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The Current Transcript for July 13, 2016

Host: Mike Finnerty

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

Our entire way of life in America depends on the rule of law. And in this country, we don't have soldiers in the streets, or militias setting the rules. Instead, we have public servants. Police officers, like the men who were taken away from us.

MIKE FINNERTY: As Dallas lays to rest five of its police officers, targeted because they were white and wore the uniform, we begin a two-day look at police and the racial divide. In a moment, we meet an African-American police sergeant who mourns the fallen, and says racism is alive in U.S. police forces and needs to be called out. Also today:

SOUNDCLIP

When I was four and a half, I realized it's more fun as a boy, and the only way to get into the group of boys, I had to burn all my girly dresses.

MF: Well, that strategy worked. Maria Toorpakai dressed and lived as a boy in order to play sports back home in Pakistan. Today, she's a champion in more ways than one. I'm Mike Finnerty, welcome to the summer edition of The Current.

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Being black and a cop: U.S. officer speaks out

Guests: Bryan Pendleton

SOUNDCLIP

You stood up there and took an oath. If this is not where you want to work at, then you need to take your behind somewhere else. I decided to work in an African-American community because I'm African-American and I wanted to make a difference, but how dare you stand next to me in the same uniform and murder somebody. How dare you! If you're afraid to go and talk to an African-American female or male, or a Mexican male or female, because they're not white like you, take the uniform off. You have no business being a police officer. Because there's many of us that will give our life for anybody, and we took this oath and we meant it.

MIKE FINNERTY: In the United States this week, emotions are running high and raw. That was Nakia Jones, an African-American police officer, decrying the racist police she sees inside her ranks. It's a problem that refuses to go away, and one that has again flared up vividly after the police shooting deaths of two more black men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, their deaths caught on video for all the world to see. And then, there were the five Dallas police officers, murdered at a Black Lives Matter protest against the violence. At their memorial service yesterday, President Barack Obama once again urged Americans to believe that theirs not a country as divided as many would say it is. But that rift between police and the communities they're meant to serve -- black communities especially -- seems more glaring with every new death. With every Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, or Mike Brown, Natasha McKenna, or Rekia Boyd. According to a reporting project by the Guardian newspaper, 140 African-Americans have been killed by police so far this year. And those deaths surely weigh on every encounter between a Black American and the police today, including those times when the cop is black. Bryan Pendleton is a regional president of the National Black Police Association in the U.S. He retired from the San Diego Police Department last year after a career spanning more than 30 years. He's now a Sergeant with the Southwestern Community College Police. He joins us from San Diego. Hello.

BRYAN PENDLETON: Good morning.

MF: We just heard Nakia Jones. I wonder whether you identify with that appeal she's just made?

BRYAN PENDLETON: I most certainly do.

MF: So do you think that there are police who shouldn't be wearing the uniform?

BRYAN PENDLETON: Yes. You've got to believe that with 800,000 police officers in the United States that there is a small percentage that would fit into the category that she's describing. You know, law enforcement is an honorable profession. I happened to get into it completely by accident but I think it was the best decision that I ever made. But with that said, I mean, there are some officers that would cause you to take a step back and question what they're doing and what their purpose is for being here.

MF: And do you identify as well with the emotion and the anger with which she expressed that appeal?

BRYAN PENDLETON: Yes, definitely I do.

MF: Why aren't more police speaking out like that?

BRYAN PENDLETON: You know, this is a profession that wasn't always welcoming to African-Americans or blacks. And quite frankly, when we get into this job, we're so busy trying to fit in that sometimes we forget who we really are. We come from black communities, we come from all different types of communities. But you know, we are trying to fit in and the unfortunate part of that is is sometimes when you're trying to fit in, you keep your mouth shut just so that you can stay where you are.

MF: What, a culture of solidarity, or are you protecting yourselves? Can you explain that?

