A rchive Date
[ 14-08-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[Race/crime furor is all Greek to me
Despite the latest awful shootings in our midst, Toronto still hangs together
By LINDA WILLIAMSON -- Toronto Sun
August 12, 2003
I don't care what anybody says - this is not a city on the verge of a race war. This is not a city in the grips of a gang crime wave. This is not a city paralyzed with fear.
I spent the better part of this past weekend at the Taste of the Danforth festival, the annual food-lovers' extravaganza where the street is closed to cars and filled with more than one million revellers over three days.
The Taste is my favourite festival - it was the first event I attended when I moved to Toronto and it instantly convinced me Greektown was the place for me. This year - the festival's 10th; my seventh - was yet another record-breaking success. Better yet, despite all Toronto's recent woes - from SARS to the latest rash of gang-related gun violence - it once again affirmed all that I love about my adopted home.
Only in Toronto, after all, will you find a turbaned Sikh man standing next to a Chinese family, next to a couple of guys in tricolour Jamaican toques, all lined up to buy souvlaki. Only here will you see a quartet of dreadlocked teens swaying to bouzouki music next to a mother in a hijab. Or a white suburban mom explaining to her young son that kulfi is just like ice cream, or a Filipino couple sharing a Cuban tamale ...
I could go on and on. The point is, hundreds of thousands of Torontonians flooded the street, ate, drank and danced for days on end; people of every imaginable colour, age and background.
Not a shot was fired, not a person arrested. Toronto police were much in evidence, enjoying their share of spanakopita and roast corn and calmly greeting and surveying passersby. People seemed happy to see them.
There is hope
All of which is simply to say: there is hope. Despite the latest awful shootings in our midst, and the almost-as-awful brouhaha about "black crime" and "racial profiling," Toronto still hangs together.
Look, I'm no Pollyanna. I realize my neighbourhood is a long way from Jamestown in Rexdale, where a child's birthday party on Sunday erupted into a gang-related gunfight that left four people wounded - a child's birthday party!
But it's also a long way from the world conjured up by Ontario Tory cabinet minister Bob Runciman last week, when he accused "leaders" in the "black community" of exacerbating the crime problem by encouraging disrespect of the police. Whether or not Runciman actually meant what he said (the jury's still out), the Liberals only made it worse when they threatened him with a human rights complaint and hysterically accused him of U.S.-style "race-baiting."
For crying out loud, if "race-baiting" is exploiting racial tensions for political gain, what the heck do you call what the Liberals are doing? And how does any of this nonsense make any of us, least of all cops or blacks, any safer?
The truth - and it should be as obvious as those crowds on the Danforth - is that there's no single "community" in this city that bears responsibility for this crime wave, and certainly no specific "leaders." (As if these mythical leaders could somehow stop the shootings with a wave of their hands.)
There's only one community - the great, diverse, law-abiding community - and our responsibility is to stand together against both the thugs AND the wingnut extremists who are bent on taking away our peace.
Outrageous
Last week the Sun quoted a black woman - the mother of a cop, no less - who told a "community" meeting the cops were "terrorists." Outrageous. But she doesn't represent the "black community" any more than the white racists who've sent me unprintable e-mails on this topic represent me.
We have a good thing going in this city - as long as we refuse to be drawn into a racially charged blame game that goes nowhere. Is there a problem with a particular group of young, gun-toting black gang-bangers who think they're untouchable? You bet. Have they scared many of those around them into keeping quiet? Apparently. Do they laugh in the face of our weak legal system, our loose immigration laws (which allow deported gangsters back in) and our rush to criticize instead of to support police (hello, Toronto Star)? Absolutely.
So let's deal with those things. Enough with the race rhetoric. The three worst things we can do in the face of this kind of criminal scourge are: a) turn on each other; b) say it's "their" problem, not "ours"; and c) shrug it all off on the cops instead of backing them with a push for tougher laws.
By the way, after the Taste was over, I discovered some idiots had left the lobby of my bank knee-deep in garbage. I trust the "banking community" will take responsibility.
Linda Williamson is the Toronto Sun senior associate editor. She can be reached by e-mail at linda.williamson@tor.sunpub.com.
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com
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