Tyler Richards was shot last weekend. At the time he was the fifth person murdered in Halifax in 2016 (a count that has now risen to seven). He was the first of three people to be murdered last week. I knew Tyler. I didn’t know him well, but I knew him in the way that you know people in Halifax. When I was a teaching assistant at King’s I shared an office with eight other TAs and contract instructors that was in the King’s gym. Tyler had just signed with the Rainmen and I was a season ticket holder. Tyler was the only player who I would see in there on off days or the morning before afternoon practices shooting threes for hours on end. So we talked – never too deeply but we talked and I knew him. I was friends with people he went to high school with and we talked about them. He was in his first year as a pro and at the time I was at the tail-end of my unhealthy obsession with minor-league hoops so he would ask me for scouting reports on upcoming opponents (he may have just been nice and humouring me).
He was one of a handful of young local players that the Rainmen tried to bring in over the years but he was the first one who felt like he truly belonged in the league. His early games were rough but he became a valuable player off the bench. We talked about that and we both agreed that it was because he knew what he was going to have to do to stick around on the team: he’d have to not make mistakes on the court, hit open threes and above all else play defence. He spent hours in the gym making sure he’d hit those threes and hit almost 40% of them in games. He stopped trying to do too much and cut down on turnovers. He harassed opposing ball handlers and fought through screens harder than any of the guys from the Division I programs.
But he made mistakes off the court. They’re well documented and the violent acts are impossible to defend. He forced the team’s hand and made it impossible not to cut him. I ran into him once since then and we made small talk. Next I would hear about him he had been shot dead in a house in the West-end in what appears to be a drug-trade related murder. I knew Tyler. I didn’t know him well but I knew his flaws and his shortcomings and his charm and his gifts. Tyler didn’t deserve to die.
Dan Pellerin was stabbed to death in August of 2014. I knew Dan. I went to high school with Dan and we played soccer together for Dartmouth High. He was a grinder. He fouled hard and he’d play through injuries. He wasn’t the most skilled player but he was solid in a way that a lot of guys playing on the backline of a high school team weren’t: He was a solid passer, knew how to hold a defensive line and he rarely lost his mark. He dove in on tackles sometimes but if he got beat he chased the person down rather than hanging his head. He never played at a particularly high level but he loved soccer. He loved talking about it and playing it and he cared about it. He was the kind of guy you want as a team mate. After high school we lost touch – I went to university and had stopped playing soccer, he stayed in Dartmouth and started a family before moving out west to work to try to make ends meet. He came home and his best friend stabbed him to death one night near a community centre in North End Dartmouth. I knew Dan. We hadn’t seen each other years but I knew him. Some of my former classmates claimed that before he went to Alberta to work Dan was involved in the illicit economy that so many people need to rely on to survive, I have no idea if any of that was true, but it doesn’t matter. I knew Dan and he didn’t deserve to die.
Jefflin Beals was murdered in October 2011. He was shot near Trinity-Bellwoods Park in Toronto the night of Nuit Blanche, that city’s big outdoor art festival. I knew Jefflin. We played junior high basketball and touch football together. He was always small but was a hell of a point guard and unlike me he would go on to have an excellent high school career. I was a good athlete but not a great basketball player, Jefflin was a fucking prodigy.
Because there was a player on team who hated coming off the bench we used to start small with four guards and I’d come off the bench. I was fine with that. I just wanted to win games. That player was one of Jefflin’s good friends at the time. In our last playoff game (I think it was at Caledonia) we were way behind at halftime and felt demoralized. I remember an awkward silence in the locker room and Jefflin looking at the coach and saying that I needed to start the second half and not come out. The rest of them could score he said, but they needed me to grab rebounds and play defence. He was right but I sure as hell wasn’t going to say it. The coach paused for a second, I looked across the room and saw Jefflin glaring at his friend as if to say “Don’t disagree or protest,” and the coach said I was starting the second half. We came back from a big deficit to send the game to overtime after Jefflin picked off a pass that would have lead to a winning basket for the other team in the final seconds of regulation. We lost the game but I still remember those minutes in the locker room despite not remembering much from 15 years ago. He was the best player on the team by a wide margin and he went to bat for me and at the same time told me exactly what I needed to do not to betray him on it. He didn’t need to trust me or stick up for me but he wanted to win as much or more than I did, so he spoke up. I took it to heart and to this day the only reason people don’t hate playing pick up with me is because all I do is defend and try to grab every rebound within fifteen feet of me.
