On this week’s episode of Talking Raical Radio, organizer Teddy Zegeye-Gebrehiwot talks about Winnipeg Cop Watch and their work against the more oppressive aspects of policing as it currently exists.
Copwatch is an international network of local organizations focused on detering police violence through observing the interactions between police and community members. Though many people who move through the world with middle-class and white privilege have trouble even imagining the police as anything but a source of safety and help, many other people and many other communities have quite different experiences. For many people who are racialized, visibly poor, gender non-conforming, sex workers, or otherwise marginalized, police brutality and misconduct are common experiences. Zegeye-Gebrehiwot, an organizer with the Winnipeg chapter of Cop watch, talks about the work that they do to deter police violence, support survivors of various forms of police misconduct, and raise critical consciousness about the systemic role of police in our society — a society built on colonization, exclusion, oppression, and exploitation.
To learn more about the work of Winnipeg Copwatch, click here.
Talking Radical Radio brings you grassroots voices from across Canada through in-depth interviews that concentrate not on current events or the crisis of the moment, but on giving people involved in a broad range of social change work a chance to take a longer view as they talk about what they do, how they do it, and why they do it. To learn more about the show in general, click here.
You can also learn more about ways to listen or go to the show’s page on Rabble.ca. To learn more about suggesting grassroots groups and organizations for future shows, click here. For details on the show’s theme music, click here.
Talking Radical Radio is brought to you by Scott Neigh, a writer, media producer, and activist based in Sudbury, Ontario, and the author of two books examining Canadian history through the stories of activists.
