Advertisement

News

How being black became the new black

It’s both an infuriating and an exhilarating time to be black. Mainstream media equity has run amok.

We’ve been making all kinds of daily news headlines, landing cover stories in the monthly glossies, seeing our names all over the web. Sadly, it’s for all the wrong reasons. 

It’s official: worldstarhiphop.com is no longer our go-to news source for community train wrecks any more. There’s been a virtual avalanche of otherworldly news concerning blatantly racist atrocities from all sides.

And being our preternaturally resilient selves, we somehow manage to continue on like it’s just another day at the office. But I can’t breathe because We The North, where black lives matter – or are supposed to. 

It’s entirely plausible that police-black community relations have been irreparably damaged by the well-documented killings of a flurry of unarmed young black men in North America, including Brampton’s own Jermaine Carby. (Yes, my multiculturalist Kumbayans, these things mos def happen here, too, and #alivewhileblackTO is proving that.)

Having all these young, innocent brothers regale me with depressing tales of being stopped, interrogated and pressured to engage in our city’s police card collecting practice (and I ain’t talking about Hallmark holiday greetings) has left some of us feeling disillusioned. 

I try to remind myself that this is Toronto and not Mississippi, where there are 11 active KKK organizations still operating.

So, then, why are we having to deal with stories of black men being dragged away to police headquarters, as Toronto native Frantz St. Fleur alleges he was for trying to deposit a $9,000 cheque – and no less, at a bank that happens to sponsor the Carnival Formerly Known As Caribana? Apparently, this large cheque was alleged to have fit the description of something that usually has a non-black owner. 

And I was just getting set to download the new Driving While Black app (to be released later this month, no guff). Now, it seems, Banking While Black is de rigueur our community mobile app developers can’t keep up with the plethora of ways we are being profiled. Have we become prisoners of our skin? Post-colonial philosopher Frantz Fanon opined as much more than a half-century ago. 

It’s surreal. 

In the 6, even the Children’s Aid Society has a hard-on for us. Forty-one per cent of the children and youth in the care of the CAS in Toronto are black. 

I think I can confidently join my trans-global nation of Nubians in declaring that melanin is in, and that being black is the new black (again). Piper Kerman, whose experiences in prison on felony money-laundering charges provided the basis for Orange Is the New Black, has nothing on us, really. 

When even our Teflon icons like Bill Cosby are going down in flames, you know it’s bad times. It’s no secret that America’s dad filled the gap left in some of our own friends’ homes long vacated by their biological fathers. 

But based on what I’m reading, the Coz is a creep. My Parkdale peeps might have to plan a Christmas and Coogi sweater-burning in Trinity Bellwoods Park to protest his alleged sick, ugly behaviour. Sure, he’s technically innocent until proven guilty, but a lot of us defended OJ, and look what happened there. 

We retro revivalists are having to dust off old copies of Public Enemy featuring Ice Cube and Big Daddy Kane’s Burn, Hollywood Burn for a Boi-1da remix suited to these tragic times. 

The dominant culture is keeping us real busy, laying the pipe on us in so many unforeseen ways. I have too many protests to attend, too many youth to teach how to approach officers, too many missives to send to left-leaning liberals who are unconsciously complicit in perpetuating white privilege. There are all kinds of potential protests, sit-ins and newborn activist hashtags-in-waiting sitting in the queue.

I’ll be the first to admit it’s tough seeing my non-black friends obsessing over listings of new restaurants opening in their ‘hood when I’m obsessing over my own humanity.

But while our collective community cup has mostly runneth over with tales of woe, the street-corner seer in me anticipates that many of us will consciously aim to keep our cups half-full. 

It’s easy for the eternal optimist inside us to be extinguished like Eric Garner or taken out like Tamir Rice. But it’s during these times, sometimes hidden in the face of the sensational, that good blackish news can be found out there. 

For example, while not nearly enough is written about it, our league-leading Raptors flaunt a black general manager, coach and a blewish (black-Jewish) global ambassador. 

And then there’s the new black chic movement (Solange’s wedding pics!), and all the great stories about young black geeks to lionize and celebrate: 11-year-old Brit Boffin Ramarni Wilfred has a higher IQ than Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates. 

And some of our finest rap anthems are showing up on ontario.ca government websites thanks to hackers who still think it’s Hammer Time. 

Thankfully, I live just off Eglinton West, aka Little Jamaica, where black is beautiful every day. Where black has always been the new black 24-7. And where our daily reasoning sessions in the ‘hood have brought us to the conclusion that this T-dot multiculturalism experiment desperately needs an economic dimension that benefits the black community. 

The social and cultural aspects are already covered most of my melanin-deficient friends have eaten Nicey’s patties, scarfed down Mainsha Toonie Tuesdays specials with me and/or sloppily Schmoney-danced to the latest Rich Homie Quan and Tinashe. 

But now what? If you aren’t black, are you as offended as we are about the aforementioned atrocities? And if not now, when? We continue to be highly visible yet tragically misunderstood. 

Dalton Higgins is an educator and cultural critic whose sixth book, Rap N’ Roll: Pop Culture, Darkly Stated, will be released in January.

news@nowtoronto.com | @nowtoronto

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

Recently Posted