{"id":27097,"date":"2020-07-23T21:25:24","date_gmt":"2020-07-24T01:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=27097"},"modified":"2020-07-23T21:25:31","modified_gmt":"2020-07-24T01:25:31","slug":"aurora-establishes-anti-racism-anti-black-racism-task-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-establishes-anti-racism-anti-black-racism-task-force\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora establishes Anti-Racism, Anti-Black Racism task force"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This past spring, more than 1,000 residents from across York Region filled Town Park as part of a Solidarity Walk against anti-Black racism around the world. Now, the Town is set to establish a new task force to address the problem at a local level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, Council unanimously approved a motion brought forward by Mayor Tom Mrakas and Councillor Harold Kim to establish an Anti-Black Racism and Anti-Racism Task Force to take \u201cmeaningful action\u201d and help effect \u201clong-term systemic change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their motion, they said the move builds upon Aurora\u2019s endorsement of York Region\u2019s Diversity and Inclusion Charter and the Town\u2019s commitment to \u201cbuilding a more inclusive society by \u2018working to identify, address and prevent systemic racism in municipal policy, programs and services.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The purpose of the task force, they expanded, is to \u201cdevelop strategies\u201d to eliminate racism in the community and within \u201cthe Municipal Corporation\u201d while working with \u201cBlack community groups within Aurora and York Region to identify and develop priorities\u201d and \u201copportunities to increase Black community engagement and foster an increased public awareness of anti-Black racism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLast summer, there was another motion I put forward in terms of having staff investigate diversity in Aurora and the Town of Aurora with respect to employment and I believe that this is coming to us sometime in the fall,\u201d said Councillor Kim, who moved the motion alongside Councillor Sandra Humfryes. \u201cA lot of things have happened [since then]. It seems like every year there is some really, really bad incident that happens, whether it be in the States or in Canada \u2013 and lately the George Floyd incident. With that, the Mayor and I were talking about what we could do as a community and as a Town to not just merely have a discussion, but take action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know we have had other actions before, but we want to take action \u2013 something solid and something measurable, hence the motion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Humfryes said she was \u201creally proud\u201d of the motion and, moving forward, it was a mark of leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re actually taking action,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re not just stamping our approval on it\u2026we\u2019re actually doing something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Support was also expressed by Councillors Wendy Gaertner and Michael Thompson, with the latter stating he wanted to make sure people with lived experience have a place on the committee, which is set to be comprised of two Council members and seven members of the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the past, sometimes when we have had\u2026more of a focused or specialized committee, we have gone out to the public and we have put some wording into the advertisements when we are seeking citizen members looking for specific experiences, skills or background that could complement or perhaps bring some knowledge and experience to the issues,\u201d said Councillor Thompson. \u201cThe way it reads, it is saying we\u2019re going to follow our standard process [but] will there be an attempt to put some language into those advertisements and try to encourage and seek out people who could add to this community with their knowledge, experience or background?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Kim replied that you want people with that \u201clived experience\u201d well-represented on the committee to \u201cgive us first-hand knowledge of their experience and their testimony.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnly then can we have these types of solutions we need to alleviate some of the pain in our society,\u201d said Councillor Kim. \u201cCertainly, we do need people with diverse views.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Mrakas added he would also like to look at these issues with a wider scope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know we\u2019re striving to take action on a lot of these issues that are coming to the forefront,\u201d he said. \u201cI commend you and this Council for what we\u2019re doing. I will be talking to Mayor Taylor because I know that Newmarket is looking to do something similar from a task force perspective\u2026and I want to have a conversation with him possibly seeking if there is a way we can collaborate [as] I know this issue doesn\u2019t end at our borders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This past spring, more than 1,000 residents from across York Region filled Town Park as part of a Solidarity Walk against anti-Black racism around the world. Now, the Town is set to establish a new task force to address the problem at a local level. Last week, Council unanimously approved a motion brought forward by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-733","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 09:07:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}