He wanted to win and he willed himself into being a better basketball player than his size ever should have allowed him to be. But he couldn’t will himself out of the life he found himself in. He had numerous drug convictions. The same year that I graduated from university and went off to start grad school I heard from an old friend that someone tried to shoot Jefflin in a drive-by over a drug-trade dispute. I knew Jefflin. One time 15 years ago he spoke up for me at a junior high basketball game and it stuck with me my whole life. He didn’t deserve to die.
On the choices we make
Now deleted comment from The Coast website
In the last five years I know three young men who have been murdered. All three were rumoured to have been involved in the drug trade. All three I knew from sports. All three deserve to still be alive. I’ve been sickened in the last week with comments insinuating that because the most recent shooting deaths in Halifax involved people allegedly involved in the sale of illicit drugs that they brought it upon themselves. I heard it when Jefflin died. I heard it when Dan died. Everytime I hear it I know that it’s bullshit.
We make choices, but those choices are constrained by the structures we live under. The choices I’ve made that make me safe – to go to university (twice), to live in downtown Halifax, to work for political organizations that pay me a living wage – are choices that were available to me. Those choices aren’t available to everyone and the politics, economics and geography of this city put hard constraints on the choices people get to make and to pretend otherwise is to fundamentally misunderstand what violence is.
I knew those three people through sports and I remember all three of them because they were relentlessly hard workers. We tell kids that the lessons of sports translate into life success. Teamwork, hard work, sacrificing for others, commitment, practice, leadership: these are all things that are supposed to be the great lessons of youth sports. I was a teammate of Dan and Jefflin and I watched Tyler for years – you can’t tell me that the three of them didn’t work hard and sacrifice for others in sports and in life. But I was born to parents who went to university and were able to give me a middle class upbringing. I grew up a bit further south in Dartmouth. I was born half-white and half Asian-instead of black. (Dan was white, but the victims of reecnt gun violence in Halifax have been disproportionately black) So my hardwork has given me access to much more than their hardwork ever could and my many mistakes have cost me much less than their mistakes cost them. They didn’t deserve to die just because they were unlucky enough to be born into a system where the odds were stacked against them from the start.
I don’t blame working class and poor people who find themselves involved in illicit activity to make ends meet. I blame a system that so limits their available options that they sell drugs to support families or to build a better life. I blame a system that says that we will always have a class people who are poor and the best you can do is hope that you’re not a member of that class.
On race relations and urban renewal
Comment posted on a public facebook group by a local blowhard
At the rally Against Violence on Sunday there was a series of early speakers including politicians emphasized personal responsibility. Thankfully about the halfway point a series of speakers starting with Tendai Miyoba Chiganze-Handahu and including El Jones and Isaac Saney injected politics into the conversation. (If you weren’t there then you really should watch Chiganze-Handahu’s remarks) One of the things that some of the later speakers all pointed to is that the violence we’ve seen is the result of structural exploitation and oppression. Importantly they highlighted the need to reject the incorrect stories that place collective responsibility not on structural factors but on problems within the black community including damaging racist rhetoric around black on black violence and the nature black families.
The violence we’ve seen lately has disproportionately impacted Halifax’s black community, but to blame that on problems which are internal to that community fundamentally ignores the deep structural inequality built into Halifax’s economy, its politics and even its geography.
A local blowhard recently claimed online that this is happening despite improvements in Halifax’s “race relations” and “urban renewal.” This sort of language dodges political questions; that is to say, it avoids confronting questions of power. Who has power? What do they do with that power? How is that power contested? Who is exploited and who profits from exploitation?