BRYAN PENDLETON: I'll use myself as an example, because it happened to me. I was a rookie cop, and the police department I worked for, there were allegations of racism. And in fact, one of our white officers had killed a person with a controversial chokehold. So there's all these allegations about racism on the San Diego Police Department back then. I remember I responded to a call, and when I was done, a news truck pulls up to me, the reporter put a mic in my face and asked me if there was racism in the San Diego Police Department. And I looked at him and I said absolutely not. And the reason I did that, one, I was just naive as to what was going on, and two, I was trying to fit in. Now, if you asked me that very same question today or ten years later, my answer would be completely different, because my experiences are different. I've had a chance to see things, to live things, and to really understand how things really work.

MF: So I'm going to ask you that question now: is there racism on the police forces you've been on?

BRYAN PENDLETON: Yes. Now, that's not to say that the police department are racist, please don't construe my comments as that. I don't believe that departments as a whole are racist. Are there racist individuals? Are there people there with biases? Certainly, we all have biases. But you know, to answer that more specific question, I believe that there are racist people on police departments across America, yes.

MF: How do you explain the number of videos that are now emerging of black men being killed by police in circumstances that seem to be unjust?

BRYAN PENDLETON: You know, we're only now starting to see it. I remember growing up as a kid hearing stories about blacks being taken to a lumber yard here in San Diego, and you know, just been dealt with that way by police officers. It was never captured on video because video cameras didn't exist. Now, we're living in an age where there's video cameras, everybody's walking around with a camera, whether a still camera or a video camera attached to their phone. So naturally, you're going to catch that type of behavior. It shines a light on a problem that has already been in existence.

MF: So for those of us who maybe are looking on and thinking, well, we have the impression that this is happening more often, is that a true impression?

BRYAN PENDLETON: I don't think that it's happening more often. In fact, I think most police officers who put on this uniform do it for the right reasons and they're out there trying to do their job every single day. And they're not concerned about the cameras, because they're doing their job the right way. You can call it arrogance among the officers who are actually doing these stupid acts, or they just don't care, I don't know. But you know, again, it's not something that's brand new.

MF: Chief Brandon del Pozo of the Burlington Vermont Police told the New York Times this week that one of the worries he has is that-- and all cops, he says, have-- is that no cop can control what another cop does, but all cops will be judged by what the other cop does. Do you share that?

BRYAN PENDLETON: That's exactly right, yes. You know, I live on the west coast. Things that happen on the east coast, take Baltimore for instance. When things happened in Baltimore, we bore the brunt of it here in California, as well as every other department in America, because we are painted with that broad brush. People do see us as one in the same. If one cop does something, no doubt we're all painted with that brush. But you know, the other part of that is is when you see some of those videos and you see more than one police officer, you see one officer behaving badly and you see the other standing around, that's really the bad part right there. The officer's just standing there. You know, there's this-- I don't know, this notion or this opinion or belief that when one officer does something, we all have to back his play. No, not if they're doing something wrong. We need to step up and say something, or at least intervene on that person's behalf, the person who's being victimized for whatever reason, and let that officer know that this is not going to be stood for.

MF: And what's it like for you when another one of those videos emerges and you sit down and watch it?

BRYAN PENDLETON: It's hard. Sometimes when you look at this stuff, I mean, it just doesn't pass the eye test. You look at it and you want to be objective and you want to say, well, I didn't get the whole story, but quite frankly, sometimes you look at this stuff and it's like, you don't need to know the whole story to see what's going on. And so as a police officer, I'm conflicted; as a black man, I am extremely upset. And it's crazy to me to think that we find ourselves as law enforcement in this situation over and over and over again. And I don't know what the remedy for it is, but somehow, it's got to stop, and I don't know what the answer for that is.

MF: Can I ask you a little bit more about your own experience working on the streets, and with the help of Michael Wood, who you're going to hear now, who is a former sergeant with the Baltimore Police Department who was on the show speaking about the racism he saw during his career on the force, he was 11 years in it, and how it contributes to what he thinks is a fractured relationship between police and the community there. Have a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

When you are focused on going after a particular group of people-- and that generally in Baltimore is black males between the ages of 16 and 24, approximately-- and we go after them like they are a combatant, and this is what we're taught. So we're talking raids, we're talking grabbing people in the corner and searching them, opening their pants and looking down, telling them to move their private parts out of the way, telling them to get out of their car so we can search it, telling them to get off the corner. Just going after them like they are an enemy. It's almost as if you're just not police, that's enough for you to be viewed as the enemy.

