The incident was covered extensively by Toronto’s newspapers and television stations. Ms. Springer was an active member of her Methodist church and affectionately known as “Auntie Jean” in her neighbourhood. Commentators spoke of the loss her death represented not only for her family but for her entire community.

Details were meanwhile emerging about her assailant, Altaf Ibrahim. According to acquaintances of his, he was a schizophrenic who had stopped taking his medication. He also had a history of contact with the police, stays in psychiatric facilities, and involvement in a knife-wielding attack. At some point he became convinced that Anton Springer was trying to rape his (Ibrahim’s) mother. Police speculated that Anton, rather than Jean Springer herself, may have been Ibrahim’s intended target. At the end of October this year, Ibrahim was found to be not criminally responsible for Springer’s death because his mental condition prevented him from recognizing the wrongfulness of his act. The Ontario Review Board has yet to decide his fate.

The Springer case raises a thorny question: should people with mental illness be made to take medication against their will to stop them from harming others (or themselves for that matter)? If Altaf Ibrahim had been forced to do so, would Jean Springer still be alive today? Of course not all mentally disturbed individuals are violent. However, in the last year or so Canada has seen a spate of violent crimes committed by people with psychiatric problems. In May, a man in Calgary who had earlier complained of being “possessed” fatally stabbed his wife, two of his three daughters, a tenant in his home, and finally himself. Two months later a man believed to have paranoid schizophrenia attacked and killed a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus. This man, like Ibrahim, had refused to seek treatment for his condition.

In a way, coerced medical treatment goes against the freedoms that we in Western society hold dear. Adults are generally permitted to decline medical care even if doing so costs them their lives or if the reasons for their refusal appear irrational. For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses reject blood transfusions on the grounds that several Biblical verses forbid the consumption of blood – an interpretation incomprehensible to most other Christian denominations. One argument for mandating psychiatric treatment versus, say, a blood transfusion or kidney donation is that mental illness affects the brain and by definition renders those affected by it irrational. Just as Altaf Ibrahim was unable to make a choice of whether or not to shoot Jean Springer, he was incapable of deciding whether or not to take his “meds.”

One concern about forced psychiatric treatment stems from the fact that throughout history people with no real mental conditions have been deemed insane and subjected to inhumane procedures in an attempt to “cure” them. Dissidents in the former Soviet Union, for instance, were sometimes confined to psychiatric institutions for questioning Communist doctrine. In one case described by Russian journalist Cathy Young, a man in this position was drugged to the point of being unable to form a complete sentence. Nor have the West’s actions towards individuals considered mentally ill always been sterling. Homosexuality, for example, was viewed as a psychological disorder until 1974, and many gay youths were sent to mental hospitals where they forcibly underwent “treatments” ranging from castration to electroconvulsive shock to aversion therapy. One difference between homosexuality and schizophrenia, though, is that while attitudes towards the former have varied across time and place, in almost all cultures individuals with symptoms suggestive of schizophrenia are recognized as not being normal.

While I myself am in favour of individual liberty and the right to reject medical care, in the case of the mentally ill I believe forced treatment has a place at times. In a sense it even seems inhumane to deny such patients treatment that might alleviate their suffering but that they lack the ability to consent to (I know this from personal experience; an aunt of mine committed suicide after a long struggle with what was probably bipolar disorder). More importantly, there is the principle of “Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.” From that perspective, Ms. Springer’s right to safety and ultimately life itself should have taken precedence over Altaf Ibrahim’s right to refuse his medication.

This does not necessarily mean that all individuals with mental problems should be locked up in institutions permanently (in Ibrahim’s case I think he should be, not to make him “pay” for his crime but to protect others from his actions). Regular visits from a nurse or social worker might be the most cost-effective means of ensuring that some mentally ill patients can function in society without hurting themselves or others. But if coerced medical treatment can prevent tragedies like the Springer murder, it should not be ruled out entirely.

Of course it’s too early to tell whether or not Black-focused schools will manage to meet the above-mentioned objectives. On the positive side, if the (presumably Black) teachers there are truly committed to helping the Black community and encouraging its youths to get an education, perhaps these schools really can make a difference in the lives of their students. Hopefully they will do so by focusing on the “basics:” English, math, sciences, French and so on. I am not saying that teaching students about African history is wrong – as I stated in a previous essay, I believe all children, including Whites, should learn more about non-European history than they presently do at our public schools – but I feel that Black students should first and foremost acquire the skills they will need to further their education and succeed in the so-called real world.