To say that urban renewal is improving is to ignore he important and obvious question: whom does urban renewal serve? Halifax has been undergoing an unsustainable building boom for at least the last five years both downtown and in suburbs. To look at a moment when a young black man was gunned down in North Preston and not connect it to the uneven distribution of wealth in this city is astounding. North Preston was an area settled by black loyalists in the 1700s and 1800s and is largely cut off from the rest of the city due to its distance from the peninsula and a lack of proper public transit access. Importantly, many of the descendents of those initial loyalists have never been given proper legal title to land that has been in their families for centuries. The result is legal instability and the inability to sell land (or even transfer it to family members) at a time that downtown and suburban property owners are making huge profits buying, developing and selling property. We have overwhelming evidence from the United States that the inter-generational wealth gap between white and black is tied directly to home ownership and government policy.
Blindly praising urban renewal requires one to ignore the fact that while a wealthy developer received hundreds of millions of dollars to build a hotel and convention centre from all three levels of government the Liberals have cut funding from a 33 year old African Nova Scotian run community organization that helps people Preston and Cherrybrook find jobs. In recent budgets we’ve seen no new funding for public housing, no new money from the province to improve public transit to Halifax’s working class and poor suburbs, and no additional support to create jobs in predominantly black or poor neighbourhoods. The province refused to provide help to Harbour City Homes, a north end Halifax co-op which provides co-op housing for low income residents. It requires overlooking the huge battle that community groups – largely organized by black and indigenous community members – waged to be allowed to use a closed down public school instead of having it sold to a company owned by two of Halifax’s richest real estate dynasties. It requires one to forget that the developers won. Halifax is geographically segregated along lines of race and class and there is no evidence that current construction boom does anything at all to reduce those problems.
Gentrification and urban renewal exist within a broader economic system in which uneven development across space is not an accident but a necessary aspect. Urban renewal by private developers is not a solution to the problems that plague places like Spryfield, Preston and the north ends of Halifax and Dartmouth but an integral part of a process meant to generate profit for some people at the expense of others. This city isn’t working for everybody and until we acknowledge that this is a political problem that requires political solutions nothing is going to change.
Likewise, the language of race relations ignores the actual problem. The problem is not about how members of various races get along with each other. The problem is white supremacy. While “race relations” may be working in Halifax for middle aged white people, for many of us large scale improvement is not so obvious. This is the city where our newspaper of record published this monstrosity just a few weeks ago, stoking the flames of racist and xenophobic hate. This is a province where the education system continues to fail black students. A province where one hour from Halifax an interracial couple had a cross burned on their lawn. A city where international students still find themselves subject to racist taunts and overcrowded and illegal housing. A province where African Nova Scotians face an unemployment rate of 14.5% and are less likely to have a university or college education when compared to the population as a whole. A province where African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaq communities are far more likely to suffer the impact of toxic industrial and government pollution. And most obviously, this is a city where three black men were gunned down last week. Fuck your race relations, let’s talk about white supremacy.
On what comes next
I am sick of seeing a report of a murder on twitter or facebook and wondering if it will be someone I know. But more than that I am sick of hearing about another murder in this city at all. Tyler didn’t deserve to die. Jefflin didn’t deserve to die. Dan didn’t deserve to die. The reason they didn’t deserve to die is not because I knew them. They didn’t deserve to die because no one deserves what happened to each of them.
The solutions aren’t easy or simple. Their causes are bigger than this city. In the long run, as long as we have a system which protects the right of the few to exploit everyone else in the name of profit we will continue to have poor neighbourhoods, too few jobs and inadequate social programs for those in need. But in the short and medium term there is real hope to reduce the violence.
The solutions need to come from the communities affected. The CeaseFire program has shown real success so far in reducing violence immediately without subjecting black and poor neighbourhoods to further police harassment or sending more people to prison. It’s also run by people from neighbourhoods and communities which have to live with violence, with policing and with poverty. It’s important not just that programs be in place to stop violence but that these neighbourhoods are able develop community infrastructure and that jobs created by these programs go to people who live there.
