it goes way over the line.
First of all, we were not bikers, nor an identifiable "gang" of any sort. We were just kids, 16 years old and up. Yes, certain of us smoked marijuana (I did not), and thus had "connections." We lived at home, with our parents. All we were, were kids out to smoke a little dope, have a beer if we could find some, and try to pick up chicks. The latter at which, we all failed miserably. Still, we were North Toronto White Kids, who were constantly hauled over by TPS (or as we used to call them, "Metro").
No, I don't think we looked out of the ordinary. We were just kids out for a night on the town, looking for as much fun we could have within the limits. (In those days, the drinking age in Ontario was 18, though we sure tried to press the issue at pubs that were lax on ID requirements.) So, where could we get beer, where could we smoke our drugs in secret?
Yet, all it took was three or four white guys (I was one) in a group at the corner of Yonge and Eglinton for Metro to demand ID from us. This would have been 1977 or so; about 3:00 a.m. Fran's was nearby, so Fran's was a good excuse.
Thank you for sharing Chevvy. I guess we have alot in common then.
While it may not have been about race in the 70's, it unfortunately has become about race these days. There is just too much data to ignore the connection between race and police carding (Questioning) to think that the focus is equally spread across racial lines.
While you were a young kid out for a late night and doing what young kids do, I was just an MBA student with a backpack on leaving an International Financial Management class the last time I was questioned, carded and told to "hold the wall". So I think the standard of who is deemed suspicious has changed slightly over the years.
Last edited by edwardsyzzurphands; 07-31-2015 at 07:00 AM..
Sorry for the wall of text. I guess what I mean is this experience reminded me of how there are double standards on how visible minorities and kids from families with more wealth appear to be treated differently by the police (I am not saying the all visible minority kids can't come from families with wealth or that white/Anglo kids cannot come from lower income families/ areas in the city). From my personal experiences growing up the system sort of assumes kids from the Caribbean, Latin America and African countries are going to be getting in trouble and not achieve much... we are always being scrutinize... like they were just sitting there waiting and expecting us to mess up.
As I entered my late teens and early twenties I started spending more time with people from other areas ... just to name a few Woodbridge, Mississauga, Thornhill, Richmond Hill. These kids all had parents with great jobs, nice cars, lived in big house ... did not have to work part time to support themselves through school ... nice fat allowances. From what I was seeing these kids were getting in to serious trouble and were a REALLY dangerous influence ... they were drag racing, always getting drunk, doing drugs ... selling drugs... stealing .... all kinds of messed up stuff.
I found it funny that once their parents knew my cultural background and where I lived they totally would not want their kids going over to my house to hang out.... because I lived in a bad area... meanwhile there kids are doing seriously worse stuff then anything I had ever been exposed too. Most of these people now are complete losers still living off their parents and waiting to collect their inheritances. So glad I was smart enough to learn to keep my distance.
Growing up I never had much interaction with the police personally expect for this one incident when I was 16. I was walking around my area with my cousin minding my own business. Some older girls that lived near me that I did not actually know and do not recall ever seeing (that were legally adults .. 18 to early20s.. who apparently had been watching me and for some reason did not like me started to trying to start a fight with me. I did not entertain them. I just grabbed my cousin and I tried to get home without getting in to an altercation as I had interest in getting beat up by a group of people. We got home and my father found out what happened. He stated he knew the girls and their mother and went over to try to talk to their mother to see what the problem was. He went there and these girls starting to swear at him and started threatening to beat me up and all kinds of crazy stuff in front of their mother and the whole neighbourhood. My father said to the mother you better control your kids because if they lay a hand on my daughter you will be sorry. Please note I am not a visible minority either were these people.
An hour later the police are at my front door saying the lady called the police and said that my father was threatening them and the police wanted to speak with my father. My father has a darker complextion then me and speaks with a strong Caribbean accent. As soon as my father comes to the door and asked them how he could help them. The police officers that were from the same background as the women who called the police did not give him the opportunity explain his side of the story they just ripped in to him like he was a common criminal threatening to arrest him right in front of his wife, mother-in-law and teenage neice and daughter. My father is no criminal.. has no criminal record ... he is a hard work immigrant, good husband and father who was just trying to protect his kid as any good parent would do. If you have ever met anyone from my culture .. if they are right they are not verbally backing down easy. As a teenager seeing how that white police officer was treating my father made me realize how dangerous the system could be ... the same people that are suppose to help and protect you are not necessarily fair, respectful and just.
After spending an hour proving his point by insisting that the police offer ask myself, my cousin, my mother and the other neighbours what happened and calling the police officer out on being a racist the situation was resolved. For me an important lesson was learned ... in reality people are prejudging me on my background and where I live and I needed to be aware of that.
Regarding me writing a wall or long comment.. changed my thoughts on that .. if you find something too long to read ...maybe you are just not that interested in the topic or hearing the perspective? I am not sure if being long winded is a cultural thing or a me thing !
Happy Caribana long weekend Toronto :P!
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