I admit to being somewhat sceptical of the argument that being taught by teachers of their own race will boost Black students’ marks because they (the students) will identify more with them than they would with a White educator. There does not seem to any overrepresentation of teachers of East Asian descent in Toronto ’s educational system, yet in terms of grades, high school graduation rates and post-secondary enrolment East Asians appear to surpass even Whites. On the other hand, for an Afro-Canadian child born to a teenage mother on public assistance in a neighbourhood plagued by drugs and violence, a teacher of his or her own race may be the only positive Black role model he or she ever sees on a regular basis. Such a child may thus be motivated to emulate the educator in question and remain in school.

Now for the bad news: I worry that students at an Afrocentric school may fall in the grips of what has been called the “Black peer group.” According to psychologist Judith Rich Harris, many Black kids neglect their studies because they are taunted by their peers about “acting White” if they apply themselves in school. She cites a study done in Germany involving children fathered by American soldiers during World War II. Half of the fathers were Black, the other White. Contrary to the notion that Blacks were genetically inferior to Whites, the mulatto children showed no difference on intelligence tests from their unmixed White peers. Harris speculates that the former children lacked a Black peer group because there were never enough of them at any one single school, so they didn’t feel pressure not to “act White.” I have to say that my nephews, who are biracial (their father is Black; my sister is White), are A students – and I can’t rule out the possibility that this is because they identify more with their White than their Black side. So perhaps in a Black-focused school Afro-Canadian children and teens would be more likely to experience this pressure than they would at a school with a more racially mixed student population.

Again, it is impossible to predict what the outcome of Black-focused schools will be. I personally suspect that in and of themselves they will not have much effect either way on Black students’ academic achievement. The outcome also depends on the type of students who enrol in them. If they consist of children who are sent there as a “last resort” because they are failing in the mainstream system, obviously the schools’ rankings will reflect this through lower grades. On the other hand, a student population made up of children of academically oriented parents who feel a Black-focused education is the best way for their sons and daughters to succeed will enhance the school’s performance. Hopefully a study on the matter in the next ten years or so will help answer this question.

Toronto city councillor Rob Ford, a maverick best known for his campaigns against spending at City Hall, has been charged with assaulting and uttering death threats against his wife after police were called to his Etobicoke home yesterday morning.

Mr. Ford was arrested and taken to 22 Division headquarters in Etobicoke and released without bail after promising to appear in court on April 28.

Mr. Ford’s lawyer, Dennis Morris, confirmed the alleged victim is Renata Ford, Mr. Ford’s wife and mother of the couple’s three-year-old daughter and baby son.

Discretion is simply not in this man’s arsenal. Since criminal proceedings are all but guaranteed, Mr. Ford’s political fortune may finally have run out. The press will have a field day dissecting every public aggression and analyze every sneer / hiccup / utterance for meaning. Perhaps we’ll be treated to a panel of experts who will –in hindsight- proclaim that the signs were all there and that the bombastic Ford was a ticking time bomb.

Is Rob Ford a drunk, a wife-beater or a bigot? Possibly (note to lawyers: “possibly” does NOT equal “yes”), but the term boorish seems more appropriate. Rob Ford is a 1950’s man – a pre political-correctness alpha-male for whom getting the job done entails precisely what is written on paper (at which he excels), with the rest of his conduct being precisely none of your business. Unfortunately, this old school brand of politician is easy prey in an internet-driven world where even a slight slip of the tongue can be posted on YouTube, dissected by the mainstream media and blogged by thousands of publicity-hungry pundits before end of day. The proliferation and endless analysis of damning evidence against public figures that will be forever stored in modern data links renders slim any chance of the whitewashing that yesterday’s politicians enjoyed. Many of our favourite historic figures carried scandal and contradiction that would not be so quickly forgiven today:

• Christopher Columbus, crowned discoverer of much of the Americas, was far from the first to reach western shores. Of course the natives had migrated tens of thousands of years earlier, but confirmed voyages by the Vikings and rumoured voyages by the Irish/English cast doubt on his title as first European. Crediting Columbus for first conceiving a round earth is also incorrect – Greek records show Plato (427 BCE – 347 BCE) teaching his students the idea of a spherical earth. Indian astronomer Aryabhata and Armenian philosopher Anania Shirakatsi also promoted a round earth model long before Columbus was born. Conversely, Al Gore allegedly tried to take credit for inventing the internet and is pilloried for it to this day – on his own supposed invention, no less.
• Mohandas (“Mahatma”) Gandhi –revered champion of Indian equality and pacifist inspiration for Martin Luther King Jr- became conveniently colonial in his attitude towards native Africans during his time in South Africa. Contrasting his struggle with that of black South Africans, he stated “Ours is one continued struggle sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.”. At another point he stated in The Indian Opinion “We believe as much in the purity of races as we think they (the Whites) do…by advocating the purity of all races”. Such demagoguery is far more contradictory than post-racial Democrat Barack Obama consorting with a racially-charged preacher.
• As late as the 1960’s President John F Kennedy’s powerful oratory skills and general charm were sufficient to keep his image generally unsullied by mounting stories of serial infidelity. Though the FBI possessed reports of immoral sexual behaviour going back to World War II, the media (which at the time really was a small fraternity) upheld JFK and Jackie’s marriage as loving and flawless. If only Bill Clinton commanded such loyalty from the press…

None of these posthumously anointed heroes would have survived present-day media scrutiny and at best would have been labeled flawed benefactors. Rob Ford –having not spread western influence, uplifted a people or stared down a communist menace- will in memoriam be a CityNews punch line. His biggest mistake was being born too late. We should keep this in mind before sending him to the gallows.