MF: Did you see the police viewed as the enemy in circumstances like that?

BRYAN PENDLETON: That's not my opinion, but I certainly understand how that could be, because I've been in situations where officers will talk to people of colour differently than they will somebody white. Especially in the black community. I've seen where a person may ask a question and the officer responds with rudeness. I mean, those types of things. And you know, as a black person, you walk away from that contact thinking, I mean, what else could you think other than he's treating me this way for whatever reason. Not because he's having a bad day or whatever, because that's really no excuse. You know it's just-- you know, a certain amount of respect that is missing from contacts with some police and the black community. A lot of police officers who work in black communities didn't grow up there, and I'm talking about white officers in particular. And the only thing that they really have to base their opinion about the black community on is what they've read in the newspaper, what they saw on the news, and the stories that they hear in the academy about certain neighborhoods. And what I mean by that is the violence that sometimes comes out of the inner city, the war stories that police instructors tell in the police academy about certain areas of the city. So you know, this is moulding that rookie who is in the academy, and now he gets out of the academy, and now he has to work that neighborhood. And the only thing that he really has to base his opinions about people from that community on are the stories that he's read, heard, and viewed on TV. So he comes out and you know, he's treating everybody accordingly like they're the crooks that he heard about in the academy. And that's really unfortunate, because in every community, I mean, there are people who would be considered bad apples. But you know, the black community as a whole, I mean, we want the same things. We want fair policing, we want to be treated fairly, no doubt. But it just seems as though our desires are somehow discounted or not as important as say working a white community. You know, that's just the impression that a lot of people have, that they're treated differently in black communities than they are in white communities, they can say things in white communities that they can't say in black communities, for fear of being arrested.

MF: And so how was it for you, when you're policing in a predominately black community?

BRYAN PENDLETON: It was easy for me, and I'll tell you why. Because like I mentioned before, I worked in areas that I grew up in. So where most cops who are brand new to the area and brand new to policing, they're trying to learn how to be a police officer and the area at the same time. So working in my community, all I had to do was learn how to do the job. And you know, I believe that most of the job is learned just by talking to people. If you know how to talk to people, you know how to get information, that's all-- that makes your job a whole lot easier, so you don't have to worry about certain things. And also building relationships with people that you work with, or people that you work around. And I'm talking about the committees that we serve. I've done a lot of volunteer work in the communities that I grew up. You know, I spend a whole lot of time there, so people know me. And I think that's one thing that's not played up enough are the relationships between police departments and communities. Positive relationships where officers are not just there to police, but they're there to give back, to volunteer, to do those type of things to build those relationships.

MF: And what about what's coming back, I guess, from the black community toward the police? I mean, do they see a white police officer differently than they would have seen you, and would they deal with, treat them differently?

BRYAN PENDLETON: I'm not sure if that's-- you know, the black community as a whole views us differently, because I think in a lot of cases, they view us all the same. Because they think we're all going to cover for each other, we all have each other's back no matter what, black or white. So I think the black community in a lot of ways views us all as the same. But you know, if things are going wrong, then you need to be willing to speak out about it. That's what sets you apart and I think that's what people have a hard time with, where an officer will do something wrong, but police departments stay silent, or officers stay silent. We don't call it like we see it.

MF: What about the shootings of five police officers in Dallas? I should say the shooting deaths, because many more were shot and were injured, as well.

BRYAN PENDLETON: You know, if you're a human being, it's hard not to get emotional about that, because those officers were doing what they were paid to do. I mean, there's a certain risk we take when we decide to wear this uniform and badge, certainly, but my heart goes out to their families. I mean, it's heart wrenching. That was a sad day in America, that was a sad day in history. I don't really have the words to explain it. It hurt me to see it. I have friends who work for the Dallas Police Department. One thing that stuck out to me when I was listening to the news media reports and people were giving the account of what happened, some people were saying that when they heard the shots, they ran a different direction and they saw the police officers running towards the gunshots. That's what people really need to think about. I mean, these guys no matter what, no matter what their relationship is with any community, they're running to save them and not to save themselves.

