Solidarity rally unites Torontonians against white supremacy

By Faiza Amin

As a show of peaceful solidarity, the Toronto Unity Rally took place on the front lawn of Queen’s Park on Sunday afternoon.

People from different cultures, religions, sexual orientations, community groups and even labour unions came together for the purpose of denouncing white supremacy in Canada.

“White supremacy means anti-black racism, it means Islamaphobia, it means anti-semitism,” said Walied Khogali, one of the organizers with the Toronto Unity Rally team.

“This is a response to the general trend of hateful acts that are happening in public spaces.”

White supremacist rallies most recently took place in in LaColle, Quebec and in Peterborough, Ontario, where they were billed as anti-immigration and anti-Trudeau demonstrations.

Now it seems, Toronto may be next. A video posted to YouTube last week shows a masked man, who calls himself “Toronto Hammer”, inviting people to attend the rally on Nov. 4 at Kew Beach Park in the city’s Beaches neighbourhood.

“I think you should all come out, lets have some fun,” he can be heard saying in the video.

That’s also the same day that anti-Trump protests are expected to take place throughout the U.S. and Canada.

As over a thousand attendees gathered for the rally at Queen’s Park, organizers say they are uniting in solidarity against this rise and the empowerment of white supremacists in Canada.

“Right now, the biggest problem Toronto is facing is a lack of recognition of these problems,” said Shannon Mcdeez, another rally organizer. “Racism has always been there, but we’re seeing a mobilization, radicalization and empowerment of these groups.”

Many are also calling on city, provincial and federal leaders to take a stricter stand against hate rallies and the people behind them.

“I think legislators need to start thinking more about what they’re doing in terms of how they’re defining hate crimes,” Mcdeez said.

The rally at one point also left Queen’s Park, and demonstrators marched on the streets chanting in solidarity.

“We have to organizee this community, we have to organize as people who care about this collective humanity,” said Khogali.

“We want to make sure that every single hateful action, there’s hundreds of people that are promoting a message of love, a message of acceptance, a message of pushing back against hate.”

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