WHAT: The Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival celebrates those who have created and continue to create works addressing the Mixed racial and cultural experience through film screenings, readings and workshops.

WHEN: June 12 – June 15, 2008, in celebration of Loving Day, the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming the right of people of different races to marry.

WHERE: Japanese American National Museum, 369 E. First St., Los Angeles, CA

WHO: Co-producers Heidi Durrow and Fanshen Cox of Mixed Chicks Chat (www.mixedchickschat.com, also available on itunes, keywords: mixed chicks) will host the event. The Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival is inclusive: anyone who identifies as Mixed, has a trans-racial/cultural adoptive family, or who supports interracial/cultural relationships is welcome. Admission to the Festival is free, however, pre-registration at www.mixedrootsfilmandliteraryfestival.org is highly recommended.

WHY: In the past, artists of Mixed heritage and their works have been forced into mono-racial/cultural categories based on antiquated notions such as the ‘one drop rule.’ The Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival validates and celebrates Mixed identity and experience. The goals for the festival are to encourage emerging storytellers to explore the Mixed experience; introduce and encourage role models for future generations of Mixed artists; provide a safe and positive forum for honest discussions about race and culture; and to promote the Mixed experience as a valuable and important part of World History.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

SUBMISSIONS:

Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival is currently seeking submissions for films and literary works as well as workshop proposals. Submission information and updates on the festival program can be found at: http://www.mixedrootsfilmandliteraryfestival.org.

CONFIRMED PROGRAMS/GUESTS:

Opening night Loving Day Celebration in conjunction with Loving Day (www.lovingday.org). Loving Day’s mission is to fight prejudice through education and to build a sense of community among people who engage in meaningful interracial and intercultural relationships.

Honoree: Kip Fulbeck “for inspirational dedication to celebrating and illuminating the Mixed racial and cultural experience.“ Kip Fulbeck is recognized as one of the world’s premier artists exploring Hapa identity through art, film, literature and spoken word.. His popular books (Part Asian, 100% Hapa; and Paper Bullets: A Fictional Autobiography) and short films (Banana Split) speak to and inspire a You Tube generation to political involvement. Kip has been featured on CNN, MTV, and PBS, and has performed and exhibited in more than 20 countries. He is a Professor of Art and an affiliate faculty in Asian American Studies and Film & Media Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara and is a nationally ranked masters swimmer and ocean lifeguard. His current book is titled Permanence: Tattoo Portraits by Kip Fulbeck published by Chronicle Books.

New Media 101: Creating an Online Show: Zadi Diaz. Zadi Diaz is a producer, writer, host and speaker best known for her work on the Webby Award-winning Internet TV series EPIC-FU. She is considered a pioneer and thought leader in the online video and new media community. She is co-founder and principal of Smashface Productions, a new media production company, and co-founder of Pixelodeon, an annual screening festival recognizing innovation, inspiration, and community in global online video. Zadi has spoken on panels for NPR, SXSW, Digital Hollywood, and NAB among many others about her progressive work in the new media landscape. Her online work has been highlighted in the New York Times, Forbes, CBS Evening News, MTV, TV Guide, The Associated Press, The Guardian, and many other national publications. She is a Film Independent Project: Involve Fellow and a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences (IADAS). Zadi is also a select member of The Transatlantic Network 2020 founded by the British Council, a multilateral network engaging future leaders to collaboratively address global issues.

ORGANIZERS:

Fanshen Cox Founder & Producer, Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival. Actress/Producer/Podcaster/Educator Fanshen graduated with honors from the University of Michigan and holds an MA from Teachers College, Columbia University. She served 2 years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cape Verde, West Africa and was given the Peace Corps’ Franklin H. Williams Award when teaching in a high school in the South Bronx. She honed her production skills as a 2007 Project: Involve Fellow; and is the co-producer and co-host of Mixed Chicks Chat - the only live, weekly podcast about being racially and culturally Mixed (available on itunes or at www.mixedchickschat.com). She was recently quoted in The Guardian and served as an interviewer on StoryCorps’ Griot Initiative. As an actress, her credits include: Gone Baby Gone (directed by Ben Affleck), Ellie Parker (opposite Naomi Watts) and numerous television and theater roles. The word fanshen was created by peasants during China’s land reform movement and means start a revolution. Fanshen’s parents are Jamaican, Scottish, Danish and Native American and she has dedicated her life to sharing her story as a woman of Mixed racial and cultural heritages.