De-escalating violence through programs like CeaseFire is an important short term fix but in the medium term all levels of government need to listen to what people have been saying for years: there needs to be new job programs (eventually leading to full employment), improved social services, better public transit, non-carceral forms of justice, more teachers and support workers in public schools, and a renewed commitment to affordable, high quality public housing. We need programs which work to challenge structural inequality and offer immediate relief. These programs will all be incredibly expensive, but I dare you to tell me that John Bragg or Frank Sobey or Joe Ramia keeping a bit more of their ridiculous wealth is more important than the lives of the people who were murdered this week. I fucking dare you.
On Sunday Dr. Isaac Saney spoke shortly after Chiganze-Handahu. Unlike too many of Halifax’s academics Saney is deeply embedded in the social movements of this city. He’s also a brilliant and fiery speaker with a commitment to radical politics. He called on the crowd to remember the legacy of the late Burnley Jones, Halifax’s greatest political organizer. Specifically he recalled Jones’s commitment to an independent and radical black politics to challenge the status quo and make demands on the state that cannot be ignored. Here lies the most likely path forward. In the months and years to come we surely see the emergence of self-organizing in communities who have simply had enough. Indeed, we’ve already seen it with the announcement of African Nova Scotian activist Lindell Smith entering the city council race in District 8 and the increasing strength of Halifax’s various ACORN chapters creating a platform for Halifax’s poor to organize around political demands.
For those of who aren’t black or who aren’t poor or who don’t live in a neighbhourhood which has seen an up-tick in gun or gang violence our task is different. Working on your shit or unpacking your privilege may perhaps provide some comfort for you but it is not an organized political response. Instead we need to show up when we’re called to do so – that means bodies at rallies but it also means ensuring that our own elected officials have no choice but to allocate the resources that the African Nova Scotian community is going to demand. It means that we share our skills and our resources when asked – right now that means that candidates like Smith need donations and they need volunteers. He has to win in District 8 and no one who gives a shit can sit this one out. It means that we do not ignore the state and the resources which it makes available – projects of self reliance or building autonomous zones will not produce the resources needed to stem this tide of violence. Violence that needs to be dealt with right now. It means that we re-commit to the social movements we are members of and double down on the work needed to push them in radical directions committed to destroying white supremacy, capitalism and imperialism. When we need to fight our movements need to be ready. Right now they aren’t.
Beyond that I don’t have answers. All I know is that we’re still in a crisis and the response by all levels of government has been inadequate and made things worse. I know that the problems are structural and over-emphasizing personal choices will only make finding real solutions much more difficult. I know that the powerful in this city and this province have long and ongoing legacy of oppressing black people and ruthlessly exploiting working people. I know that they won’t give up the resources that the rest of us need without a fight.
But above all else I know that Tyler, Dan and Jefflin didn’t deserve to die.
A Culture of Defeat 
Great Post.
I grew up in Halifax and graduated from St Pats in the late 90’s. My dad coached the North End Raiders (peewee football) and I got to know a lot of the kids from “The Square”, both during and after my playing days. I played Football with Tyrone Oliver (killed in 2000 on Creighton st), who was also a skilled basketball player on our HS team. We shared victories and defeats. I can promise you, we all bleed red, and we all cry. It has been 15 years since his death, and it’s still an “unsolved crime”. Halifax has always been a rough place, but the community is strong in some of the “roughest” neighborhoods. I have since moved away, but have a place in my heart for my hometown. Those “boys” will always be my brothers, and I hope, as men, they become the community leaders to make a difference and change the city culture. All Lives Matter.
Your post was point on. Everything you said was true and it sucks that more people can’t realize this. They’ve never walked in their shoes yet are so quick to judge. Thank you for having a voice. Be sure to follow back ❤️
Thank you for this article. Colin attacked me for questioning his whitesplaining of the situation here in Halifax, on the exact article I believe you are referring to, Chris. Somebody had to. He and a troll friend both hopped on me, so I had to block them but I’m glad someone else called him on his bullshit.
