"COMBAT Attacked At Toronto City Hall"

"COMBAT Attacked At Toronto City Hall"

This article from the May 1989 issue of Rites, a queer Toronto publication, recounts a feud between COMBAT (Community Organizations Mutually. Battling AIDS Together) and Christie Blatchford, a columnist for The Toronto Sun. The organization protested after their funding was set to be cut. They denounced the Toronto Board of Health over this action, stating that this waas a racist act and demonstrated how quickly the government was able to prevent healthcare information from spreading to those who needed it most, especially in racially marginalized communities and therefore perpetuate more deaths of Black Canadians. The columnist harshly critisizes them in one of her colums for making seemingly random accusations of racism and argues against disclosing the race of AIDS patients in the city. This feud as a whole demonstrates not only the fight for AIDS education, and the lack of transparency in health data for the Black community in this crisis, but also how an organization like COMBAT that was, at the time, not exclusively Black operated still displays allyship and address the systemic racism in Toronto during the AIDS crisis.

Brent Southin

Southin, Brent. “COMBAT attacked at Toronto city hall.” Rites, May, 1989, 5.

Rites

May 1989

Rites

Magazine