Heidi W. Durrow Founder & Producer, Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival

Writer/Podcaster/Lawyer. A graduate of Stanford University, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and Yale Law School, Heidi Durrow is a Los Angeles writer who is African-American and Danish. A former litigator at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Heidi has also worked as a consultant to the National Basketball Association and National Football League teaching conflict management and decision-making workshops. As a fiction writer, Heidi has won several awards for her writing – which focuses on issues of biracial and bicultural identity – including the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition, and the Chapter One Fiction Contest. She has received grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the American Scandinavian Foundation, the Lois Roth Endowment and an Emerging Writers’ Award from the Jerome Foundation. The Elizabeth George Foundation and the American Antiquarian Society have awarded her grants for her novel-in-progress about Miss Lala, a mulatta circus performer and strongwoman of the Victorian era. Heidi’s writing has been published in Alaska Quarterly Review and The Literary Review, as well as on the popular blog Light-skinneded Girl (www.lightskinnededgirl.typepad.com). She was recently nominated for a

Pushcart Prize. Her novel manuscript is currently a finalist for Barbara Kingsolver’s 2008 Bellwether Prize for Literature of Social Change. Heidi is the co-host and co-producer of Mixed Chicks Chat (www.mixedchickschat.com), the only live weekly show about being racially and culturally mixed.

Lesa Lakin Writer/Producer. Lesa Lakin is a writer/producer who began her career in advertising. Her work for clients such as ABC, ESPN, Oxygen, MTV, Snapple and the New York Mets has won many awards in advertising. This experience in commercials led Lesa to television and film production. Starting as a director’s assistant on Warner Bros.’, Vegas Vacation and Universal’s, Billy Madison, she excelled in production and became the Executive Producer of Mambo Entertainment. While at Mambo, she was responsible for the series Neighbors for HBO, as well as working on the Academy Awardâ nominated short film, Birch Street Gym, NBC’s Sunday’s Best, and the MTV series, A Day in the Life. Lesa also produced the feature film, The Independent, featuring Jerry Stiller, Janeane Garafalo and Ben Stiller. The Independent is currently being adapted for the New York stage.

1867 – The Music-Loving Simpletons (Harpers Weekly)

Two ignorant, music-lovin Negroes speaking a nearly indecipherable dialect. Harmless and lovable (except around your daughter). This image was adapted for later media productions like Disney’s “Song of the South”.

Early 20th Century – The Golliwog

Inspired by a childhood minstrel rag doll, author Florence Kate Upton created the fictional character Golliwog. In her words, Golliwog was “a horrid sight, the blackest gnome”. Golli would later have his name and image attributed to jams, cigarettes, perfume, jewelry and badges portraying the playing of jazz music. Golli generally had positive interactions with the people around him, but damned if he didn’t look spooky. Most manufacturers that once used the Golliwog image have since changed it or deny any racial implications.

2008 – The Africentric Teacher (via Globe and Mail)

Cute – look at that African guy wearing a tie. Using his “hip” street savvy he’s going to put y-y-you on the fast path to counting dem crack rocks even faster. Out the way before he bisects that angle, biiiotch!

*cough*

We can let the full-time activists take care of the protests – I’ll be content to point out the “Mop and Pail” has probably done more to boost the Africentric schooling cause than any of its strongest activists ever could. Reducing black teachers to a crude hip-hop stereotype is only going to heighten suspicion and distrust among the many blacks sitting on the fence about this issue. If the alternative to Africentric schooling is in fact sending black kids to a bunch of white adults with the mindset of this cartoonist … well then quite a few children will be learning their math by counting pieces of Kinte cloth.

Most affected by this small-minded attack will be that small number of non-blacks who are opposing these schools on non-malicious grounds. Trustee Josh Matlow falls in this category, as does my colleague Sandy at Crux of the Matter. It’s going to be extremely hard for either of them to make a reasonable argument against race-based schooling without those points inevitably being lumped in with this garbage.

Even the National Post seemed above taking this type of shot.

