Black people are excessively affected by murders in Toronto neighborhoods that have less access to scarce support for victims’ family and friends, according to a new report from the University of Toronto.
The report, led by U or T associate professor Tanya Sharpe, looks at how predominantly African, Caribbean and Black neighborhoods are at greater risk and calls for both the collection of more race-based data and more research that addresses the voices and experiences of Black survivors of murder victims.
“We are talking about a ripple effect of murderous violence on black communities across the diaspora that has been researched and unmarked,” Sharpe said. “We do not even have enough services to deal with the pain, the sadness and the traumatic loss.”
The report, released this month by the University of Toronto Center for Research and Innovation for Black Survivors of Murder Victims (The CRIB) – includes an interactive “murder tracker”Showing Toronto’s murders from 2004 to 2020, according to neighborhood.
It depicts high numbers of murders in several downtown neighborhoods as well as northwestern neighborhoods such as Weston and Mount Olive, which have a relatively larger black population but have poorer access to mourning and mourning support.
When Sharpe, the founding director of The CRIB, went looking for race-based data, including rates of murder by race, she found that statistics about the Black community were chronically lacking.
“If we do not count the number of murders and show their experiences, then they do not count,” she said. “Then there is a lack of policies and resources that go to these communities to help support them and perhaps prevent murder from happening.”
According to the report, an average of 232 murders occur annually in the province, with racist Ontarians responsible for 75 percent of the victims, of whom 44 percent have been identified as African, Caribbean or Black.
The report also examines the key factors that endanger black communities, such as employment and income inequality and mass incarceration.
Under the list of recommendations is a call for more training for service providers so that programming is culturally appropriate.
Destin Bujang, whose Black Creek neighborhood is among those with a large black population and a scarcity of services, praised the report as a call to action on how to address these systemic issues.
“This is a great way to represent the challenges facing vulnerable communities,” said Bujang, co-founder and coordinator of the Black Creek Youth Initiative, a youth-led group that provides leadership training and mentorship to young people in Black Creek. / Trethewey neighborhood. “These communities do not have access to equitable services.”
Angela Brackett said policymakers should pay attention to the report because “sometimes perception can be like a cloud. When the light shines, who knows what might happen. ”
More than a decade ago, Brackett led the Mornelle All-Stars Coalition, which began as a ‘safe walk’ under supervision, to guide children in her Scarborough neighborhood to the nearby Military Trail Public School. The program has since expanded to include after-school homework help, a book club and March holidays and summer camps.
“We had to go out and make contact with different agencies to bring in resources,” she said, emphasizing that services are otherwise not readily available, meaning “some communities are left without them.”
Sharpe said there is a problematic rhetoric that Blacks living in certain parts of our city face higher rates of murder and violence because they also engage in things like gangs, guns and drug activities at higher rates.
“Rather than blaming the victims, we need to start looking at the structures that have created systems of inequality, which often create deprived neighborhoods,” she said.
Reference-www.thestar.com