That is quite possibly true. Because when Tory does attempt to wade into issues of race and injustice, he reveals himself to be jaw-droppingly ill-equipped.
From a trade junket in San Francisco on Wednesday, he made time to talk with CP24 about a controversial tweet from one of the founders of Black Lives Matters' Toronto chapter. Via CTV News:
"I do think that the people should make very clear, on behalf of that organization, that tweets like this have no place in the discourse of a city like Toronto or a country like Canada," Mayor Tory told CP24. "We do not make these kinds of implied threats of violence and things like that. It's not a part of how we do business and never should be."
Tory also said that the comments made in the tweet don't change his view on Black Lives Matter, but rather, 'reinforces his approach to them.'
"There are some very serious issues to be discussed. There are far too many black men and some women, but mostly black men, underachieving in school, dropping out of school and having trouble finding employment," said Tory. "But it has to be done in a rational way."
Even setting aside the stupefying literal-mindedness required to read an expression of exasperation as "an implied threat of violence," the response was oblivious. The Black Lives Matter movement has never been ambiguous about its primary focus: anti-black racism as it manifests in policing and other instruments of the justice system. For John Tory, mayor of Toronto and member of its police services board, to jump straight to "underachievement" and unemployment when discussing the group is alarming.
If he's unaware of Black Lives Matters' aims and concerns, then he's irresponsibly disengaged from one of the largest and most pressing conversations in this and most other cities. If he is aware of its aims and concerns but instead chooses to shift the question to one of academic and economic failure, then he's implying that until black people's circumstances improve, the way that police treat them won't change. Either way, he seems to suggest that "trouble finding employment" stems directly from "underachieving" or "dropping out of school," rather than a combination of social barriers including race.
This attitude might have been adequate 10 years ago. It probably would've been acceptable 20 years ago. And it could've been downright progressive 30 years ago. But it is simply not good enough for a mayor to espouse this now.
During the 2014 election campaign, Tory was famously asked by a Global News reporter whether white privilege exists. Tory, known for his tendency to pile qualifications on top of qualifications, was unusually definitive in his answer: "White privilege? No, I don't know that it does."
It was a bad answer then, and it's only become a worse answer since.
Part of this has to do with the rapid pace with which these discussions have penetrated the mainstream. Concepts such as privilege, systemic and institutional racism, and white supremacy (in the non-Klan sense) are by no means new. But their acceptance into popular discourse has been relatively sudden. So while it can sometimes be hard to remember a time when these weren't widely considered basic principles for understanding inequality and injustice, it's not altogether surprising that a middle-aged, upper-class white man might be slower cluing into them.
But mostly it's dispiriting because — as a candidate for high office and even more as the holder of it — it is Tory's responsibility to make every reasonable effort to grasp these concepts. He has failed repeated opportunities to demonstrate growth in this regard, whether by holding fast to carding until the city's white elite rose up against him or by defending his credibility on the subject by asserting that he's "received every award that the black community can give to a citizen, and I’m not black."
Contrast this to his approach to queer issues. During his first Pride Week as mayor, Tory attended the annual AIDS Candlelight Vigil in Barbara Hall (previously Cawthra Square) Park. He didn't speak. He didn't go on stage. He listened and participated as a member of the crowd. This was exactly the correct thing to do and represented Tory at his mayoral best. Because the vigil isn't just about those whose lives have been lost to AIDS but about how our society once tolerated an epidemic because it chiefly affected the most marginalized — and how, to an extent, that remains the situation.
Or consider the thoughtful speech he gave at the Pride flag-raising at City Hall. An excerpt:
Now Pride is also about celebrating and it’s about advocating. I’ve been privileged to learn, for example, about issues in the trans community. I mentioned that when I was proud to attend the trans flag-raising here not too long ago. And it’s because of outspoken leaders like Susan Gapka and Enza Anderson, for example, who visited me year after year when I was a private citizen and when I was a provincial politician to help increase, very patiently, increase my understanding of those issues. And I have a much better understanding of those issues facing the trans community today because they kept coming to see me and coming to see me and coming to see to me.
And so, as your mayor, as everybody’s mayor, I am determined to continue to listen, to continue to learn, and to continue to act so that we can create here an even better and even more inclusive community.
It shouldn't have to take years of private meetings for a public official to come to terms with a community's oppression — but in that case it worked, Tory is grateful for it, and we're all better off as a result. It points to a potential path forward on issues of race, but hardly the best one. Black Lives Matter takes the view that with police facing negligible accountability for the semi-regular killing of unarmed or barely armed black men, the burden is on Tory to get up to speed on these longstanding problems and be willing to discuss them in public.
Asked by the Sun last week whether Wynne's surprise public meeting with the group didn't render his own position less tenable, he shot back: "By that token, I guess I’ve had an equivalent public meeting to hers. I went outside my office about three weeks ago (to meet the group) and it’s one of the reasons I came to the conclusion we had to have a private meeting with them.…They wouldn’t let me speak."
He was presumably referring to the episode six weeks earlier when Black Lives Matter protesters intercepted him on the way to a Black History Month reception. Even more questionable than his equating the premier's deliberate interaction with his own accidental run-in is the undercurrent of condescension: no public meetings if you can't show you know how to behave. Examined logically and in a historical vacuum, that makes enough sense: political leaders get to set the terms and conditions on which they hold meetings with members of the public. But the context here, as everywhere, is crucial, because the politics of respectability have only brought the issue of police brutality so far. Black Lives Matter — the movement and the cause — is about taking urgent action against systems of oppression that have withstood and resisted all attempts to work within prescribed structures.
There is little doubt that a public meeting with Black Lives Matter would be uncomfortable for the mayor. There is a good chance that he would embarrass himself.
But as the head of a city that officially prides itself on diversity, being brave enough to leave his comfort zone is part of the role. And as we've seen, on these issues at least, he already does a pretty good job of embarrassing himself.
Original Article
Source: NOW
Author: JONATHAN GOLDSBIE
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