Other Comments:

“I will make sure that they get to the right people. I don’t know who drew this cartoon. If it was an African, that makes it sadder than ever. But more importantly, we have to make sure our children know their history and know that we have a lot more going for us than ‘Sup Dog. Ridiculous! And don’t talk to me about having a sense of humour. When it comes to putting Black people down and trying to make us look stupid, the history is just too fresh.”
-Nicole Osbourne James @ AfroToronto

“This issue is not at all similar to the ‘ebonics’ debate sparked in the U.S. Instead, supporters of “Black schools” are attempting to address real educational issues, some of which are akin to those found in gender-based schools. Whether or not “Black schools” are the answer, this debate deserves the respect of thoughtful discussion; not glib, insensitive and dare I say racist commentary.”
-Jason Robinson @ aka Activist

Tuesday night, the Toronto District School Board said yes to so-called Black-focused schools.
…
Tuesday’s vote actually capped months of heated back-and-forth involving parents, students, teachers and trustees, the end result of which was the board throwing its support behind “four innovative strategies for improving the success of Black students.”
…
The approved strategies include:

• Establishing a Program Area Review Team to recommend the program and operational model for an Africentric Alternative School opening in September 2009;
• Establishing a pilot program in three existing schools integrating the histories, cultures, experiences and contributions of people of African descent and other racialized groups into curriculum, teaching practices and school environment;
• Establishing a Staff Development, Research and Innovation Centre in collaboration with post-secondary institutions and community agencies to assess best practices for improving the success of marginalized and vulnerable students; and
• Developing an action plan for addressing underachievement for all marginalized and vulnerable students.

Talking Points:

1. Poor black performance in school is a consequence of poor black performance in life. Canada is largely to blame, since the nation decided in the 1970′s to limit the number of Caribbean students (read: people with the facilities to deal with discimination) in favour of cheap labour. Some of the cheap labour who arrived were considered trash even back in the Caribbean (as upper class Caribbeans will attest – in private) and there is little cultural influence compelling them to change their violent/non-academic ways here. Imagine Saudi Arabia emptying the trailer parks of Canada for cheap labour in the oil fields, only to complain later about their unwillingness to adapt to the humility of Islam. “What do you expect?” would be our likely response. Based on this pattern, Portuguese and Latino schools can’t be far away.
2. Anyone who saw the board meeting on TV no doubt noticed the proponents were utterly classless during the proceeding. On more than one occasion the chair requested that there be NO APPLAUSE OR HECKLING after board members speak. The parents ignored requests for civility, bursting out in spasms of applause or hissing after every monologue like they were at a methodist church. They also rudely accosted a black trustee after the vote for daring to oppose the proposal. Is it any wonder so many children in the inner city have disciplinary problems? Look at their role models!
3. Africentric schools are going be reform schools for the simple fact that they cannot afford to have the same dropout rate as other high schools without being declared failures. Since the proponents themselves are targeting kids that have dropped out of school, the curriculum will have to be dumbed down so the homies can keep up. Expect few A and B students at these schools, as no black student with serious post-secondary aspirations wants to submit an academic record showing graduation from “the ghetto school”.
4. Where were the Africans during the Africentric debates?  Barely a Somali or Ethiopian in sight.
5. The most entertaining part of the blog dialog (diablog?) was watching certain conservative websites invoke the ghost of Martin Luther King to oppose the “segregation” of Africentric schools. Virtually any other discourse they engage in involving blacks inevitably leads to discussions over black intellectual inferiority, ridicule of black culture or poorly-veiled fears of miscegenation. Wasn’t white flight from Toronto about escaping darkie? (and slanty and dotty, and..) Of course supporting this school would amount to supporting the transfer of government funds to initiatives favoured by rival liberals/socialists – hence the opposition.
6. Sandy (a dissenting conservative who cannot in any way be classed with those described in #5) has her work cut out for her. I wish her all the best and hope that one day such schools will no longer appeal to so many people. We are one society, whether we like it or not.

Personally I find some of the arguments of both parties a little extreme. Case in point: the charge of “segregation.” Surely no African-Canadian student would be forced to go to a Black-focused school, and non-Blacks would be welcome to attend too, although it’s hard to imagine many White or Asian families choosing to send their children to a Black-focused school. Nonetheless, as much as the “con” side’s statements strike me as overly alarmist, those of the pros appear even more dubious in some respects. For example, while Canadian public schools are hardly “Asian-focused,” Chinese, Koreans and East Indians are along with Jews the highest-achieving students in them. So the lack of emphasis on their heritage cannot be the only reason for Black teens’ elevated rate of school abandonment.

Some say that Black-focused schools will give the impression that African-Canadian students can’t “make it” in the mainstream academic world. Again, this fear appears rather exaggerated. On the other hand, with celebrities like James Watson and Philippe Rushton claiming that Blacks are genetically inferior to Whites, perhaps the establishment of such schools might in the minds of some people reinforce the notion that Blacks need “special” classes the way children with Down syndrome do. I admit it would bother me if my sister enrolled her two sons – who are biracial; their father is African-American – in a Black-focused school. It might lead me to think she did not consider them “good enough” for the mainstream system (my nephews are A students, by the way).

