For some members of the police and the media, Caribana is code for black
 |
| Spectators at last year's Caribbean Carnival Festival parade in Toronto |
Media manage to quickly link Eaton shooting with North America's largest Caribbean Canadian festival
Late last week I joked with my associate Craigg Slowly (@ThatTDotGuy) that it would be only a matter of time
before CFRB right wing on-air host Jerry Agar would link the Eaton Centre
shooting with the Caribbean Carnival Toronto (the carnival formally known as
Caribana).
Don't know if Agar has taken a run at us yet, but, other media outlets
have indeed made the tenuous link between an inner-city gang shooting at the
Eaton Centre and North America's largest Caribbean cultural event.
The Globe and Mail on Saturday did a feature on public safety at Yonge
and Dundas and somehow managed to use the Caribana name. The reporter,
Kelly Grant, listed some of the murders that had occurred near the Dundas /
Yonge intersection. In that list was the 2005 murder of a Brampton man in
Dundas Square - he was shot dead in front of police the day after the 2005 Caribana Parade had ended. It was referenced
as occurring during Caribana.
On the same day the Toronto Sun columnist Michele Mandel, quotes an unnamed police officer talking about an unnamed man out on bail being
caught at an unnamed Caribana event with a loaded gun. The mystery criminal
was, according to Mandel, convicted of the crime but gives no facts to back the
quoted mystery officer. Mandel was writing about lax bail monitoring.
I privately contacted the Globe writer to once again say that the 2005
shooting at Dundas Square had nothing to do with our festival (It is like the
Groundhog Day movie - this is the 7th year I have been making these calls). I won't get a retraction,
but, I would like them to
change the information they have in their "Caribana Files" so that
the Caribana Dundas Square Killing moniker
doesn't appear yet again. The reporter told me she stands by what she wrote but will take into account the festival's concern the next time!
In an emailed dialogue with the reporter I explained that " I have been
involved with the festival formally known as Caribana on and off since
1999. I deal with the media and more often than I would like, I have to
deal with false statements made by the media about the festival. I have
found that the word Caribana is a codeword for black when there is a story about gun crime in the GTA in the
summer.
Two years ago there was a murder in Ajax at a church that was called
the pre-Caribana Murder, even
though it was weeks before the festival, in another city and was at what
appeared to have been a private party. Police called it pre-Caribana
because many of the partygoers were Caribbean Canadian. The media picked up on
that name, until we were able to get a police retraction.
“Before that” I continued in my email “there was a teenager murdered by
his "friends" in Pickering a day after the parade. It was called the Caribana
Murder by Crime Stoppers, the court and the media. The young victim told his
mother he was going to be attending the parade, but there was no
indication he did make it there, or that the parade had any bearing on his
brutal death in another city. "
Before that? A murder of two Montreal men in the Four Seasons parking
lot was briefly dubbed a Caribana weekend double murder.
And even before that there was the death of Dwayne Taylor who Grant mentioned in her Globe story. It
was 2005. The Caribana Parade had ended the day before Dwayne Taylor, 21, of Brampton, was shot and killed
at the Yonge-Dundas Square in front of police officers.
The Caribana parade had ended Saturday afternoon along Lakeshore Blvd,
miles from the Sunday morning shooting at Dundas/Yonge. No one was in
costume. In fact there were no indications Taylor had attended the parade, or
that his killer had been involved in Caribana. Caribana's name
was invoked solely because Mr. Taylor was black and because there were many
Caribbean Canadians in the Square.
Any murder is tragic. All gun crimes must be punished.
Falsely linking murder and gun crimes to ethnic-specific cultural events is
lazy reporting and a symptom of a larger cultural problem in Toronto. Running
columns that abandon fact, only help fuel intolerance in the city.
As for the Toronto Sun, I couldn't reach the columnist, so I
did leave a note on their website simply saying that it is unfair to the
festival to cite an unnamed police officer talking about an unnamed armed
criminal busted at an unspecified "Caribana events" without any facts
to back allegations that a man was caught with a gun at the festival. The year, the location of the crime, the name of
the criminal and information about the court bail hearing would add credence to
the story. Neither the columnist or the paper has responded.
It is important that as the PR guy for the festival, I have
to honestly answer all questions about public safety. I know the festival
will be asked about a fatal police shooting after our parade ended last year –
those questions must be answered. It is equally important that we always stare
down wrongful reports about previous crimes mythically linked to the festival.
Comments
I have yet to witness any specific tactical and strategic plans from Toronto black community leaders to deal with the issue face-on.
And the poverty angle does not apply in all scenarios as aboriginals have a worse unemployment rate yet they do have such a high incidence of gun violence.