FREE PRESS
A Racist Smear. A Tarnished Career. And the Suicide of Richard Bilkszto
Rupa Subramanya and Ari Blaff
August 3, 2023

Kike Ojo-Thompson, a diversity trainer in Toronto, was explaining to her class of 200 or so public school administrators that Canada is a much more racist country than the United States. “Canada is a bastion of white supremacy and colonialism,” Thompson said to a sea of nodding heads squeezed into Zoom. “The racism we experience is far worse here than there.” It was April 26, 2021, and Thompson was leading attendees through a session on systemic inequity. Thompson acknowledged that this might be hard for Canadians to accept, explaining that Americans “have a fighting posture against, at least, the monarchy. Here we celebrate the monarchy, the very heart and soul and origins of the colonial structure.” READ MORE