With all my ambivalence about Black-focused schools, though, I do believe they may be worth a try if African-Canadian parents really want them. They might help at least some students improve their grades and stay in school. I also feel that mainstream schools should teach children of all ethnic backgrounds, including Whites, about non-European histories and cultures. But in the end Black-focused schools are not the most effective solution to African-Canadians’ high dropout rate.

The shooting generated outrage throughout the city. The indignation grew further when it was discovered that one of the suspects, “Tiger” O’Neil Grant, had earlier been ordered deported to his native Jamaica for committing a series of crimes, including assault with a weapon. While he was ultimately acquitted of all charges in connection with the Just Desserts incident, in 2002 he was sent back to the country in which he was born.

O’Neil Grant’s name surfaced once again at the beginning of this month. In the November 12 issue of the Toronto Star, Sandro Contenta reported that Grant had been shot dead in Kingston, Jamaica on October 29 2007. His murder has remained unsolved: some speculated that the shooting was ordered from Toronto, others that Grant, who was romantically involved with two women at the same time, was killed as part of a love triangle.

Contenta portrayed O’Neil Grant as a good boy who had taken a few wrong turns along the way. Though Contenta admitted that before the Just Desserts acquittal Grant had not been a model immigrant, he had since then shaped up, caring for his aged grandmother, finding a steady job, and, perhaps more importantly, not racking up any criminal record in Jamaica. Grant had always hoped to return to Canada, “the greatest country in the world” in his own words, and felt betrayed by the Canadian justice system that ultimately deported him. The Star article contained a photograph of Grant’s youngest child, a baby born five days after his death, as if to remind readers of those he left behind.

A much more inflammatory piece appeared in Toronto’s NOW Magazine by senior editor Enzo DiMatteo. Asking rhetorically “Should the pols who ran Just Desserts accused out of town bear some blame for O’Neil Grant’s fate?, DiMatteo depicted Grant as a scapegoat for the “anti-black immigration hysteria” fomented by the police and ruling class following the Just Desserts incident. In addition Grant was supposedly traumatized by his nearly six-year stay in the Don Jail while awaiting trial. DiMatteo cast particular blame on former Immigration Minister Sergio Marchi, who stated that Grant should have been deported long before the shooting.

On the other side of the spectrum, in an article in the Toronto Sun Joe Warmington scoffed at the portrayal of O’Neil Grant as a victim, either in life or in death. The real victim, according to Warmington, was Georgina Leimonis. Warmington spoke scathingly of efforts by friends and family to bring Grant’s body back to Canada for burial.

I have followed the Just Desserts case since its beginning (incidentally, at the time it occurred I was house-sitting for a friend just around the corner from the cafe), so I will make some comments on the three stories mentioned above. It is true that as in the Jane Creba murder eleven years later, White racists used Georgina Leimonis’ death to grind their own axes, although unlike Enzo DiMatteo I don’t believe they were spurred on by politicians or the police. For example, at a makeshift memorial for her at the site someone left a sign saying, “Kill your own. Leave us alone.” (Ironically, at the beginning of the last century some American White Supremacists opposed immigration by Greeks and other groups such as Jews and Syrians on the grounds that the United States should be for the”White man.”)

I have trouble with DiMatteo’s and Contenta’s picture of O’Neil Grant as a victim. If Grant really did turn his life around as Contenta claimed, he (Grant) should be given some credit. Yet even if Grant did not pull the trigger of the gun that caused Leimonis’ demise, surely he knew what his companions were doing when they set foot in the Just Desserts café and was aware that in any armed robbery the chances of someone getting killed or seriously injured are high. While he expressed bitterness over what he saw as a betrayal by the Canadian authorities, Grant never once appeared to express sympathy for Georgina Leimonis or her family. I might feel sorry for Grant over the fact he died violently at a young age, but not over his inability to return to Canada. Similarly questionable, in my view, was the notion perpetrated by DiMatteo and Contenta that Grant was shipped to a “strange country” (i.e. Jamaica). In fact Grant had spent most of his formative years there (he came to Canada at the age of twelve) and was familiar with the language and culture of that nation, which are basically the same as those of Anglophone Canada. It is not as if Grant had been deported to Japan, a country with a completely different culture which does not even use the same writing system as Canada and most other Western nations.

On other hand, I’m not completely in tune with Joe Warmingtonâ’s portrayal of Grant as if he were second in command to Satan himself. Grant was after all acquitted of any direct responsibility in Leimonis’ death. I also believe that if Grant’s family wants to bring his body back to Canada, they should be free to do so (how dangerous is a dead man?) as long as they pay for the expenses out of their own, as opposed to the taxpayers’, pocket.