MF: And do you feel-- I know that the shooter says he was specifically targeting white police officers, but someone who wears the uniform, did you feel targeted, as well?

BRYAN PENDLETON: Regardless of what he said, he targeted police officers. Whether they're white, black, brown, I mean, it doesn't matter. He targeted police officers. I mean, that may have been his intent to target white police officers, but you know, I mean, maybe he didn't see any black police officers that day, I don't know. I just, you know, it hurts me to the core to know that he targeted police officers, and race really doesn't matter to me. He targeted police officers then who were only trying to do their jobs.

MF: Does it surprise you that this has happened?

BRYAN PENDLETON: I want to say that I'm surprised, but with the way that this country is going, and you know, all the things that you hear about and read about, it's, I don't know. In some ways, I think it was a powder keg and things are-- No, I'm not surprised, the short answer. I'm not surprised at all.

MF: Profiling is not done officially by police forces, but unofficially, is it a tool that is used in your experience?

BRYAN PENDLETON: It is still used, it is still used. And I'll tell you why. Crimes occur every single day, and sometimes the only information you have are descriptions, time of days, you have different things that lead you to believe that a crime is going to occur here by a suspect fitting this description. So you're out there looking for that type of person. It more often occurs, profiling occurs under different circumstances, where a person is being stopped solely because of race, and there's no other factors, no crime potential or anything like that. But certainly, you asked me if profiling exists, it certainly does. Every single day.

MF: And does it belong, in your opinion?

BRYAN PENDLETON: Yes. And let me just say this, it belongs in the sense where it's actually being used as a crime fighting tool; not to suppress people, not just to go out and mess with a certain race or class of people. If you're legitimately fighting crime and you're using that as part of your toolbox, tool chest, to fight crime and to identify suspects and arrest them, then certainly, it is. But you can't use profiling as a way of just stopping a group of people just because of race or gender or whatever. I mean, that that has no place in law enforcement.

MF: But isn't that answer going to stop people in their tracks listening, when they hear even someone like yourself, a black police officer who thinks things need to change and they need to change now, but even you say that there is a place for profiling.

BRYAN PENDLETON: You know, I'm sure that people will pause on it. But you know, the expectation of any community is that the police departments nationwide are fighting crime, they're doing what they can to combat crime, to keep them safe. And I can't think of... I can't imagine how law enforcement would function without that degree of profiling. And profiling, I'm not saying racial profiling. I'm saying there's a criminal profile that you're looking for, that statistics and other information tell you that this is who I'm looking for, this is the person.

MF: But it includes race.

BRYAN PENDLETON: And you know, absent that--

MF: But it includes race, no?

BRYAN PENDLETON: I know, and that's the double-edged sword, that's the hard part. But what I'm saying is you can't just go out and solely, solely just pull people over and do those type of things, do enforcement, take them to jail, just simply because they're black. I mean, obviously that's wrong.

MF: Would it help if there were more African-American police?

BRYAN PENDLETON: Certainly. Certainly, because I certainly believe, and I've always said that in the areas that I worked in initially a as a cop, you want to believe that you can, I mean, and I believe that I'm a pretty fair person. But where I was most comfortable was dealing with people who look like me, and I think people who look like me, the community, feel a certain comfort level dealing with somebody who looks like them. And that's only part of it. You know the numbers for, I know that recruiting police officers is difficult; recruiting minority police officers is doubly difficult, because this is just not a job that's attractive to us, for a lot of reasons that we stated earlier. But you know, I think it certainly helps this issue that we're facing now.

MF: Bryan Pendleton, thanks for speaking to us.

BRYAN PENDLETON: You're welcome.

