Kobei Mcleish-Diaz has penned an open letter on the online site Reddit, saying he’s “tired of being harassed” as he describes life as a young, black man living in the Greater Toronto Area.
“I made the post — not only to see and hear about other experiences being minorities and what not — but also to see if we can change something,” Mcleish-Diaz told Global News.
In the letter, which was posted on Tuesday, the 19-year-old recalled a recent incident where he was approached by a police officer for flying his drone at noon on public property.
“He just came out… [and] basically told me what I was doing was fine, but he did get a call about suspicious activity and [so] he still had to make contact with me,” Mcleish-Diaz said.
Mcleish-Diaz added he always travels with a dash cam, to prove to people he’s not doing anything wrong.
The 19-year-old currently lives in Ajax, Ont., and is studying accounting and finance at Seneca College.
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Since the letter was posted, Mcleish-Diaz said he has received a great deal of support and the post has more than 430 comments on the site.
“So far, a lot of people have been so supportive of me,” he said.
“It made me feel a lot more comfortable seeing that I’m not the only one, and this is a widespread issue.”
Mcleish-Diaz said there needs to be a cultural change to shift people’s perceptions.
“There has been so much divide between everything going on in the world right now — the States, Canada and everything like that — but regardless of what’s happening, we need to reconnect and reunite with one another,” Mcleish-Diaz said.
“It doesn’t matter, the colour of your skin, race, ethnicity or anything like that — but we need to be a team on this.”
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