June 30, 2020
ANTI-BLACK RACISM AD-HOC COMMITTEE
Pride Toronto has five full-time staff and seven contract staff members. Within the first week of Pride Month, four Pride Toronto Black and Bi-racial staff members (two full time, two contract) formed an Ad-Hoc Committee to address anti-Black racism within the organization. Our anti-Black Racism Committee created the list of action items in Pride Toronto’s statement released earlier this month (pridetoronto.com/anti-racism_statement), and these internal discussions were meant to serve as a starting point for on-going work.
In the month of June, we created a four-week twelve-part series titled “Black Queer & Trans Excellence” where we highlighted voices within our community.
We implemented and created a policy that ensures every member of the Board, Staff and Volunteers receive deep level anti-Black racism training and complete a workbook as part of the onboarding process to join the Pride Toronto team.
Other Achievements:
- Shifted the Online Pride Parade schedule to stand in solidarity with Black communities
- A full audit of programming was done by our team to assess the amount of BIPOC artists
- 200+ People were hired through Virtual Programming – 82% of programming had BIPOC artists
- 545 Community members attended our free anti-oppression training workshops
- $10,000 Is being donated to Black serving community organizations
We are so proud of the work we’ve been able to achieve within three short weeks and look forward to what else we can accomplish in collaboration with community members and organizations.
We would like to take this opportunity to invite the Black community to a series of focus groups we will be hosting around anti-Black racism and what further action Pride Toronto can take to dismantle it. If you wish to attend one of our focus groups please reach out to antiblackracism@pridetoronto.com
Please note: our office will be closed July 1st – July 14th.
In solidarity,
Leanna Da Cunha, Nicoy Davis, Brandon Gowe, Mykel Hall.
Ad-hoc Committee – Anti-Black Racism.