MF: Sergeant Bryan Pendleton, who is the regional president of the National Black Police Association. He was in San Diego. We'd of course love to hear from you on Bryan Pendleton's interview. Head over to our website, click on the Contact link. We're at cbc.ca/thecurrent. And you can also tweet us, we're @TheCurrentCBC. I'm Mike Finnerty, and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Music: Sting]

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ENCORE: Squash champion disguised herself as a boy to play sports in Pakistan

Guests: Maria Toorpakai

MF: Hello. I'm Mike Finnerty, and you're listening to the Summer edition of The Current.

[Music: theme]

MF: Coming up, she went to amazing lengths to play sports with the boys and it's taken her on quite the journey.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: balls being hit, sneakers squeaking on floor]

Attack. That's good. Volley, if you can. Okay. Lift. Get up there. Snap it. Wrong foot. Get that right foot. There you go. Volley. Good.

MF: Sounds of some high-powered squash there. That's Canadian squash pro Jonathon Power helping to train the Pakistan women's squash champion, Maria Toorpakai. It was a long journey from Pakistan to that Toronto squash court. When Maria Toorpakai was a young girl in south Waziristan, in Pakistan's tribal region, she longed to play sports with the boys, but pursuing that dream openly could easily have led to her death. Instead, Maria Toorpakai overcame restrictions on girls and women by disguising herself and living as a boy. She went on to become Pakistan's number one ranked female squash player. She tells her story in a book, A Different Kind of Daughter: The Girl who Hid from the Taliban in Plain Sight. Maria Toorpakai spoke with Anna Maria in May.

AMT: When you were growing up, how did you know that you were different from other girls in your community?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: You know, I was really strong and I had a lot of energy. I was very aggressive and also you see a lot of girls, you know, there is very limited space for them. From a young age they have to stay home, not allowed to go outside that far but when you see guys, they have more space, a more unlimited area to play and hang out and I see those differences, and then I see guys have more happiness and good energy and the girls are like dull, just sitting there and just working and serving the families. From a young age, they are covering themselves from five or six years old and they don't know why they are doing it but they are told to do it and also, I have to look after their siblings. So I just realized it's more fun as a boy and that's when I was four-and-a-half I realized that and the only way to get into the group of boys and play freely outside, I had to burn all my girly dresses and that was a turning point.

AMT: Let's talk about that because you were just four-and-a-half. Tell us what you did.

MARIA TOORPAKAI: So my dad and mom, actually they were outside, they were gone somewhere and when they came home, they found me by the pile of fire in the backyard, and I was standing in my brother's clothes and my dad just looked at me and he kept staring at me and the fire and he could see that it was all the dresses that I had.

AMT: So you went and you took every dress you had, you were a little girl, you had beautiful dresses, they had beautiful thread on them, they had little pearls and little sequins on them and you put them all in a pile?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: Yeah, I did. I liked more simple clothes like boys and have a more loose clothing style.

AMT: And so you drag out the kerosene and you-

MARIA TOORPAKAI: I did that and I knew where my mom cooks and where is the fire, so I managed to burn all my clothes.

AMT: You also cut your hair. You had long hair.

MARIA TOORPAKAI: I did [laughs]. I tried and it tuned out really bad but then my father took me to a barber.

AMT: But to do that at four-and-a-half, you had a feeling internally that you just didn't want to be constricted by the life of a little girl. Already you knew that.

MARIA TOORPAKAI: Yeah, well you know, I just could see that happiness outside and to get there I just couldn't stop myself from burning the clothes. There was just so much passion just to do it and that's why I did it. My father just realized that you know, I'm different and he called me his fifth son and from that day I grew up with Ghengis Khan name.

AMT: So tell me about the part of Pakistan where you're from, Waziristan.

MARIA TOORPAKAI: This area had become very violent with time and it became a help to terrorist organizations. The problem is that we never allowed ourselves to be exposed to the outside world, or get education, or get any information. People do not watch TV or radio-- men do that but women, they're not allowed to do anything like that.

AMT: It's a very conservative, traditional society.

MARIA TOORPAKAI: Your entire life, you would see women live there in the house and they shouldn't be heard outside and if they are seen outside, it should be with the husband, but without a husband, it can get really upsetting among the families. And if she is found guilty of doing something wrong, she is shot on place and I've seen some girls who didn't want to marry; some girls who didn't want to go for the arranged marriage; I've seen girls who want to go to school, but it never happened because the parents were not supportive because of the society and because of the traditions that keep going for centuries. It was all about honour and respect and it is a very male dominated society so, for me, three things are very important: property, land and women. They have to protect that, they will die for that, or kill people for that.