With regard to Enzo DiMatteo’s question – should the politicians who sent Grant back to Jamaica be held morally and/or legally responsible for his death – my answer is a resounding no. As I’ve written in a previous essay, individuals found guilty of a crime committed in a country not their own (that is, of which they are not citizens) forfeit their right to reside there. Canada was right to deport him, and I’ll even agree with Sergio Marchi, of whom I was by the way no great fan, that Grant should have been thrown out much earlier. Not that it would have saved Leimonis’ life, but at the very least it would have spared us the expense of keeping Grant in prison and putting him on trial.

These are my observations on the story of O’Neil Grant. Please feel free to add your own.

The federal Conservative candidate for Toronto Centre says he is being dumped by his party because he wasn’t “staying on message” with the national campaign strategy.
…
Warner, who has been campaigning for 10 months, said he was trying to highlight the need for better urban and social policies, which wasn’t what the party’s campaign brass wanted.
“I was trying to stay on message in terms of talking about crime and other major issues, but in a riding that is 60 per cent immigrants, that has lots of public housing, and has two universities and a community college, I felt the need to also talk to the issues that my constituents were raising on the door — education, immigration, housing, in addition to environment, health care and crime,” he told CTV’s Mike Duffy Live on Thursday.
-CTV Toronto (Nov 1)

At first glance, the Conservative Party of Canada’s dismissal of Mark Warner seems reasonable – the party and its previous incarnations (The Canadian Alliance, The Reform Party of Canada) have been dogged repeatedly by the controversy of renegade members whose sound bites were picked up by the media and blown out of proportion. Warner spoke to his riding on education issues, public housing and HIV/AIDS – issues important to the Regent Park residents in his riding but not central to CPC doctrine. On the latter issue, the CPC deleted a reference on Warner’s biography citing attendance at a 2006 HIV conference that Prime Minister Stephen Harper avoided.

Mark Warner is also hardly the first CPC member to be removed for defying party policy in support of local interests. Nova Scotia MP Bill Casey was expelled from the Tory Caucus in June for voting against the federal budget. Casey’s objection was an amendment to the Atlantic Accord, which he contends was promised not to be changed. The executive in his riding refused to seek an alternative candidate were also dumped from the party.

Thirdly, Warner’s riding is at best a long shot, as he is running against Liberal big-shot and former Ontario Premier Bob Rae in the cultural nucleus of a city that failed to elect even one conservative party member during the previous federal election. Toronto Center contains some of the nation’s richest (Rosedale) and poorest (Regent Park) residents. The riding has not seen a Conservative in office since 1993 and Warner was expected to run a distant third in the upcoming election. Taken in combination with the previous points, the cost of keeping a renegade candidate in a long-shot riding outweighs any apparent benefit. Removing Warner seems like a logical decision.

Alas, this “logical” decision does not account for optics – how does it LOOK to remove a candidate that isn’t towing the party line? Here’s how it looked to some local media –

(click to Enlarge)

So again, what was Mark Warner trying to accomplish by diverting his message from black letter policy? Although joining the PC party during the reign of the comparatively Toronto-friendly Brian Mulroney (whose public opposition to apartheid won him some respect among the socially conscious), Warner was going out on a very long limb by remaining in CPC the party under the western-based Harperites. As a Caribbean –a group rarely targeted by CPC supporters except when seeking a scapegoat for violent crime- he probably received a lot of flack from his ethnic community over his allegiance. His best response was to tailor the Conservative message for a region with a long exposure to anti-Conservative fear mongering. Warner’s website lists actual CPC achievements since coming to office and how they have positively affected life for Torontonians. If Stephen Harper wanted to appear less scary to urban residents, “Mark Warner” was the way to do it.

Alas, the 43-year old lawyer was unceremoniously dumped with minimal public explanation and no overture to his riding. Knowing that Stephen Harper was quite happy to dump untold money on Quebec to gain political favour and oblige every Sikh/Chinese ceremony he could fit into his schedule, the message to Toronto is clear: “Go to Hell”.

This message will play well with the many Canadians who have turned their hatred of Toronto into a religion, but the divide and conquer strategy will have long term consequences for a nation that is supposed to be governed as one.

Admitting it is failing some students of colour, the Toronto public board could open a black-focused school as early as next fall.

Two community meetings are planned in the next week to discuss the idea of an “African-centred alternative school” from junior kindergarten to Grade 8 that would have more black teachers, black mentors, more focus on students’ heritage and more parent involvement.

“Whatever is being used in the system at this moment is failing a lot of students – and more specifically a lot of black students,” said Donna Harrow, a community worker who is behind the push for such a school, along with Etobicoke parent Angela Wilson.

