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Since today, May 1, is the first day of Team Refresh as the @RyeSU executive team we want to make sure this won’t be a year of recycled anti-Blacks student politics. Today we publicly demand that the Executive team of the RSU put forward a motion to the membership regarding (1)
the police and @RyersonU security presence on this campus. Specifically we demand that @RyeSU be truly refreshing and follow @YFSlocal68 lead in calling for the removal of @TPSOperations from campus and creating community-run forms of safety other than security personnel (2)
including oversight over Security with an emphasis on anti-Black racism. This campus consistently over-polices Black students, staff and faculty and community members as we try to live and just survive. We are done with @RyersonU as a training ground for soon/want-to-be cops (3)
to practice their anti-Black violence on people experiencing homelessness, trying to get to class, open our offices, walk, hangout, and laugh with our friends. (4)
There are too many examples on this campus of this kind of violence from @TPSOperations and @RyersonU security
Example 1: Security over-policing an community-run basketball event organized by Black students theeyeopener.com/2007/01/ive-ne…
Example 2: The love-fest @RyersonU security and @TorontoPolice have for one another, where security reported to police the whereabouts of Black queer activist Wendy "Nzinga" Maxwell on campus (she was selling cookies) resulting in her deportation rabble.ca/news/stop-depo…
Example 3: @RyersonU security has a heavy hand in the pushing around and violence against folks experiencing homelessness on our campus, especially Victoria Street. ryersonian.ca/homeless-evict…
Example 4: In 2017 @TorontoPolice conducted a violent arrest on @RyersonU campus of a Black man, which was video taped. The officer on tape tried to claim this Black man might have AIDS while trying to threaten the person video taping. thestar.com/news/gta/2017/…
And these are just examples. The more Black students speak to alumni of incidences, the more we learn. These are just examples from 2007-2017. We've seen @RyersonU security walk around in groups fo 2-6. Squads of surveillance with Black students never knowing what's next.
We've seen @RyersonU security use 4-5 soon/wanna-to-be cops as "de-escalation" towards Black community members experiencing a moment of mental health crisis.
@RyersonU is a constant site of struggle, and is over-policed by its own security and the state agents they invite on campus like @TorontoPolice. So we hope @RyeSU does the refreshing thing and fights back. Page 10 of this document shows what a students union's courage looks like
Make @RyersonU a #NoCopZone