Every time I hear of these senseless deaths, I sadly think of what humankind has lost in the absence of these individuals. The politicization of the situation seems inevitable; everyone has an opinion after all, so the social aspect of your writing is important, but the best part of your post to me was the stories of the deceased, their lives up to the point they were killed. Thank you for honoring their value as humans and kindred souls.
Wow, this was so powerful and passionate and sad and beautiful. I’m also half white and half Asian, raised in a middle class family, and don’t have too much to complain about my own life, but that last portion about the more privileged standing up and doing something to help the less privileged really hit me in the chest. People need to stop dividing themselves and blaming each other and instead try to actually solve problems. It’s not about black problems or white problems or drug problems or social problems, it’s about the fact that these problems exist and that the world would better for everyone if we could all get up and do something about them. I’m only a teenager so I can’t do much yet, but I try to do the best I can and hope to someday make a bigger impact and help out someone, somewhere in the world who needs it. Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful words.
It is horrifying that crimes like this may happen and pass without getting any public attention and without being given some appropriate solutions. Very interestingly written
Good luck for future posts ☺️👑
animat16.wordpress.com
Rip
Well done. Loved reading this article. 😃
I’m seeing both sides of this, but as a white male in a society that leans heavily toward my success, it is difficult.
Yes-everyone has a choice, but let us travel through a new perspective.
You do things based on what you were taught, what you grew up doing, and what you have experienced. Many times, if you are taught something or experience something for the first 18 years of your life, you will always do that taught action. Yes, you are correct, everyone does has a “choice” but if you’ve known something your whole life, you will always know it, unless other opportunities are not only presented to you but pushed on you confidently by a personal source of inspiration. That is just my opinion.
We need to give OUR people, yes OUR people, a way out, a guiding hand at a time when they are most impressionable.
And for the record, some people will always be the way they are and will never take the “good” way out. It is human nature, and we must deal with that.
interesting article. As I started to read it I thought it could apply to Baltimore, Washington DC, Detroit, St Louis,…..a litany of American cities. Sad.
It is interesting that the geography of the city seems to play such a role in the change, the isolation, of a people group. It’s literally across the tracks, across the road, across the river. And how infrequently do people look at that geography and think about how changing it can help the problem. Equally bad is how when something good happens, it clusters in a particular spot, and isn’t spread out. The point on transit is spot on too, as without transit, no one gets out.
I have been near, but never quote in Nova Scotia, so as for the local particulars of the Halifax scene that are parts of these tragic deaths, I will yield to those more knowledgeable. I am from the U.S., and deaths like these are long familiar to me, both as news events and in a few cases people I have known….. Regarding the comments this story provoked, it seems that ideological agendas of hard charging people, rather than actual specifics of a story, tend to motivate most comments on blogs.
No human should be murdered, but we all have choices that we make; that can lead to bad lifestyle choices. Trust me, there are lots of job opportunities for people that don’t even make it through high school. When dealing with drugs; there is a certain risk that you should factor in to the conversation. White people get killed because of drugs too. When killed because of drugs, you aren’t an innocent victim. And like I said before, there are other job opportunities beside dealing drugs. When you start a job you aren’t necessarily going to be making $100,00 a year. But, you can start by working at a fast food place, and by working in Walmart. You’ll never be able to start at the top. There isn’t anything free in this life. So, instead of asking the government for free handouts, we should go and start working in a job. Let me ask you this- How does dealing drugs build up the society? Drugs don’t, they pull healthy young people into a cycle of violence and poverty that makes problems worse. If you go work at a McDonald’s, you are earning a wage that feeds people food that they pay for. Therefore, serving both yourself and them in a fair way. People don’t shoot other people (Most of the time) over a hamburger, but they will over drugs, because drugs control a persons life. What I’m saying, this is blunt, what do you expect when doing something illegal? There are jobs. I’ll even give legitimate examples if you want some.
From every crisis you get up more strong, from every delusion you can find the inspiration for something positive and creative, from every mistake you learn. Stay human and grow together, we all..
You are very outspoken! Really nice article.
The author of this blog deletes comments that don’t fit his narrative. Bullshit.
