Racist threats overshadow Hamilton municipal election campaign

The municipal election campaign in Hamilton was overshadowed by racism on Friday. A candidate for city council says he’s being threatened by a white supremacist group.

Kojo Damptey is a long-time Hamilton anti-racism activist now running for a seat on council. He says he got a message from a group called Nationalist-13.

“They said, hey, once we get power we are going to ban people like myself from running for office and they’re going to deport me,” says Damptey.

He says the group is the same one that held a rally in the City earlier this year.

“It’s a threat. It’s intimidation. It’s hate, yeah, they’re trying to intimidate people like me from not running for office,” says Damptey.

Hamilton Mayor Andrea Horwath running for re-election says the City will be announcing a new anti-hate campaign next week and has to stand up to the racism in the message aimed at Damptey.

“I think that anybody who believes that they can tell someone that they don’t belong when it comes to being elected, when it comes to running for office and representing their community is completely off base and it’s disgraceful. It’s racist, it’s discriminatory,” says Horwath.

Other mayoral candidates are also outraged by the threat to Damptey.

“I’m absolutely disgusted by that intimidation of a candidate for office. We all know when we put our names forward that we’re going to face some scrutiny and it’s not always pleasant the things that come at us, but that’s completely out of place. Intimidation — especially in the democratic process — is especially egregious,” says mayoral candidate Keanin Loomis.

“We need to stand up against white supremacy, fascism and white nationalism and we need to make sure that Kojo and anybody who faces this kind of hatred has solidarity, because this is not acceptable,” says Scarlett Gillespie.

The mayoral candidate says the behaviour goes beyond racism as she strives to represent marginalized groups.

“I’ve had threats to my life. People have said I should be thrown in a woodchipper. People have threatened my volunteers, some of my signs have been stolen, some of them have been destroyed. I have faced a lot of vitriol in the comments, plenty of slurs related to my trans identify and former sex working employment,” says Gillespie.

Damptey says Hamilton should be a city where everyone is welcome.

“I’m not scared, definitely not scared, but again we want to make sure that everybody in Hamilton feels safe,” says Damptey.

Hamilton police have contacted Damptey and say a hate crimes investigator is looking into the matter.