AMT: And into this very traditional society is your father. What is your father's perspective on women's rights?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: My father, when he was young he went to a different city he met some hippies out there. He watched some Hollywood movies with them like Sean Connery or Elvis Presley, and those hippies were from Europe and different places and they became really good friends. Then my father researched things, learned thing, books, you know and he kind of realized that what we are doing is not the right path. We have to change in a certain way, and it is taking all the things that we are doing as we are going backwards. So, he started doing the things that were completely the opposite to this society and he found peace in that. He kept telling people that he started doing poetry, revolutionary poetry, and telling people about women's rights, humanity, and what we can do better for our culture and society. Lots of elders and people became really against him when he was talking. They thought he was talking against Islam and religion so they outcast him. He ran, he escaped from them. Many people started stoning him, put him in a mental jail once, no twice, and he was also tied up without clothes in a mud room for weeks.

AMT: So your mother is a very special person as well. Tell us about her.

MARIA TOORPAKAI: I feel that my mom and dad coming together was kind of written I think, because my mom also was very hard working, she always loved to get education and when she was young, she was the only one in her family that got education. She used to walk miles on foot to the school, get there and come back, and there used to be sometimes one bus so if you miss that, you miss it and you have to walk, so it was like that.

AMT: And of course, as we go on in your story, your mom is teaching in schools in Waziristan and these are the very schools that the Taliban end up attacking and bombing. They are very much against women teaching and they're very much against girls going to those schools, so to be the daughter of two people like that in that society is very different.

MARIUA TOORPAKAI: Yes. The thing is, Taliban have the same mentality as our people have and that's very easy for the Taliban to stay there, live there, and rule and recruit people. That's why it's a very dangerous place.

AMT: Well and you know, you talk about the danger and violence against girls and women; this is not an abstract idea for you. You have instances in the book where you are attacked by Islamic fundamentalists. Tell us what you went through.

MARIA TOORPAKAI: I was young and some guys are playing volleyball and a lot of men they all look the same and they look like mullahs and some of them were mullahs from the mosque, but they were playing this volleyball and then I really want to touch the ball. I went out and when I touched the ball, they actually saw me and they got really angry.

AMT: You actually-

MARIA TOORPAKAI: Yes.

AMT: The ball came toward you. You were how old?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: I was four, I think.

AMT: So you wanted to touch the ball but you actually spiked it back to them.

MARIA TOORPAKAI: Yeah, yeah.

AMT: And when you did that, what happened?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: Well, the guy came to me and looked at me and I had a girly dress and hair, but then this man when he came to me, he hit me really badly on my face. As a child, it was very hard for me-

AMT: He slapped you really hard?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: Yes, it was really hard for me.

AMT: More than once. He held your face and your hands and he slapped you.

MARIA TOORPAKAI: Yes, and they were laughing, too. They were smiling and they were slapping and they were like, what are you doing here? You go now. You go home, and then they hit me again and again. For them it was fun.

AMT: So, for the people who did that because they were angry at you for not being like a traditional girl, you knew the dangers of that as you got older and yet you really still wanted to play with the boys. Why?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: Well, I'll tell you. In Waziristan, what happened before, I started dressing up like guys. It was also because of my dad what the reaction was from people towards me, towards my siblings, or to my dad, that's why we kept moving from area to area. As a boy-people didn't know I was a girl after that-

AMT: How did you do that? How did you disguise yourself?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: I looked very, if you look at the picture then, I do not look like a girl in there. I was very strong and very masculine, and powerful, and aggressive, too, and I thought the more angry you are, the more you look like a man [giggles], all those kinds of things. I tried to be like a man, and I became one of them. I started playing sports, and people came to know I was a girl because I was in that age where girls change physically, so it was not easy to hide myself anymore.

AMT: Tell us about Ghengis Khan.

