Creative Outputs
No Life Left Behind
My colleague, Dr. El Jones, and I developed this series at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. This podcast, like everything I do, was born out of a gap; this time in my “work” with lifers in prison. Many of us across the country were doing advocacy at the provincial level around releasing incarcerated people during COVID. The podcast complicates questions around abolition and defunding. All of the episodes are co-hosted by lifers who participated along with academics, activists, scholars, and researchers across Canada.
It Takes a Riot: Race, Rebellion, Reform
Check out the documentary here.
On May 4, 1992, in Toronto, a march against police violence turned into a riot. The march was organized by the Black Action Defense Committee, a civil rights group and criminal justice watchdog founded by members of Toronto’s Black communities. While the mainstream media called it a “riot”, others called it a “rebellion”, even an “uprising”. It Takes A Riot: Race, Rebellion, Reform explores the events of May 4, 1992; their historical context, political impact, and relevance to contemporary struggles against anti-Black racism. With racial injustice, police killings of Black people, and the Black Lives Matter movement on the front pages, this provocative new documentary asks: What does it take for Black people to get justice in this society?
Directed by Howard Grandison. Produced by Simon Black, Idil Abdillahi, Howard Grandison.
Funding provided by The Akua Benjamin Legacy Project at Toronto Metropolitan University and the Social Justice Research Institute at Brock University.