Nah. I haven’t deleted any comments, but as it says in the “About” section I have manual approval set up and I don’t approve all of comments. The only ones that don’t get approved are the extremely hateful ones or ones that I miss while sorting through the hateful ones.
Pingback: Politics, violence and Halifax – LupieTrish
What an amazing article. Im so sorry for the loss of your friends. This world has so much learning to do. The system is failing us all, & the health care system here in the U.S.A. sucks even more. I truly hope we can change this in the near future. Maybe more articles like yours need to be published. I’ll be sharing this on my new blog. Im very new to this….lol
lupietrish.wordpress.com
I just re-read this and I made a massive mistake in my comment. Sorry there are big parts of this I agree with in particular your stressing that a lot of those opportunities simply aren’t available to all people.
One of the things our current system doesn’t understand is that conditions create. If you put someone in certain conditions they are molded by it and can be hard for them to see, act, and cognitize outside of that paradigm.
Unfortunately the paradigms of some of these areas that are incredibly disadvantaged create individuals that are so abused and systematically violenced that they become these features incarnate.
Again I apologize for my first post I shouldn’t have read through it as fast as I did the first time.
My mistake and I apologize to anyone I may have offended by my seriously mistake comment.
To be honest I thought this was very skewed and I am usually (If you look at my comment history the one in support of such articles). There are definitely points that need to be addressed in regards to poverty and socio-economic situations that can in some cases have their foundation in instuitional racism but this piece seems to be a little to black and white *no pun intended*.
A lot of poor whites, aborigionals, latins, and others work under middle and higher class individuals of all colors, and sexual identities here in Canada.
One of the biggest problems I find is what has happened to community consciousness in certain poor and disadvantaged demographics.
If one lives and helps out or works in these areas they begin to understand what I’m speaking about.
Anyway it’s a good write up in that it gets people talking but I can’t say that this one is one in which I am going to be giving a lot of support and that is not meant to say the issues aren’t important nor is it to say that foundations and histories of racism and sexism, and phobia of all forms have caused and continue to aggravate social and economic situations of varying forms.
Very well said
Some raw, hard truths.
I almost thought you are, indirectly, talking about and referring to my region in Southern Afrika (Namibia, South Afrika, espcially) when describing structural inequalities, economic deprevation bedevelling poor black people and white supremacy.
Unveneered hard truth.
I knew two of those men, and a few more who have passed away too early. The problem is the trade you get into not where you’re from,your race, your work ethic, etc
Upper class, middle class, lower class- have all died from drug violence or other illegal activities. It’s the risk you take!
No one deserves to die at a young age but when you live fast or associate with the wrong people it can happen.
I know first hand that lower income environments will lead to getting involved in criminal activity. The focus should be on creating better outlets for our youth in general. Teaching them the dangers of association or being involved in illegal activity small or large.
No person deserves to have their life ended short. Men like Dan, Jefflin and Tyler are those work horses that found themselves in the wrong situation at the wrong time.
The important thing is people remember them for who they were while creating positive movement on how they died.
Typical white privilege response ….. Things are better than they used to be , so stop complaining…. I mean we lost our right to own you , so now all’s equal ????? And….. I’ll have you know I had a black friend before anyone else in my neighbourhood ???? WHAT ????
The points made in this article are great. I know most of you will say that I’m being ignorant for saying what I’m about to say, or maybe even part of the problem. However. Every single one of these people knew exactly what they signed up for when they entered “The drug game”. They may have been good people. Hell. Even great people. You can blame it on the way they were raised or their environment, and provide a million excuses as to how they had no choice. But, the bottom line is… Everyone has a choice. They were all men who made their own decisions and paid the price for their mistakes. Now, I’m not saying they shouldn’t be mourned. Not one bit. A loss of life is tragic no matter what the circumstances are, but the people claiming that the murders of these known criminals is a tragic loss of life of an innocent person need to step back and see the real problem here. Stop focusing on making these people out to be innocent victims and start focusing on how we can get our youth and our future generations out of this pattern of violence and criminality. Absolutely none of these people are innocent. Neither are we. Put more attention towards getting our youth straight, instead of turning the people who do wrong into martyrs. Its a tragedy that these men died young. But, we all die. i don’t know about you, but I want my children and grandchildren to die knowing they left this world a better place and be praised for it. Not like this.
