BY MICHAEL THOMAS
Is Canada’s Wonderland participating in the racial profiling of young black men too? Try asking this question to Keishia Facey and the answer would be a no-holds-barred YES, and I shall explain why as we progress in this article.
Imagine you are the mother of a sixteen-year-old son who happens to be Black. Imagine sending your son off by Uber to enjoy himself at Canada’s Wonderland, but when he gets there, he is refused entry.
N (as I would call him) was told that he fits the profile of someone who was not welcomed at the amusement park and that was it, case closed and if he persisted, he was told they would call the police on him. As we shall find out later, N and his mother decided to show his ID as evidence that he was not there before, but that was ignored, and he was left outside the amusement park. Imagine that!
Readers, your next question would be why, or what happened? Let us keep imagining things for now. Remember this young man was put in a cab by his mother, so naturally when he was refused entry at the Vaughan amusement park on September 28th, 2024 he called his mother to see if she could help clarify things.
Let’s imagine that you are the mother of this 16-year-old, you show up at this amusement park thinking this should be easy, he is going to be admitted now that you are here, what is the misunderstanding?
Picture yourselves readers as the boy’s mother trying to find out why your son was refused entry, only to be dismissed and to find out there is another group of black boys that are not wanted at the entrance either. This article will test your imagination, but you will be unpleasantly surprised.
Now picture yourself standing at the entrance of this amusement park with your son and seven, or eight other Black boys between the ages of 14-16, being refused entry into Canada’s Wonderland. Shall we imagine that all nine, or so of these little Black boys looked like someone who was denied entry previously? Shall we?
Now readers, this gets worse, try, and imagine you as N’s mother having the police called on you by Canada’s Wonderland just because you are inquiring why your son cannot enjoy an amusement park in the country where he was born.
I think this imaginary horror story has run its course, and regrettably, I must inform you that all that you have read so far is not a fairy tale, but a real-life ordeal. Now let me introduce you to this real-life cast.
I had the privilege of speaking with N’s mother Mrs. Keishia Facey, Co-founder of the REST (OR) REFORM Equity Conference which advocates for racial justice in our community.
According to Facey, Canada’s Wonderland security called the police on her and her son to inquire why he was refused entry.
Facey told me that when the officer arrived and she tried explaining what happened, Officer K. Ramos told her that, as a minority himself, he found nothing racial about this incident. “After taking what the security guards told him, he said he deemed it not racist,” Facey told me.
It is important to note here that the amusement park security called the police not to clarify things regarding her son’s refusal of entry, but to arrest her because they deemed her manner aggressive. After all, she questioned their decision.
“It just goes to show how a lot of the racist troupes against my son and myself were at play. I am a Black woman so therefore I am angry, and I am aggressive, when all I am trying to ask is what is the reason why my son is not allowed to come in,” Facey told me.
“The problem is that this is not just an individual case of my son and his friend. I am standing here with a group of Black boys who are not allowed to come in, while all these other kids are dressed the same and are allowed to go in, while there is a wall of security screening people out. That is racial profiling,” she said.
Facey told me, “Whoever they were saying my son was, they had no ID for such a person.”
Facey believes that these security guards are not properly trained, and so, one dangerous Black boy to them means one size fits all. “That is racial profiling,” she told me.
Canada’s Wonderland Marketing Director told another news source the reason for turning back N from the amusement park was for wearing an item that concealed his identity, an act that is a violation of the park’s Code of Conduct, yet as stated earlier in this article Canada’s Wonderland downplayed the idea of an ID check from N and his mother. For the record, N’s mother called that statement by Canada’s Wonderland a lie.
In all fairness, I reached out to Canada’s Wonderland by contacting Dwayne McMulkin, the Corporate Director of Marketing and Brand Management at Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, which owns the theme park, to obtain their version of this tragic incident, but no one replied to me.
I asked Facey what she would like to see happen at the end of all this, she replied, “I think the security guards need to be trained, they need to know what anti-Black racism is, they need to know that no matter if they are: Brown, Indian, White, or Chinese that anti-Black racism in Canada needs to be fought against, and so they can respond differently.”
Facey said she is in conversation with York Regional Police on the matter as well.
Angela Waddell
August 4, 2019 at 10:42 pm
Hello My name is Angela Waddell, i have read your story today by accident. My son Laine Waddell was accused of position of child porn. on May 7/19 what i have heard is his soon ex wife had found a thumb drive in the garage, apperntly my son was helping the neighbor moving and after he arrived home after lunch the neighbour hood was surronded by police, as soon as he got out of his truck he was arrested. His wife had fled back to to alberta with her family, she called me over 24 hrs later to let us know what was going on, my son swears it was not his and my husband and believed him. My son did have a drug and alcohol problem wich we did not know, his wife knew this. she also knew that if we found out we would have made a diierence, I believe it was her way out of the relatioship make along story short it does remind me of your story, no priyer records a honst hard working young man had his own bisness, everyone loved him. He just knew having that charge against him he knew he was domed for ever.My son Laine took his life July 17/19 at the age of 32. he knew he would have this for the rest of his life, just like you. only difference he did not have his wife to stand by him that is all he wanted innocence or guilty.