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When protests turn violent & turn on the media · Kvetch & Release

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well, let me tell you, you know, I spend a
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: bunch of my time on social media, probably arguably a
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: little bit too much time on social.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Media to be perfectly fair. Uh.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: And someone else who also spends a lot of time
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: on social media, but also not only at social media,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: in presence at protests, covering what occurs on protests and
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: putting it onto social media, Kareema sod joins me right now.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: She is a lawyer, she is a journalist, and she
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: is the.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Lead of a I don't know, Kareema, I don't know
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: if it is it a business endeavor that.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: You're doing or is it just a commitment that you
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: guys do to covering these protests. But your people are
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: getting assaulted by protesters that are on the streets.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: What the heck is going on? Kareema?
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, I've been covering protests for just over
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: three years now, and one of the aspects of my
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: footage that you know, I'm most proud of is we
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: capture everything good, bad, ugly, and it's not with a
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: view to make any particular group look good or bad.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: We try to tell a complete story. Unfortunately, that effort
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: is not always appreciated, particularly by protesters who have their
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: own narrative that they wish to craft and disseminate when
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: there is contradictory information available. And so as a result
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: of being there and not taking explicit partisan views on
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: what we're seeing and focusing really on the tactics that
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: are being used in strategies and how protesters are interacting
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: with police and pastors. By regardless of who comes out
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: shining or smelling, we are targeted by a group who
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: would rather us not be there at all, and they,
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: for like I say, the past three years or so,
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: but in escalating ways, are trying to force us out
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: of the scene.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: So I'm looking here at your social media. You put
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: up a video here, and you know, at face value
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: when you watch the video, it's actually just kind of comical.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Two people running at your videographer, one of which is
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: holding up a cafia that is I don't know what
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: two and a half feet long by two and a
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: half feet long, so it's a square trying to block himself,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: but maybe the view of the protest, and you know,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: it's just I find it comical. You're in public, you're protesting,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: you want attention, but then you get upset when you
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: get the attention, but it stopped being comical when I
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: saw the follow up post that you had shared and
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: this was just posted an hour ago.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: You said, these protesters.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Went out of their way to run after and hit
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: at my videographer. I mean, when it reaches a level.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Of you know, attempted physical assault, how do you like
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: what comes to my mind.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: When it comes to you know, protecting your videographer, protecting
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: yourself and I guess just you know, being in public
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: like this is you share a post a year ago
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: that said the social contract is broken.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: It's feeling increasingly.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, it's scary, and you know, when we go
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: out there, we're on our own. There is no like
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: institutional support or really even there's not much material support
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: for this endeavor. So so we are facing this and
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: oftentimes protest. My experience with police is they aren't really
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: interested or available to address situations in the moment, which
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: means that we have to after the fact try and
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: identify people who are involved in attempted or actual assaults.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: And it's a backward process to then rather compared to
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: dealing with it in the moment, right, And it's yeah,
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: the safety risk is significant and part of the like.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: I think the majority of protesters who attend protests and
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: demonstrations are well intentioned and are trying to express something
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: that is important to them and and that should never
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: be forgotten. However, there is a minority of protesters, and
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: in particular, you know, there's a group of the Movement
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: Defense Committee that attends a lot of progressive so called
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: progressive protests in Toronto and the GTA, who are active
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: in disseminating smears about me, alleging, among other things, that
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: I'm a white supremacist, I'm a Nazi, I'm a cop.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait, wait, you're you're you're you're a person
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  Speaker 1: of color.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: That's that's yeah, I'm frown pretty.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Shocking to call you a white supremacist nazi.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: Yes, well, it doesn't have to make sense. People just
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: have to believe who they're hearing it from. And in
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: an effort to be down for the cause or protect
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: the movement, or as an outlet for whatever, you know,
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: strong intense emotions they're feeling that all gets focused on
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: us in ways that are frankly irrational. You know, we're
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: there with cameras the way lots of other people are
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: there with cameras. There's nothing special about us in that sense,
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: and I will note that indeed there is nothing special
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: because in looking at footage from the United States, New Zealand, England,
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: there are tactics that can be observed that that mimic
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: what's happening to us. So the use of tisias or
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: flags to block cameras, or attempting to hit us with signs,
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: dressing in black block sort of the tactic of swarming.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: We see this happening with independent journalists across the Western hemisphere,
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: and so it's part of a broader trend. And obviously,
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: you know, it impacts me in a very specific way
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: and impact my videographer in a very specific way. But
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  Speaker 3: the most concerning aspect is it's not unique.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: You know, I didn't experience it to the degree that
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: you deal with on a regular basis, But when I
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: was at the Ambassador Bridge blockade doing a little bit
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: of coverage there, it felt very much the same. And
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I guess I don't know if this is just an
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  Speaker 1: outlet from everybody has a social media account and they
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: want to portray things the way that they see it.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: They want to get their likes, they want the dopamine
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  Speaker 1: click that comes from it. They don't want to be
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: portrayed in a way that might look make them look bad.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: But in a lot of cases, these people aren't, you know,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: following the law, or if I don't know, I guess
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: I take it. It goes to this, right, if you're covering
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: your face, and when you're at a protest, if you're
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: trying to hide behind umbrellas or flags or scarves or
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: cafeas or whatever it is, it just it feels like
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: you're not actually entirely proud of what you're doing. The
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: vast majority like the point of protest is to be
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: out there, to get attention to a cause and to
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: let people know that you know, you're supporting it and lending.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: Your credibility to it.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: It just it seems like everything's just going backwards.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: I do think that in the modern landscape, where there
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: are cameras everywhere, it is a different ballgame to be protesting.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: And some protesters are rightfully concerned that their image being
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: broadcast will compromise their life or livelihood outside of the protest,
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: and I think that that has to be distinguished from
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: people who are mass up or disguising themselves in order
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: to commit crimes undetected. So it's a fin nuance and
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: you know, something can be said of yes, I'm proud
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: of my cause, and I'm here regardless unmasked, you know,
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: to face the consequences. But practically speaking, the consequences can
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: be very severe for just innocuous behavior. And it's where
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: it's with intense to disguise in order to do wrongdoing
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: that needs to be nipped in the bud. And it's
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: disappointing that police really don't seem to recognize there's a
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: distinction there.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: I have so many things I want to ask you
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: right now, but let's connect it to the policing aspect
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: right now, because I have noticed that as well. When
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: it comes to a protest, it seems as if police
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: are not there to enforce the law. Rather their job
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: becomes to just protect the peace, and that becomes very
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: different than dealing with specific incidents. It's about how do
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: you manage such a large crowd to pick up on
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: your point though, about how you have to be you know,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: crowdsourcing to almost figure out who these people are who
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: have committed assaults.
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  Speaker 2: That's a lot of work that you quite frankly shouldn't
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: have to be doing.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Is there a need for increased I don't know policing
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: roles when it comes to protests like this, just to
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: maintain not only the peace, but also to enforce the
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: actual law.
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  Speaker 3: I don't think it's a lack of police presence. Many
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: of the protests I attend have a sizeable police presence,
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  Speaker 3: but in the focus on broad crowd management, I think
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  Speaker 3: something gets lost where police aren't acknowledging that what threatens
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: the piece is individual troublemakers and an observation from the
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: many protests I've attended, it tends to be the same
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  Speaker 3: people and that's you know, so if I can identify
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: who is a likely source of trouble, it's not a
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  Speaker 3: stretch to imagine that police should be able to do
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  Speaker 3: that