Maybe I don't fully appreciate how awful the Toronto police are to black people. Maybe I would feel differently if I knew the whole story. I'd certainly have no complaint about excluding a racist organization from Pride events, I just don't view the Toronto police as a racist organization.
The complaints against Toronto police are identical to the complaints against police in the US and arise from the fairly predictable human and bureaucratic response to lawbreaking, particularly violent lawbreaking coming from the Black community in both areas (and where I live). In New York city, for example, the somewhat startling statistic released by police this year is that Blacks and Hispanics were responsible for 97% of all gun violence in the city. Whites represent about 6.5% of suspects. In
****, whites represent 10% of suspects. Toronto keeps no such statistics, but in the past, remarks made have shown that most street violence, particularly gun violence is of a similar nature. The last time I heard any stats was when a Divisional inspector told a neighborhood group that Blacks made up 5% of the population in the division but were responsible for 95% of the street crime.
The reaction of police is fairly predictable. They step up patrols in areas of high crime, which in most cases is areas where non-whites live. They focus their attention on young men, principally young Black men, since most of the extreme violence comes from that community. Law abiding black men resent being constantly stopped and questioned by police and push back, which draws a heavy handed response. When a cop stops you and asks a question he doesn't like to be told to screw off, regardless of what colour you are. While not defending the actions of police misuse of authority, especially a number of (IMO) unjustified police shootings, a similar feature of virtually all of them is the shooting victim not obeying police instructions/resisting arrest/threatening police/running from police. BLM encourages such behaviour, which in essence encourages police violence in response.
Do I need to point out most of the victims of murder/
**** and robbery are also non-White, and that the police are trying to protect them? When police slack off as they've done in Chicago, does that make the Black community feel safer? I don't see it.
One thing I can say with some certainty, the root of the problem is the preponderance of crime, not skin colour.