Racism’s familiar refrain
Re Breaking Ford Nation’s Colour Code, by Desmond Cole (NOW, July 31-August 6). Is Rob Ford a racist or does he just have a familiarity with blacks, [so] he uses certain words the same way the black kids he grew up with use them? You don’t find too many racists who can speak in a perfect patois.
Frankly, I’m much more concerned about Olivia Chow’s apparent support for land speculation on Eglinton West. How many black tenants and small businesses are going to be displaced now that so-called planners have been loosed on the strip? Is “revitalization” racist? See what you can dig up on that, Desmond.
Bob Murphy
Toronto
Rob Ford: black like me
I’m left with the sense that writer Desmond Cole is projecting too much of his own agenda/beliefs on the Ford supporters he interviewed for Breaking Ford Nation’s Colour Code.
Why, exactly, should the teacher with wife and kids be so woebegone, according to Cole’s characterization? There are many examples of successful African/Caribbean Canadians. It’s this precise type of condescension that turns Ford Nation off from the chatty liberal analysts.
People who like Ford are entitled to do so and free to check his voting record (all public info), visit City Hall, read pieces and watch news about him. Trying to make it seem as though they are blind and controlled into liking Ford is belittling, no matter how frustrating or insane it may seem to non-Ford supporters.
Helen Stratigos
From nowtoronto.com
Ford Nation and the power of equality
Many of us have probably experienced that sense of power and awe that comes with throwing our full-hearted support behind a charismatic leader onto whom we’ve project all of our most strongly held values.
Doing so often means suppressing any doubts that these leaders are not all they’re cracked up to be. How many of us on the left allowed ourselves to romanticize the qualities of Jack Layton in 2011? In doing so, his victories became our victories.
Now think about the power of a charismatic leader among marginalized people who are faced with a sense of powerlessness on an everyday basis. How much greater that sense of power and awe must be.
Matt Patterson
From nowtoronto.com
Gentrification’s the city’s big plan
Re New Rent Monster (NOW, July 31-August 6). Building more affordable housing is council’s policy. However, it pays little heed to it.
If the city were an honest broker for such things, it would insist, for example, that the Eglinton Connects plan adhere to city policy. But, nowhere in it is there any mention of affordable housing. The city’s Planning Department has only been interested in smoothing the way for private developer profits, even to the point of giving free air rights to build.
It has no interest in helping the less fortunate residents of Toronto (165,000 currently on the affordable housing waiting list) secure or retain affordable rents.
Patrick Smyth
From nowtoronto.com
You Hamas dupes!
Re Bringing Gaza Home (NOW, July 24-30). I’m waiting for your mea culpa regarding your efforts to break the so-called Israeli blockade of Gaza. Clearly, Hamas has been using construction materials not to help the residents of Gaza but to construct an elaborate, expensive underground city through which it could infiltrate Israel and inflict the maximum suffering possible.
How about a comment regarding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, whose employees help the oppressed Palestinians study in depth how to vilify Jews from cradle to grave? Oh, and would you mind storing these weapons in your nice internationally funded schools? Thanks so much.
I want to hear it, you Hamas dupes! You can dish it out. Can you now show some hint of contrition?
Mike Freeman
Toronto
No food, but rockets for Gaza?
Thanks for the one-page fact sheet on Gaza. I’m one of the Jewish women (well, we’re not all women and we’re not all Jewish) who hold a vigil every Friday in front of the Israeli Consulate. It’s amazing how many people don’t know the first thing about the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
I have a question: how do the rockets, or their components, get into Gaza? It used to be through the tunnels from Egypt, but not any more.
I wonder if the Israelis have the power to stop them getting into Gaza but choose not to. After all, they can, and do, prevent food from going in. Why not rockets?
Well, if there were no rockets, there would be no excuse for what’s going on.
Elizabeth Block
Toronto
Moralizing on sex work
I want to second Naomi Sayers’s article (NOW, July 24-30) on her experience as a sex worker: many prostitutes engaged in independent sex work are not being trafficked.
Everyone else in society is jumping from bed to bed for free, committing adultery, and we’re picking on sex workers for dealing with a guy respectfully?
To me, Christians and society are more immoral. Does the government want to kill us by taking away our right to practise safely?
Sabrina C.
Toronto
Christian girls prefer anal sex
I’d like to respond to Kenn Smith’s letter, Perverting Pride (NOW, July 24-30).
Wow. I wouldn’t want to let my dad tell me what would be pleasurable or even possible in a sexual relationship. Smith must have had a great and open relationship with the man. (The sarcasm ends here).
However, Smith’s father seems to have misled him. It isn’t only gay men who indulge in anal sex. Many women find it pleasurable, and it was even touted as a – get ready for it – birth control method in the 1500s in Italy and other places in Europe and Asia.
Also, it must be noted that some Christian girls in the United States are succumbing to the pleasure of this type of sex instead of giving their virginity before they get married. Okay, the sarcasm didn’t really end, did it?
S. Rawley
Toronto
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