MARIA TOORPAKAI: I had a lot of fun in tribal areas as a boy, as a Ghengis Khan.

AMT: That's what you called yourself?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: Yes. And I was the strongest of boys. I was challenging all the time and I was always found in the middle of fights.

AMT: At one point you write that you would leap from one building to the other in a compound because you could. You literally had that much energy to run and jump. You'd leap from compound to compound to compound.

MARIA TOORPAKAI: Trust me. I have climbed the mountains, I have climbed the trees, I have climbed, in one place we used to live, like a city kind of area, so we used to climb on the pipes that go up to the top of the building. I used to climb through those pipes and then jump from the roof to the roof, so it was like so much energy [giggles].

AMT: Well, you actually competed against boys in weightlifting as Ghengis Khan.

MARIA TOORPAKAI: Yeah, yeah I did. The first sport was weightlifting for me and I was really strong, so after a couple of months I went to a weightlifting championship with all the boys, with a group of boys. We lived in the same room, we were lying down in a row and my brother was there to protect me so we kind of worked around the situation.

AMT: And they never figured it out?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: One time we got stuck a little bit. I thought that when I saw that all the boys had to take off their clothes and they have to weigh their body in order to participate, under 50 kilograms, under 70 kilograms, so all the boys were competing accordingly and when I saw that, I told my brother there is something wrong, we should do something about it, and he was worried about that, too. Then he, we thought we would make a plan. First, we went and said he's not going to do it and he refused. There was another guy who was really shy, my brother got him on board too, and he said, are you going to go after me? So, my brother refused, and he refused and I refused. I said I was very shy, too [laughs]. The committee, the board there, they kept looking at us and said okay, let them do it with clothes, and that's how we participated in the competition.

AMT: How did you become a squash player?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: During the weightlifting, when I had break time, I used to go to this squash court and I used to see the boys playing and it looked like it was really a lot of fun to me, hitting the ball. And you just heard that, how amazing it is by just by listening to the sound of the ball. So, it was so much fun, but as soon as I start leaving the squash court and go back to the weightlifting, I just felt so alone and it was boring because, especially after winning that weightlifting championship, I saw nothing else coming up and I was looking for a challenge. I'm lifting weights and I don't see anything after that, but in squash, I think there are so many people and so much fun. I went to my dad and said I want to play squash and he actually really liked my idea because after weightlifting, he found me more going outside and staying there and walking like a body builder and fighting and stuff. He found me more in the middle of fights so he realized it is a really good idea to put her in squash and it will help her reduce her anger and she will start hitting a ball instead of fighting people.

AMT: Did you compete against boys as Ghengis Khan at first with squash?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: My dad and I tried to introduce myself as a Ghengis Khan, but that was a proper squash academy, so I had to present my birth certificate to enroll, and that's how I had no option but to come out as Maria Toorpakai.

AMT: And how did the revelation that you were actually Maria, and not Ghengis Khan, sit with the others?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: Because of squash, I got into, I came into the, in the light, you know--

AMT: The spotlight.

MARIA TOORPAKAI: The spotlight. But then, I come from the same tribe, which is half the Taliban and the Taliban are, you know you would hardly recognize who is Taliban and who is not because everyone looks the same and everyone has the same ideology, and then they found out I am their own blood, their own girl is doing such a shameful thing playing in skirts and shorts and out there in front of people without any scarf playing squash. Because of them, we got threats right away. My mom, my dad, everyone got the threats of death and they asked my father to relearn Islam, I have to stop playing squash as soon as possible, and they do not want to see anyone from my family out there, otherwise they will kill us. When the Taliban threatened us, I was still-it was something that was real and nobody could just protect themselves, it wasn't safe anymore. In the beginning we tried to change the number plates of the car, going out at different times. There was a squash court actually, that I found which was abandoned, it was closed for ages and-

AMT: An outdoor court?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: Yes. It had this lock which was rusted and me and my brother broke the lock and went inside. The floor was really bad. It was like half of the squash court was broken, so the side wall was not there. We used to play in the middle, we cleaned inside, we put the lines in there, and played in that specific spot on the squash court at night time.

