There’s a weird inversion between the two groups of protestors around Toronto these days. There’s Black Lives Matter activists challenging law enforcement’s practices of carding, raiding the homes of, arresting, and even killing people of colour without sufficient cause or evidence. And then, not even a fifteen minute walk across town, there are protestors saying “We Believe Survivors” because our legal system couldn’t put away a serial sexual assaulter due to a lack of evidence.
When the legal system only adheres to its noble principles of demanding a high evidentiary standard when it exonerates injustice, that’s not noble, it’s telling. And it’s telling people: “You have no cause to feel safe here, neither from the Law nor its opposite.” Not all people, but it’s saying that to women, and it’s saying that to people of colour; and when you add those two up, that’s most people. Maybe it’s not saying that on purpose, but it certainly is not by accident.
Gods & Services 