As the realities of police carding become more known in Toronto, the public is increasingly rejecting the practice. Sixty per cent of respondents to a recent Forum poll disapprove of carding, the Toronto police practice of stopping civilians who are not suspected of any crime, and documenting their personal identification. Black voters, who admittedly made up a small sample size in the survey, rejected carding to the tune of 81 per cent. Given that innocent black people are disproportionately the targets of carding, this is no surprise.

Since I wrote a Toronto Life feature on discrimination, in which I documented the many times I have been needlessly stopped or carded by Toronto police, I’ve received hundreds of messages from people asking what they can do to counter this shady practice. I propose a simple but revolutionary intervention that nearly anyone can take up: if you see a black person being stopped in public by Toronto police, simply approach that person and ask, “Are you OK?”

In my experience, this suggestion evokes a curious amount of anxiety in people, particularly white people, the vast majority of whom are never arbitrarily stopped by police. They wonder if they might be putting themselves in danger by intervening in a police interaction.

To this I can only reply that in 2013, black Torontonians were up to 17 times more likely than white residents to be carded by police in certain neighbourhoods, particularly those with a majority of white residents. Those who are not targeted in this way might consider how scary it is for those who live it every day.

The notion of intervention also contradicts an instinct many residents have when they see marginalized people — racial minorities, homeless people, people living with mental illness — in confrontations with police. Many are inclined to turn away, as if they do not see the interaction.

Those who condemn carding must fight this instinct. They must make it clear that just as police are watching over communities, the public is watching the police. More importantly, the dark-skinned people that police target need to know that their fellow Torontonians see them, and value their right to move around the city in peace and freedom.

Such vigilance would ideally not be necessary but Toronto police, in partnership with the feeble police services board, insist on documenting people who have done nothing wrong, and on keeping their personal information in a database. This information can be used against innocent civilians — who are disproportionately dark-skinned residents — to destroy reputations, threaten employment, and justify future police suspicion. The act of bearing witness to police stops is a safeguard against such devastating consequences.

Our police leadership also refuses to inform people who are being carded that it is a voluntary interaction, and that they can legally walk away. In addition to asking if someone is OK, public witnesses and allies can remind a person interacting with police that it is their legal right not to say anything. This is a common practice at all well-organized public demonstrations. Again, it is sad that such information is so relevant to black people in public spaces. Until carding is stopped, we must remind those it targets of their legal rights.

And what if the person engaging with police is actually involved in some suspicious or criminal activity? In such cases, which are the minority, nothing is lost by asking “are you OK?” In a city where carding and unwanted police interaction has been a ritual for nearly all young black men, the real risk is in pretending that such scrutiny is either understandable or acceptable. The act of bearing witness for fellow residents is a complement to effective community policing, not a threat to it.

Residents who comfort themselves that police only target people who “deserve” it, and who imagine that undue police scrutiny does not threaten them or their loved ones, need to wake up. The ability to be free from arbitrary police detention is a guarantee under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms — if it can be denied to those who cannot defend themselves, it can eventually be taken from everyone.

It is not enough to express concern about the treatment of racialized people by our police, and then to ignore that treatment when it occurs in plain public sight. Those who believe in reform should act on their professed values, and reach out in solidarity with the racialized people experiencing unacceptable scrutiny from Toronto police.

Desmond Cole is a Toronto-based freelance journalist.