Best surfers in Canada
Guilty in fatal shooting
ICBC warns teens for prom
Little progress on emissions
Healing lodges underfunded
Liberals turn to influencers
Dies after self-immolation
Israeli strike played down
Full Trump jury seated
Lululemon cuts 100 jobs
Bitcoin's 'halving' arrives
Lawsuit over missing nuts
Rockets season ends in PG
Warriors bounced in opener
Warriors ready for Round 2
Pulp Fiction turns 30
Chris Pratt injured in movie
My name is not Elaine
Kamloops organizers of a peaceful protest showing solidarity with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement have decided to cancel today's event scheduled for noon at Riverside Park.
The announcement was made at 10:40 a.m. today (June 4), just under two hours before it was supposed to start, on the group's Instagram account.
In the post, organizers state their intentions with the event didn't "align with the effects of our actions."
"Our intentions were to create a platform and conversation," reads the post.
"We want BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) to lead these protests. The original idea was to create a space for people to express their feelings of injustice and for us to be able to be there to protect the BIPOC in this space.
"The goal of this protest was to open conversation and change for local and international individuals. The goal of our organizers and all non-BIPOC is to create a safe space for them.
"We do not want to speak over them, we want to amplify them.
"This event will be cancelled as we too, would rather BIPOC directly organize these events. We took all feedback we could see from BIPOC to make our platform better and listen to all the criticism we got from them but we feel as though this was not enough.
"Thank you for all the support but please direct it elsewhere."
The post includes links to lists of websites supporting the BLM movement and businesses owned by people of colour.
When reached by Castanet earlier this week, organizers declined to put their names forward.
"Due to the nature of this protest, we feel people on our team may potentially be personally targeted as we’ve seen it happen before to other protesters. We have no intention of potentially putting anyone at higher risk because their name is associated with this event," they wrote to Castanet on June 3.
