[fast drum music]
We come from a long legacy of black organizing,
black liberation, black freedom work.
There is no other municipality in North America
that has done this at a government level.
The only way that we can truly conquer anti-black racism
is when we realize that there is power in one.
Together, we stand, divided, we fall.
I have to take you back to early spring 2016,
where Black Lives Matter movement really gained focus
and presence in Toronto.
They were in the media, it was everywhere.
It just could not be quieted.
[Crowd] Shut it down.
[Woman With Megaphone] What are we gonna do?
[Crowd] Shut it down.
Black people, overall, were just tired.
We were tired of it because of the killing
of our black people by police in Toronto.
And we know that it was years and years
of saying, "No more, no more, no more."
So what it is that the city needed to do
was to hear from black people in the city
and all black people, and to do something about it,
to address anti-black racism, and to name it.
And so, that's how this started.
As much as we pride ourselves on being
one of the best places in the world
in terms of respect for each other
and lack of discrimination and racism,
there are still serious issues to be addressed
and those are some of the issues
that Black Lives Matter raises
and I respect the fact that they do that.
(intense orchestral music)
December 5th, 2017, and it was historic.
Historic, not just for black people in Toronto,
but historic for all people in Toronto.
It's a long time coming, but it came.
Too often, what we have done,
who we are, what we are, how we've contributed,
has been erased, silenced, marginalized, overlooked.
This moment, it moves against this trend
of invisible-izing blackness,
and highlights blackness in a way
that's authentic to black people.
So we looked at the 41 years of reports,
recommendation, research, all of it saying exactly
almost the same things.
And we took that to the black communities.
We talked to black youth, black seniors,
black people in the LGBTQ community,
black fathers, black women,
Caribbean black people,
African people from the continent.
We talked to everybody,
as many as we could get,
to see, when we look at those recommendations,
what was relevant today.
And so those 80 actions came from that.
(deep percussive music)
What was important in the development
of the Confronting Anti-Black Racism plan
was this notion that we must work closely as partners
with the city of Toronto from black communities,
and the mechanism that made sense was creating
this Partnership & Accountability Circle.
The role involves providing feedback
and assessments and reports to city council,
around how the action plan has been developed
and implemented and measured and tracked.
So, in reality it is not just to work
with the other members of PAC,
but to work with the community,
work with the unit, in ensuring that the plan implementation
is successful and effective in meeting its goals.
So, when we first started to implement the action plan,
the response from a lot of our partners
was really a lot of great interest.
We had our first sit-down meeting
with different city departments,
to talk about where they were mentioned in the action plan,
to remind them where they were mentioned,
to talk about what those actions actually mean
and then to work with them on developing activities,
like what will they do to make those actions come to life.
I first came into contact with the CABR unit
earlier this year, in February.
My directory, Nicole Welch, requested that we roll out
the Confronting Anti-Black Racism training
to our staff and management.
Toronto Employment and Social Services engaged
60% of their leadership in the conversations
through the development of the strategy itself.
This was rolled out to help make our services
more accessible and responsive to black communities
and black families in particular,
and so I think staff are really excited
to be able to start exploring that,
and looking at ways in which we can critically look
at what we're doing, but then also with an eye towards
what can we do better.
One of the issues what we've identified
in our division, doing work around diversity
and inclusion, is that we do have a strain
of anti-black racism that exists in our division,
and we wanted to be addressing it proactively
and so we have worked closely with the CABR unit
on a regular basis to consult with them,
to help understand the issues, to understand our role
in implementing the action plan,
and to ensure that we're doing the work in a good way.
The difference with the Confronting Anti-Black Racism
strategy is that it confronts
anti-black racism specifically.
And we're calling it out, and I think
that that's a very, very cool,
and needed, and bold shift
that the city needed.
When I have divisions calling us
and asking us to look at their policies
and to comb through their policies
to make sure that it has, that an anti-black racism lens
has been applied (smacks lips) that's amazing.
Because it's the policies and programs
that we need to shift.
(deep intense music)
Diversity, does the initiative engage
with the diversity of Toronto's black communities?
Collaboration, does the initiative prioritize
collaboration between Toronto's communities
of African descent?
Relationship building, are the relationships
we're building intentional and reciprocal?
Accountability, does this initiative demonstrate
accountability to communities of African descent?
Transparency, is the initiative transparent
for black Torontonians?
Accessibility, does the initiative use
accessible language to communicate with black Torontonians?
Creativity and openness, is the initiative
creative and open enough to serve the needs
of people of African descent?
Sustainability, is the initiative sustainable
and responsive to Toronto's black communities?
Responsiveness, does the initiative
conduct ongoing checks to ensure flexibility
from the feedback from black communities?
This past year we did 61 engagements internally focused,
with about 2500 staff engaged at these events,
and then we did 53 external community engagements
with about 3500 people engaged,
all that in just one year.
My most memorable moment is when we had
the symposium for black queer youth and service providers
and the turnout was impressive.
The event was beautiful and, you know,
just bringing these youth to a place
where they can sit down and talk about their issues,
to a place where they feel safe,
lifting up voices of trans queer black women
and making that voice the voice of the work that we do
was really impressive for me.
I found the gathering for the recognition of
the International Decade to be very powerful
and important, because of the way in which
they're embarking on something that was very different
and it wasn't just forcing blackness into a white space,
but actually starting to transform this space
in small but important ways,
where we could be our fullest self,
even if just for that evening.
For me, the proudest thing is that
we have been able to come through one year,
the first year of being in the city,
having black people taking up space.
We are in the very fiber of the city now.
We're not just an add-on, we're in the fiber of the city.
So the councillors, so the political arm,
to the bureaucracy, knows us, knows our work,
knows our intention, knows what we're doing,
and is using us to advance black people in the city.
(smacks lips) This is amazing.
I'm proud of our team, we have a super-dynamic team.
Aina-Nia always says that we're not supposed to say
that we have the best team in the world,
but I think we do. (chuckles)
We have folks that have been dedicated to this work
and will be dedicated to this work long after they're here.
So I'm proud of the team, proud of the work we've done
and proud of the foundation we've set.
I describe it as a small but mighty unit
because it doesn't consist of, you know, 658 people,
it consists of five people.
I am delighted at the fact that, in recruiting the unit,
they got people who were outspoken,
people I had often seen in the past as outspoken advocates
in our black communities in Toronto.
We have this five-year action plan.
It's now 2019, so we are officially in year two.
But we have these years ahead of us
to effectively try to change the conditions of black life.
This is a life work for us.
This is work of the ancestor for us.
We have put a framework, we live this work,
from an Ubuntu perspective,
understanding that I am because you are.
You are because I am.
It's not just a statement, we actually live it in CABR.
I feel like we're planting seeds,
that are slowly starting to germinate
with the youth and the civic engagement capabilities,
the self-esteem that was built,
it really just kind of solidified my confidence
in government.
I hope that the population of black Torontonians
are very alive, but this work belongs to them as well,
so, where we go, we hope that people take up
whatever it is that we start and they continue with it.
We're here to create partnerships,
we're here to create lasting relationships
with black Torontonians.
This is like a life-changing moment
and something I'll take with me forever.
(percussive music)
(cymbal crash)