Race-based schooling, despite its good intentions, is a dangerous way to combat academic failure for three main reasons -

Problem #1: Black-Focused Schools are Hypocritical

As some bloggers have already opined, it is sadly ironic that members from the racial group responsible for the biggest civil rights / integration push in North American history now campaign for racially-segregated schooling. Alas, that is not what I was alluding to – rather, Ontario just had an election that focused inordinately on the possibility of public funding for religious-based schools. Ontario Conservative leader John Tory staked his reputation on support for the initiative and Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty howled in protest. The voting public were equally dismayed with the idea and Tory was slaughtered at the polls (failing to even win a seat for himself). For the McGuinty government to consider race-based schooling barely a month later is a double standard beyond reproach – and a betrayal of the public confidence.

Problem #2: The Segregation Genie

If blacks are allowed to have their own schools, who’s to say that the Portuguese –another group said to be underperforming academically- won’t want their own as well? On the other end of the spectrum, why couldn’t the high-successful Chinese also apply for segregated schooling? Chinese culture is quite unique from the European experience, there are far more Chinese than blacks in Toronto and the Chinese could additionally claim that public schools aren’t teaching their high performing children quickly enough (or at least SOME of them could claim the latter).

An additional wrinkle – contrary to what fund-chasing activists publicly proclaim, there is no such thing as black culture. The “black” population of Toronto comprises of several ethnic groups from four continents. The primary groups are Jamaicans, Trinidadians, Somalis, Ethiopians and Nigerians. Jamaicans and Trinidadians have a somewhat similar culture due to their shared history of slavery and Euro-Centric indoctrination. The East Africans -Somalis and Ethiopians- and somewhat similar, owing much to Arabic influence and the fact that both states have been historically independent as they do to any notion of blackness. Nigerians belong to a third faction (West Africans) and have a different history altogether. Now, if these schools are being justified on cultural and historical relevance grounds, how the heck can you place these three factions of “blacks” together? Jamaicans are the most notorious of the black groups for crime and poor school performance – why would they care about Haile Selassie any more than they would about Winston Churchill? Will the East Africans continue to be isolated if there are no bilingual classes in Soomaali and Amharic? How finely will the school population have to be subdivided to eliminate all of these supposedly incapacitating barriers?

Problem #3: History Classes Cannot Override Social Deficiencies

The most dubious claim by proponents of an Africentric curriculum is that the inclusion of African history will increase interest and subsequently the achievements of black students. If that is the case, how come Asians are doing so well despite little instruction on the dynasties of Ancient China (which would still be of little use to a Vietnamese immigrant)? Better yet, why aren’t Jamaican children as a whole performing much better in Jamaica, where the history classes are heavily oriented towards local culture? The answer lies in both history and economics: except for the rich upper classes, Jamaican kids are doing extremely poorly in school and end up feeding a gang culture far worse than multicultural Canada. Jamaica’s murder rate has consistently been in the top 5 for the world, surpassing considerably poorer states like Zambia and political hot-spots like India (whose students tend to do quite well in Toronto).

More academically-successful immigrants emigrating from places like India and Hong Kong tend to be wealthy and well-educated in their homelands. More recent Jamaican immigrants, by contrast, tend to be from the poorer classes who lived in shanty-towns embroiled in gang wars precipitated by the nation’s two political parties. Education in Jamaica is still largely a privilege of the wealthy.

This cultural disparity was exacerbated by the refocusing of Canada’s immigration point system away from academic traits and in favour of required employment experience, which took place during the late 1970’s. Entry to Canada became more difficult for Jamaican university graduates and much easier for housekeepers. Most Jamaicans –even wealthier ones- were not and are not able to “buy” their way into Canada like their Asian counterparts, causing freshly-educated Jamaicans to look elsewhere for migration. The revised immigration policy also favoured single workers over family units, which caused many Jamaican women to leave their children behind to get a job in Canada. Many applied to have their children emigrate later as direct family members once the rules became more family-friendly.

The social effects of this migration pattern should be obvious – a child that grew up with one or zero natural parents in an unstable environment with poor education would beseverely ill-equipped to handle the pressures of living in Canada. (S)he would have to live in an alien culture with a mildly-educated mother who was never around through the formative years and often still won’t be around due to long work hours, the lack of a father, and a culture of origin that placed little emphasis on academics. In short, many of these kids, by nurture, have no value for learning and become more economically isolated as manufacturing and other low-education jobs cease to exist in Canada’s service-oriented economy.

My question to the Africentric scholars – do you seriously think this social problem can be fixed by teaching more history lessons about Africa?

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That said, I don’t officially oppose Africentric schools. Why? Because Ontario is already segregating schools, as stated in the article. One cannot seriously oppose Africentric schools without proceeding to oppose native-only schools and the entire Catholic school board. To attack one type of focused school system is at best myopic and at worst biased. Thus, there is no reason why they shouldn’t be allowed – just mind the slippery slope.