AMT: Where no one could find you.

MARIA TOORPAKAI: I used to go at 11 pm, yes.

AMT: So, clearly you were devoted to squash but I want to ask you, how long have you been in Toronto now?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: Five years.

AMT: You describe those moments when you have to be hyper-aware for your own safety in Peshawar. When you walk down the streets in Toronto today, what do you think of the difference?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: I am not afraid. I am not bullied. I can be who I am. There is so much freedom, I'm not expecting anything bad, you know? All of my expectations are good and positive, while in Peshawar, I have to plan ahead of time how am I going to walk, where am I going to go, what am I going to do, all different things. Your brain would blow up with all those measurements, but here I just go with-- I have no plan, I just go, have fun, I know everything is all right.

AMT: So how did you end up leaving Pakistan and coming to Toronto?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: In 2007, when I got threats from Taliban and I said it was real and I had to make a decision about whether I wanted to play squash or not. But, looking at all the sacrifices that my parents have done for us and I don't want my parents to lose their child at the end, I don't want that in the end for them. Also, it would be a very dishonourable thing if my father lost a daughter, kidnapped by Taliban. And Taliban tortures people to the extreme. I have heard, I have seen people, some of our friends, I mean some of the people we knew, not friends, some of the people we knew, they were kidnapped and then we heard and we saw the pictures in the newspaper when their bodies were thrown into the market and they had no limbs and no eyes and no ears, so you can see how they were tortured. I had to make a decision. A few times, I used to think of having a cyanide pill, or maybe have a gun, so if they take me down, I take them down with me. One good person, but many bad people [nervous laughter], I can take them. I never did that.

AMT: Instead, you sent emails out.

MARIA TOORPAKAI: Instead, I stopped going out. For three and a half years, I stayed home and I kept playing squash in my room against my bedroom wall. I realized, my father realized, that I am not going to give up on squash, I really love it. He told me that, you know, you should leave the country. That's the only way for you to play squash. Then I started emailing all over the world, offering them my service as a part-time coach, asking them for a place where I could train myself, for peace of mind. After three and a half years, I got a message and that was Jonathon Power. He sent me a message, it was 7 pm, I think. I got really excited, it was an unbelievable thing to message that I am Jonathon Power and I will train you and make you a champion.

AMT: Who is Jonathon Power?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: He is a world champion [laughs]. He is from Canada and he's a unique player in the world.

AMT: And he answered your email?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: He answered my email after three and half years, that was the only reply I got.

AMT: And he just kept training, so you've been training for five years with him?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: He was really excited when he saw me, like I am really good, but then he realized that I'm really injured. My nervous system was really disturbed, and I was getting a lot of injuries like muscular pains, so he kind of got me a lot of doctors and that was the first time I have seen a doctor because in my life, I had never been to a doctor. He took me to doctors and it took almost three years to feel like a human. I have not felt like a human before, I was in so much pain.

AMT: So what lessons do you hope boys and girls in Pakistan will take from your experience?

MARIA TOORPAKAI: I think the strongest man is who empowers a girl, a woman, and the strongest woman always respects a man. It's a mutual thing and you have to come together and save the world.

AMT: Maria, you have an amazing story. Thank you for coming in.

MARIA TOORPAKAI: Thank you.

MF: Maria Toorpakai, the author of A Different Kind of Daughter: The Girl who Hid from the Taliban in Plain Sight. She spoke to Anna Maria here in Toronto in May. And it is an inspiring story. Here's some instant feedback on Twitter to @TheCurrentCBC and it's from Neeta Kumar-Britten, who's in Cape Breton listening, and she says, "Your story on Maria Toorpakai is resonating so loudly with me, a 2nd gen East Indian kid growing up in Cape Breton. I didn't have to fight the Taliban, but I did have to swim against my mom who never like me playing sports. Now I'm a BScPhysEd." Thanks for that tweet. And that is our program for today. I'm Mike Finnerty. Thanks for listening for listening to the Summer edition of The Current. And we'll see you tomorrow.

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July 13, 2016 full episode transcript

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