Why we protest
When Dr. Yana Hoffman was thirteen, she and her family watched Martin Luther King Jr. give his historic “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln memorial in Washington. She was among the 300,000 people who attended. She got to watch Dr. King -in person- as he shared his grief and fury at the brutality his people face and his hope that the efforts of this fight would not be in vain, that he and his children could one day live in a world where just surviving is not considered a victory.
“And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.”
This was in 1963.
Dr. Hoffman’s mother was heavily involved in the Civil Rights’ movement and an outspoken peace activist, so from a young age she was exposed to the turmoil of her time and developed a resolve to fight for better. As Dr. Hoffman grew up during the 60’s and 70’s, she would see the rise and decline of the social and political movements of those decades, many of which she was involved in. “I grew up in New York and going to the South to protest segregation…it felt like an entirely different world…I think that is when I really saw the ‘Two Americas’’ for the first time…even though my family was involved in these movements, I still lived in a sheltered community…that was the first time I was able to take a good look at my own privilege”.
Dr. Hoffman continued to do her part as she and her peers organized her community and did grassroots work during the turmoil that was the political landscape of her youth. While many of her friends would go on to become even more ingregiated in the frontlines of social justice, while protesting in college Dr.Hoffman discovered a desire to help others and herself find “peace within”. This desire led her away from politics and into psychotherapy. After Dr. Hoffman and her first husband moved to Canada so he could avoid being drafted in the Vietnam War (“I’d like to think of it as being less of a draft dodger and more ‘military avoidant’.”) she began to pursue the path that would eventually lead her to being my-among many others- therapist.
The work Dr. Hoffman does as a psychotherapist involves trauma healing, especially with women and breaking the cycle of trauma that often runs in families for generations. “We need both- people on the frontlines and politics but we also need people to do the foundational work of equality and peace, who can educate people and give them the tools and resources to fight for better, both within themselves and in the outside world…as a therapist I believe equality starts from within. Dealing with our own biases towards ourselves and others…when we learn to better ourselves, that’s when we can help the others as well.”
“Protesting allows an expression of rage and grief and reminds us we are not alone”
Dr. Hoffman emphasizes the importance of the protest in our society. And while she may not be as politically active as she once was, Dr. Hoffman still carries her family’s’ tradition of bringing their daughters’ up right alongside the social movements of the era. “I might not be an organizer of any kind, but I firmly believe in the power of protest and proudly took my daughters and granddaughter to the Women’s March in 2017- she was 13, just like the first time I ever went.”
On a personal level, the work that we do as individuals is vital. We cannot hope for long lasting systemic change if the people we place both within those systems and under their governance do not fundamentally believe in equality for all and are not willing to fight for it both on the frontlines and within their own communities.
It has been 58 years since Dr. King spoke of the dream he had for his country “I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.”
This dream (which he later somewhat recanted 2 months prior to his assassination, calling it “naive” and citing that he feared he as “integrating his people into a burning house”), has taken longer than expected to be realized, needless to say. Not just in America (also needless to say), but in all parts of the world, we have seen the current systems of power be quite resistant to change, and we have slowly come to realize that this is because they are working the way they are meant to; as a tool of oppressing the most marginalized, the least valued of our society. And while it is great that the collective consciousness has come to understand the need for reform, our society’s most marginalized communities are still bearing the brunt of this lack of systemic change.
In 2015, Moka Dawkins, who was a sex worker at the time, was employed by a man named Jay. They developed somewhat of a personal relationship. “Obviously it was transactional as a client-worker relationship, but I felt like we did develop a relationship beyond that.”
Unbeknownst to Moka, Jay had an extensive criminal record as well as a history of attacking people with a knife. She would find out this part of her clients history in August of 2015, when Jay threatened her at knife point to prevent her from leaving. Moka managed to escape his grasp and get a hold of the knife he attacked her with. Moka called the police and was then arrested. Jay attempted to jump down a garbage chute and died due to his injuries. Moka was then charged with second degree murder and manslaughter and was kept in holding in Toronto East Detention Centre- one of the most violent men’s prisons in the province- and she was the first transgender woman to do so.
“When they arrested me, they kept laughing, misgendering me…it seemed like it was all a big joke to them.”
The treatment did not improve once inside the prison walls. At first, she was placed into solitary confinement (or as Moka put it, segregation). The detention centre then forced her into protective custody, which, according to Moka, confines people from marginalized communities to the same quarters as inmates who would hold violent prejudice against them and would take their prejudices out in even more violent ways .
“The problem with protective custody is that you are putting people like myself in the same part of prison as the people who kill us.” Citing that she was placed in the same ‘protective custody’ as Bruce McArthur, the Toronto serial killer who specifically targeted gay men and transgender women from 2010-2017.
“Prison is scary enough on its own, you can never let your guard down…as a Black, trans woman, there was never any moment where I felt safe inside those walls.”
