Apology over KKK costumes at Halloween party doesn’t go far enough, N.S. advocate says

The images of a group of revellers decked out in KKK costumes at a Nova Scotia Halloween dance have spread far and wide.

Outrage has followed online and attempts at apologies made, but members of the African Nova Scotian community question just what will result from this incident.

“This is 2024 and this is what we’re still doing? This is what we’re still fighting?” asked Tia Upshaw, the CEO and founder of Black Women in Excellence.

Upshaw said she was disgusted when she came across photos and video on her social media feed showing four people wearing long, white robes and pointed white hoods at a fire hall Halloween party. One partygoer was holding a large cross as part of the costume.

The video was taken inside what appears to be the North Sydney Firefighters Club during a dance on the weekend.

“Ku Klux Klan, KKK, I don’t care what rock you’ve come from under, everybody knows what they stand for, who they were and what that represents for Black individuals,” Upshaw said.

The North Sydney Firefighters Club executive apologized in a Facebook post on Sunday night, saying the people dressed as Klan members attended a Halloween costume party at the building on Saturday.

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“These four individuals are in no way, shape or form associated with our organization,” the post said.

In a separate Facebook post, Deputy Fire Chief Wade Gouthro later asked for the community’s forgiveness, saying, “most times we think, ‘ah it is a costume’ without really thinking of the big picture or the past it represents. So when you folks comment that they shouldn’t have gotten in and that we need to do better, you are right, and we will.”

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Fire Chief Lloyd MacIntosh said the people in Klan costumes were admitted by volunteers working the door. When it became clear what was happening, volunteers at the event asked them to remove their hoods, though some refused. Volunteers also took away the cross, he said in an interview Monday.

“A mistake was made,” he said. “They were allowed in, they shouldn’t have been.”

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‘No consequences for the actions’

Quentrel Provo, the founder of the activist group Stop the Violence, likened those Halloween costumes to a hate crime, and said apologies without action are meaningless at this point.

He added “the sad part about it” is that there are no policies or mechanisms in this situation that can prevent something similar from happening again.

“We’re going to be upset. We’re going to be outraged,” he said.

“But there’s going to be no consequences for the actions, and then we’re just going to go back to our lives and something else is going to happen and we’re going to be outraged and upset.”

He also said he felt little empathy in the apologies, and doesn’t believe the issue would have been addressed had it not been for the outpouring of condemnation.

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“People continue to do things like this and know that it’s OK. It’s like (the people in the costumes) probably thought it was going to be a good laugh,” he said.

“We have people in positions of power that can make changes but those people in power are not affected by things like this, like racism. So things don’t get changed.”

PC Party Leader Tim Houston, who was on his first day of campaigning for re-election as premier Monday, wrote on social media that the actions of the partygoers were “entirely unacceptable.”

“Hateful ideologies and groups are not welcome in this province. Engaging with these groups or using symbols of hate cannot be justified,” he wrote on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Should these individuals be found to be provincial employees, they will be fired.”

Police in Cape Breton are also looking into whether a crime was committed. A spokesperson for the Cape Breton regional police said the force is aware of the incident and is investigating what happened.

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Safety concern

Meanwhile, Upshaw said the incident has highlighted the safety concern her members and the Black community face.

“My mandate for the organization, Black Women in Excellence, is to create safe spaces for Black women entrepreneurs,” she explained.

“We do a lot of work in the rural communities, and we’ve dealt with a lot of racism, discrimination and comments and inequalities going into these spaces.”

She said she had planned on expanding her organization’s work into Cape Breton, where North Sydney is located, in the new year. However, she has now reconsidered, and plans to “pivot.”

“It’s more than someone using a racial slur or a joke,” she said.

“If an individual can walk around with a white hood, eyes cut out, and a cross, and think it’s OK — and people in the vicinity think it’s OK  — who am I to go up there to try to build safe spaces for Black businesses?”

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— with a file from The Canadian Press

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