Kofi Hope has one question for black students: where is the love?
Hope, the energetic founder the Black Youth Coalition Against Violence (BYCAV) and president of U of T’s Black Students Association, is trying to find it.
BYCAV’s Bring Love In Not Guns (BLING) summit, Black Youth Stand Up! stands to give black youth a forum to discuss the issue of gun violence. Hope said he’d like it to provide them with an experience they can convert into positive action, helping to foster unity in Toronto’s black communities.
“Ninety per cent of the perpetrators and victims [of Toronto’s shootings] are black,” said Hope. “That’s why the focus is on African-Canadian youth to empower themselves….They should be the experts and the ones leading the struggle.”
Though gun violence has been a hot campaign talking point, consensus about the causes and remedies for Toronto’s gun crisis has been elusive. Hope dismisses the platforms of major party leaders, saying they don’t focus on the problem’s social causes.
“They’re failing to address the issue,” he said, “Almost across the board, they’re focusing on the law and order side….The simple reply is ‘Let’s lock these people up.'”
Hope argues that harsher sentences for criminals will have little effect, and that gun violence is the result of larger endemic problems.
“Part of the cause is the systemic racism faced by black Canadians, and a lack of job opportunities,” he said. “There are also issues within the black community, issues of family and society, [and a] consistent cutting back of assistance to poor families.”
While the issue of Toronto shootings has recently impressed itself on Canada’s national consciousness, especially after the much-publicized Boxing Day murder of 15-year-old Jane Creba in the city’s downtown shopping district, Hope sees the recent media coverage as somewhat misguided.
“My frustration is with people who would portray the Boxing Day shooting as something out of the ordinary,” he said. He points to last summer’s murder of 21-year-old Dwayne Taylor, who was shot to death in the midst of a crowd in Dundas Square, just around the corner from where Creba would be killed five months later.
Among the participants in Saturday’s conference are representatives from the Black Business and Professional Association and the Toronto Community Safety Committee. There will also be a series of workshops geared towards high school students.
According to Hope, ‘bling’ refers to the conference’s strategy of questioning the images of black youth held by Canadians in general, and by black communities themselves.
“We wanted to challenge this idea of ‘bling’,” said Yafet Tewelde, a member of BYCAV representing York University’s Black Student Alliance. Instead of the gleam of expensive diamonds, the BLING summit is about “being proud of something positive,” said Tewelde.
“If you’re someone who works in your community, in whatever capacity, that’s something you should be proud of, that’s something you should be blinging.”
Although they sometimes refer to the ‘black community’ in the singular, Hope and Tewelde admit that the black population is anything but homogenous. Black families living in Toronto come from myriad cultural and economic backgrounds.
“We believe in unity through diversity,” said Tewelde, “and the black community is very diverse. But there is a struggle among black people that is distinct from any other group.”
“Black people need to have unity,” said Hope. “This isn’t just a black issue-it’s a Canadian issue.”
The Saturday summit has no spaces left, you can still check out the musical showcase following the conference. McLeod Auditorium, Rm. 2158, Medical Science Building, 1 King’s College Circle, 7:30 pm. Free.