And indeed, the prison did little to help protect Moka, either physically or even to ease the constant edge that she felt, even in her sleep. Even when she was attacked by a group of men while in the shower, her pleas to be put in General Population (gen-pop) were dismissed and she was once again forced to share confines with the same men who actively wished to hurt her. “I was being ignored. Straight up. They thought because there was only one of me they could essentially write me off until I went away.” Despite the threats, the constant danger and the systemic roadblocks Moka faced at every turn in her search for justice, she still managed to find the strength to advocate for herself while in prison. And by doing so, she was able to advocate for other Black, trans women as well. Thanks to her advocacy, Moka was enable to ensure freedom of expression for transgender people in prisons all across Ontario. Meaning that prisons now are required to give transgender people items such as makeup, wigs, binders .,etc at the prison commissaries as essential items.
Moka’s experiences and the experiences of individuals from many different marginalized groups (particularly the experiences of Black, Latino and LGBTQ+ inmates) inside prison walls provide a harrowing and grim lesson about the corruption of the prison industrial complex and the lack of real justice within the justice system. It forces us to look at the reality of the way things are now and that is what we have is beyond mere reform.
“My ultimate goal is abolition. The prison system does not bring us justice, does not bring us rehabilitation.” Part of this ultimate goal is to defund the Toronto Police and reallocate those funds into programs such as affordable housing, community building, food banks and access to education and rehabilitation. The idea being that if communities can eliminate the root cause of crime (poverty), crime itself can be eliminated, and therefore the prison system as we know it today would become obsolete as would most petty crimes and misdemeanors. “In order to abolish the police, we must abolish poverty.”
Since being released, Moka has gone on to start the JusticeforMoka campaign, which advocates for the rights of Black, trans women within the judicial and prison systems. She also works as a researcher for Ryerson University and the University of Toronto. She is on several committees that advocate for the rights and freedoms of marginalized people, particularly the Black LGBTQ+ community.
Social justice and protest movements have caught the attention of the public eye in waves. Particularly, the last five years have seen a rise in the pursuit of civil rights from the younger generations (Generation Z and Millenials). With social media being used as a primary driving force in this new wave of activism, we now have the ability to connect to others and access information in ways previous generations could not even fathom. Social media has become a driving force in modern day activism and we only have to look at the past four years to see all the ways it has not only impacted, but initiated real life global conflicts and social movements (the Syrian refugee crisis, the #MeToo movement, Free Palestine, Black Lives Matter.,etc)
However, with the ever evolving nature of social media comes the 24-hour news cycle. Global conflicts go in and out of trends the same way songs on the Billboard Hot 100 do, and yet, when I look at my generation I still do see people who are striving for better days and want to fight for a better world. And while the task seems daunting, there is certain air of urgency among young people today, almost a panic, as we have come to the realization that the way our society functions, on an environmental, political and economic level is unsustainable, unfulfilling and ultimately, dangerous.
“When we talk about supremacy, we’re talking about all current systems of power. That’s the prison industrial complex, the military, the police, the education system…we need complete reform and we have to start by educating ourselves and others…complete change is not going to happen in our lifetime, but we have the power to put that foundation in place.”
With all the turmoil of our society and that turmoil being accessible with the opening of an app, it’s hard not to get overwhelmed, it’s hard to not want to throw your phone in a lake in the hope that you can become numb to the suffering of the world, even at your own expense. Generation Z has seen a spike in burnout, depression and anxiety, in no small part due to the fact that we are berated with images of suffering and turmoil. And while it may seem counterintuitive to focus on oneself now and again during the chaos of the world, the constant media exposure is exactly why it is important to take care of each other and ourselves on a personal level, because burnout and desensitization is how we risk lose momentum in movements where we want to enact real change.
“Know your history” and “Keep being appalled-we cannot afford to lose compassion.”
Change starts with education of the public. It is vital that all people are made aware of our history and that history is no longer taught with a political agenda. When we try to erase the harm we have caused others, it prevents us from moving forward. When we acknowledge our past, we can see all the ways in which it bleeds into our present, and only then can we begin to move forward. Ultimately, it is harmful to accept the past as merely the past. Without complete reform of all current systems of power, the bigotry and violence of our past will continue to bleed into our present and further wound our future.
And while some may very well have the option of ignorance, that is a privilege many cannot afford. To be able to ignore politics, to not have to take a stand in social issues implies that right to your existence, your freedom, your safety has never been questioned by people who wield the power to take you freedom away over you and yet will never know your experience. The existence of marginalized identities invites the need for advocacy. “Being who I am, I’m not given the choice of whether or not I can be an activist, it is necessary for me and my people to survive.” Moka says. She, as well as all marginalized people, cannot exist freely with the way things are now, because every system of power that has been put in place has been designed to keep marginalized communities oppressed. We must either fight for complete reform, and for systems of power that uplift and amplify all voices, where marginalized people do not have to fight for a seat at the table, or we won’t survive. And we must be given the resources to take care of ourselves and others while we do so.
It has been 58 years since Dr. King spoke of a dream he once had, and while we can argue about all the ways in which things have truly changed since then, what keeps the embers of that dream ignited are all the people who have come after him, who seek justice, so that one day perhaps, this dream can be realized.
“No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”