I was googling my name the other day ( something I encourage everyone to do) and came across a blog post about a letter I had written to Metro News back in 2006. There had been a major drug raid in the city and several arrests were made in lower income areas but a significant number of arrests were made in new sub divisions, outside of the city. The cover page was a black man in cuffs in the Jamestown area of the city, one of the lower income neighborhoods. I felt a blood vessel burst that morning because I was displeased with the picture selection. I’m not an editor YET, but I felt and still do feel  that perhaps the general public needed to see a picture of an arrest made in York region (a  thriving more middle class community) as opposed to Jamestown. I know for a fact that drug and gun rings do not BEGIN at a low-income housing project level and that the majority of arrests did not take place in the obvious Jamestown. But Toronto aint ready for that yet!!

 They had the man all sprawled out on the car, from what I remember. It made me really upset. To me the picture promoted the stereotype that black males in low-income housing were responsible for the massive drug ring they had busted, when in reality they are disillusioned pawns in the game.

Unfortunately, I was negligent in keeping the letter I had published and the link in the blog post to the letter does not work or is no longer active. I have sent a letter to the editor requesting  a copy, perhaps they have letters archived somewhere (so hold tight please)? But I just wanted to share the blog post. The writer was outraged at my letter and felt that I was going a bit off topic. Hey maybe I was, but that blogger can kiss my ass, really. They refused to tackle the issues I presented in my letter and only chose to focus on how I “cried racism”.

Racism in Canada is covered by a thick wooly blanket and anytime issues of race are raised and solutions presented there is always a group of folks who become outraged and unwilling to open dialogue because we are living in a post-racial society, a magical post-racial society with fairy dust, equal rights and there is no such thing as a glass ceiling. We all hold hands and sing Kumbaya on the regular, skipping around in the provincial and municipal parks. We don’t do hate crimes and this is a melting pot right? So everyone is supposed to just let slight injustices slide because it’s not that serious…As usual I am overacting and I need to relax.

Well anyways, I know what I know and so do many others out there. The black poor are at the bottom of the totem pole of the war on drugs and in the world of organized crime on a whole. The very people who instigate the shit are living comfortable while the black poor is doing jail time and in essence self-terminating by the second. I have the cojones to call an editor out, and I will continue to do so when I see fit. But I have stopped reading publications like Metro on the regular. The blogger was right about one thing in particular, Metro is a bunch of bullshit and an educated person’s intellect is insulted with the amount of  Hollywood drenched gossip and simpleton collection of images and third grade reading level articles.

Peep the blog post & hell yea I responded..but no one took me on..hmmmmm:

*please note I had to substitute my real name for my blog superhero name, just cause.

Picking on the readership of Metro News, a commuter paper that devotes roughly eight whole pages to celebrity news, a dozen to lifestyle tips and liposuction ads and maybe a quarter to international affairs, is something like challenging a double amputee to a footrace or, worse still, one of my customers.

 Nonetheless, I was so enraged by this very passionate and proportionately non-sensical letter, a towering tribute to the owners of orthos doxa and cloudy intellects everywhere, that I have to say something.

 *Goddess Intellect attacks the editor of Metro News for publishing a picture of a black male arrested by police officers to accompany a story about raids on gangs in predominantly black neighborhoods in Toronto’s northwest corner. As an aside, I never knew that Metro had an editor. Judging by the newspaper, which might publish a picture of an exploding vehicle in Iraq next to the grave topic of a long weekend or American Idol, I thought that writers and photographers simply signed up for spots in the newspaper to produce the disjointed collection of words and images that finds its way onto most of the seats in every subway car.

 ’Young black males have become a popular scapegoat in the “war on gang/gun violence,”’ writes *Ms. Intellect (or is it a mistake to presume that *Goddess is a female name?). Although scapegoat denotes the unfair assignment of blame, it does not necessarily have to be the case. There is nothing unfair about noting that gang and gun violence in Toronto is a predominantly black issue, both in its perpetrators and victims, although Metro did not do this to begin with.

 *Goddess Intellect continues to say that “the real issue here are the cuts in funding to much needed social programs and affordable housing in communities where gang violence thrives, not race.” I guess the editor could have put a picture of poor children and substandard housing instead of a picture of the event in question, but, no, no, that’s ridiculous. More importantly, I don’t recall that story mentioning race, and the arrests have not to date been tinged with race at all, except for *Ms.Intellect. *Goddess Intellect sees racism everywhere, it seems, but not race: a picture of a black man being arrested is not racist, I’m sorry to observe, when dozens of black men are arrested. Generally, pictures in newspapers cover the event in question, “root causes” are best addressed by editorials anyway.

 Despite her keen eye for racism, *Goddess Intellect is apparently not aware that neighbourhoods such as Jamestown are overwhelmingly black, plainly noting that “in all the news reports and articles pertaining to the raid, nowhere was there mention that the approximately 100 people expected to be taken into custody were black.” If the newspapers had mentioned this fact, she would have cried racism anyway. Anyone who can’t deduce that most of those arrested in raids conducted against gangs in black ghettoes were black probably lacks the intellectual acuity to read anything other than Metro anyway.

My response:

       I came across this page and surprisingly enough a lot of people disagreed with my point. At the time the letter was published I had a hard time defending my point of view. The other day I watched an episode of W-Five a reality crime show, this episode was based in Toronto. The episode was showing cops on a major drug bust. The dealer happened to be a white 60-year old male. I did not see his business blasted on the front page of a news paper. In fact his face was shadowed the whole time on TV. It’s easy to blame the black poor, we all accept the stereotype. It’s harder for society to accept that a middle aged white man would be behind the drugs and violence.
I am not attempting to make excuses for the black poor. I am just trying to open some eyes, the drug dealer is often the neighbor next door.
*Goddess Intellect| 12.19.06 – 10:25 pm |

Thoughts?

I wish someone would respond,

Goddess Intellect