Pride Toronto Apologizes to Black Lives Matter for 'History of Anti-Blackness'

Pride Toronto organizers issued an apology to Black Lives Matter activists in Canada over the handling of a protest by BLM during the annual Pride Parade in July and also over what organizers called a “history of anti-Blackness” within the LGBTQ community in the country.

RELATED:
Black Lives Matter Protest Radically Transforms Toronto Pride

“Pride Toronto wants to begin by apologizing emphatically and unreservedly for its role in deepening the divisions in our community, for a history of anti-Blackness and repeated marginalization of the marginalized within our community that our organization has continued,” the group said in a statement posted on their website.

The apology came after Black Lives Matter in Toronto halted the Pride Parade in the city for at least 30 minutes in order to protest police brutality and killings in Canada and the United States. The parade only resumed after Pride Toronto executives signed a list of demands put forth by BLM.

Although the activists had been invited to Pride to honor their work, their protest was met with racist criticism from some factions within Pride Toronto and some groups issued statements against the Black movement.

“Pride Toronto regrets the way Black Lives Matter—Toronto Coalition’s protest was handled by our organization and the statements made following the Parade that did not represent our organization,” the statement added.

“There has been an unbelievable amount of racism expressed by members of our community through this organization. For that, we are sorry,” organizers stated.

The demands agreed to by Pride Toronto included promises to ban police floats from future parades, increase funding for Black pride events and hire members of vulnerable communities. “We apologize that the lack of decisive decision-making has left many in our communities feeling attacked. This is the opposite of what Pride is all about," the Pride statement said.

RELATED:
LGBTQ People and the Black Lives Matter Movement

However, the local Black Lives Matter movement said the apology was not enough and that Pride Toronto needed to show action starting with not inviting the local “very violent” police department to join the parade and its celebrations.

“This isn’t a dispute between community members, it’s a discussion about including a very violent government body in the parade,” LeRoi Newbold, a member of the BLM Toronto and director of the BLM Toronto Freedom School Project, told the Toronto Star Tuesday.

“Police come in uniform with their specific divisions and they participate in the parade as an institution, as a governmental body. That comes with the symbolism of everything that the police represent.”

Pride Toronto faced massive criticism after Executive Director Mathieu Chantelois said he had only signed the list of demands in order to get the parade moving and did not in fact plan on acting on them. He resigned a few weeks later but is yet to be replaced.

The Canadian faction of BLM boycotted several city parades in July over the participation of police departments despite demands by the movement against their presence.