Torontonians rally against violence in Charlottesville
Organizers call for Canadians to ‘register our dissent’ after bloody neo-Nazi protest
Though a Toronto protest against the violence in Charlottesville, Va., was calm, demonstrator Julianna Hagen still held her 2-year-old close.
If they lived in the U.S., Hagen said, she may not have felt safe having Mirabelle there. The toddler, meanwhile, was enamoured by a conversation with Toronto police Const. Sydney Evershed about how to respond if one person hurts another.
The demonstration took place out- side the U.S. consulate on University Ave. around 8 a.m. Monday and drew a crowd of around 100 people.
Two Toronto-area American history professors organized the event, which called for Canadians to “register our dissent” toward the rally of neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other far-right Americans that turned violent fighting the removal of a Confederate monument in Charlottesville. Toronto demonstrator Lynn Campbell was troubled when her own toddler, Sophie, saw photos of the weekend’s violence and began to ask questions.
“It’s kind of hard to explain to a 2-year-old that not everyone has the same freedoms as we do and can walk down the street feeling safe,” Campbell said.
Demonstrator Yvette Blackburn cautioned Torontonians that they aren’t exempt from same kinds of tensions that exist in Charlotteville.
“We are not the great white north that’s free from these issues,” she said, pointing to an incident at Nathan Phillips Square in April when anti-racism demonstrators were met with counterprotest that turned violent.
Jim Brown, a uniformed officer that police on-site identified as their supervisor, said people at the event were “passionate, and they should be.”
Co-organizer and University of Toronto professor Donna Gabaccia said that as a historian, she sees Charlottesville as part of a much longer history.
“White people protecting their place in a racial hierarchy by killing people and terrorizing people,” she said. “We white people who disagree — to put it mildly — should come collect our people.” With files from Jaren Kerr