Dan was not in any drug game thank you very much.
If you click the “about” link at the top you’ll see that the author of this piece is Chris Parsons.
Can the author of this very emotional and touching piece make themselves known? We’ve had enough anonymous quotes by journalists for this year, and there are things here worth quoting.
Very nice
I am Dans sister and I can tell you he would be glad you wrote this. He did not die over drugs. But the rumors and stories will always be out there. ..he didn’t deserve to die . period.
Thank you for your comment. I am really sorry about Dan’s death. As I wrote above, I was very happy that I got to play soccer with him when I did. I also regret not having kept in touch with him.
I tried to make it clear that I had heard *rumours* that he had been involved in selling drugs at some point, but that whether or not it was true had no bearing on my memories of him or my feelings about his death. I do think it’s important for you to point out that those rumours were untrue. I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear about that.
Something to note about improved opportunities and diversity: we have at least five of our local high schools who have Principals who are from the African Nova Scotia community: Dartmouth, Cole Harbour, Citadel, Auburn, Sackville High.
Much progress has been made. That’s not saying things are perfect but to say things have not improved in recent decades is to allow personal bias to cloud reality.
He calls me a local blowhard yet I see no name attached to his comments.
He can call me all the names he wants. This doesn’t negate improvements that have come and are evident to anyone who remembers how divided communities used to be.
I feel bad for the sociological issues that create this. He ignores that aspect of my post. Conveniently.
Poverty, racism. They exist but nowhere near when I was a young person like the author apparently is. Whoever he is. He grew up in a city that has evolved greatly. When I was his age racist words were spoken daily and there was a lot less multicultural and cross cultural understanding and friendships. I have a great buddy from cherrybrook who I visit every summer in Toronto. This was not the norm for many people of my age approaching fifty. Our friendship in the 1980s was not the norm.
And I didn’t say gentrification. I said urban renewal. The historic communities in some areas that are experiencing improvement aren’t being pushed out.
He should not be so quick to point the finger of accusing white privilege when he warps words and sentiments to suit his apologist agenda.
Colin. I feel like most of your objections/questions could be answered by reading what I wrote more closely:
– my name and various other info about me is located in the “about” section. It is Chris Parsons, but you already know that.
– my point is that many people do not experience these improvements, that “race relations” is a meaningless apolitical term and that speaking of “improvements” in urban renewal without discussing who those improvements benefit is useless. I didn’t deny that there were improvements, I pointed out that you need to ask “improvements for whom?”
– part of my argument is urban renewal and gentrification are intertwined processes.
– What exactly do you think my “apologist agenda” is? Who am I apologizing for? Why?
– Did you honestly just say “one of my best friends is black?” Seriously?
When you are making important points but overly enjoy the sound of your own words, you give people an excuse to put down those words. You must play the game, my friend, without giving those who hold the money a reason to undercut you! Many years ago as a young reporter, I tried to help the late Rocky Jones get his message out and I learned this: Don’t scare them! It makes them very nasty!
Colin, just to be clear… It’s REALLY coming off as if you’re saying that we are failing to realize the incredible progress this crisis has made. If you are in fact saying this, let me ask you a few questions. Why should we focus on the previous progress if the crisis still exists? Why are we looking back? Why don’t you suggest we continue to fight until this crisis is no longer, a crisis? Stop patronizing those who are living in hell. Just because the fires that burned previously were bigger, doesn’t mean the fires that burn today hurt any less.
i completely agree
Very well written. These’s men need a voice, the community needs a voice.
You made my day thanks for a uplifting article.love Jefflin mom.
The problem is white supremacy
It isn’t. I agree that racism is still around us in some cases. But, how does getting shot while dealing drugs; have anything to do with white supremacy?
Who was dealing drugs?
The author deleted almost my whole comment!
No, I didn’t. I also approved your two previous comments.