that is desmond cole

those are the words of our next guest, desmond cole, explaining why he left his bi-monthly column at toronto star." last month, cole protested a toronto police services board meeting and was subsequently told by his editor at "the star" that he had violated the newspapers' rules on journalism and activism. in his writings, cole has long criticized the controversial police practice of carding -- stopping, interrogating and collecting data on individuals without probable cause, a practice which disproportionately targets people of color in canada. in 2015, he wrote a widely read piece for toronto life titled, "the skin i'm in: i've been interrogated by police more than 50 times -- all because i'm black." last month, cole brought a police board hearing to a halt by refusing to leave the speaker's chair until all information gathered from carding was destroyed. >> i stand up for the children of this city that you guys refuse to protect, particularly the black children. and i plan to stand here in protest until you commit -- until you commit today, here and now, to restricting the police

amy: you were just listening to desmond cole derailing a toronto police services board meeting last monthortly afterwards, desmond was called into the "toronto star's" office and told his protest had violated the newspapers' code of conduct. the newspaper's policy and journalistic standards manual states -- "it is not appropriate for star journalists to play the rorolesf bothth actor and critic." desmond cole says this is not the first time he has been reprimandeded by the newspaper. last year, the chair of torstar corp., who was also serving as as the "star's" acting publisher at that time, asked to meet with desmond. the chair, john honderich, reportedly told cole he was writing about race too often, and advised him to diversify his topics. well, democracy now! invited john h honderich or a spokokespn for the "toronto star" to join us on the show, but they declined our request. the newspaper's director of community relations and communications pointed us to a column by the paper's public editor, kathy english. the column is headlined "journalists shouldn't become the news." well, for th